For the first time in more than a decade, the Municipal Housing Authority for the City of Yonkers (MHACY) held a lottery to add more than 3,000 eligible families to its list of candidates for Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8). The vouchers are provided through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and subsidize rental units in market-rate buildings for income-qualifying tenants. MHACY has received more than 14,500 applications to be added to the list.
Residents had a little more than two weeks, from June 27 to July 13, to apply for a place on the list. The lottery was held on Aug. 2 and 3 at the Yonkers Riverfront Library to draw the names of those who will be eligible to receive vouchers as the vouchers become available.
“Opening the MHACY waiting list has been 10 years in the making. We are not surprised by the number of people who have applied for housing and are excited to be able to make quality affordable housing available. It is a basic need,”™”™ said Wilson Kimball, MHACY”™s president and CEO.
“Housing is key to the vitality of any city,” said Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano who attended the lottery on Aug. 2. “In addition to the thousands of units of new market rate housing that are going up, we have renovated MHACY housing and are now making more affordable housing available through the use of these vouchers in partnership with building owners.”™”™
James Landy, chairman of the MHACY Board of Commissioners, characterized the ability to add news names to the waiting list as being “momentous.”
“It allows people needing rental assistance the chance to find affordable decent housing that has become out of reach for so many,” Landy said. “We are very proud to afford Yonkers residents this opportunity.”
MHACY is the second-largest public housing authority in New York state after the New York City Housing Authority.
