New York City housing lotteries are listed on Housing Connect 2.0, an online portal maintained by the Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD).

Tenants selected for affordable housing units are often chosen through a lottery process. To enter your name in the lottery, you must fill out an application form for each building that you want to apply for. Preference may be given to: 1. People who already live in the area 2. Employees of the City of New York 3. Veterans 4. Residents who are physically, visually, or hearing disabled

You can begin to determine which housing opportunities you may best qualify for by looking at the Housing advertisements and website listings for the buildings you are interested in. These advertisements provide you with the qualification requirements including: the minimum and maximum income limits for the available units, the size of the available units, and the number of people who can live in each unit, so you can know exactly where you fit.

The ad for the lottery will tell you how to apply online or how to request that an application be mailed to you. If you apply by mail, be sure to mail the application to the right address, it will not be the same address as the building.

As a general rule of thumb, you will need to provide all of your documents regarding your income, assets, and identification. However, a full list of required documents is available on the Housing Connect website for you to reference. Additionally, a full list will be provided to you once you have been contacted to begin submitting documents for the housing lottery.

Income qualification is based on the household’s gross income. For self-employment income, the business net income is considered.

Income and assets are regarded separately. In order to qualify, you must have income within the ranges outlined on the advertisement. Income includes employment income, self-employment income, and other sources including but not limited to child support, unemployment benefits, supplemental security income (SSI), social security, and pensions. Assets include financial assets such as savings accounts, checking accounts, trusts, investment assets (stocks, bonds, etc.), cash savings, miscellaneous investment holdings, etc. Balances in specifically designated retirement funds and college savings accounts are not subject to the asset limit, but are counted when calculating income from assets. The entire market value of any interest in real property is subject to the asset limit. Households with any member who has ever owned interest in real residential property are ineligible. For other capital investments, only the applicant’s equity in the investment is subject to the asset limit.