New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) announced on the 9th that its “Housing Connect” affordable housing lottery platform has been updated with a new feature allowing applicants to indicate their preferred size of housing units in their personal profile. This update is aimed at improving the efficiency of housing matches, ensuring that the allocation process better meets the actual needs of the applying residents.
“Housing Connect” platform has successfully facilitated over 10,000 households to move into affordable housing through more than 300 lottery projects last year.
According to city data, in 2024, the “Housing Connect” platform assisted over 10,000 households across more than 300 lottery projects to secure affordable housing. The recent update allows applicants to specify the size of housing units they prefer by clicking on “Edit Household Details” in the “My Household” section on their account page.
If an applicant does not set a housing size preference, the system will assume interest in all types of units. However, once a specific size is selected, the applicant will no longer receive notifications for lottery draws that do not match the chosen size. This change also affects the housing promotion process by only offering units that are eligible for the applicant and align with their preferences.
HPD noted that although this functional change is modest in scale, it has a significant impact on applicants, particularly in expediting the housing allocation process. The update is expected to reduce unnecessary communication and mismatch probabilities, accelerate the efficiency of matching suitable unit sizes, and help more families in New York City move into housing that fits their family structure and lifestyle more quickly.
The city encourages applying families to log into their accounts early to complete their settings to ensure that the lottery results align with their actual needs.