Job Information
City of New York Housing Connect Project Manager in New York, New York
Job Description
About the Agency:
The New York City Department of Housing Preservation (HPD) promotes quality and affordability in the city's housing, and diversity and strength in the city’s neighborhoods because every New Yorker deserves a safe, affordable place to live in a neighborhood they love.
We maintain building and resident safety and health
We create opportunities for New Yorkers through housing affordability
We engage New Yorkers to build and sustain neighborhood strength and diversity.
HPD is entrusted with fulfilling these objectives through the goals and strategies of “Housing Our Neighbors: A Blueprint for Housing and Homelessness,” Mayor Adams’ comprehensive housing framework. To support this important work, the administration has committed $5 billion in new capital funding, bringing the 10-year planned investment in housing to $22 billion the largest in the city’s history. This investment, coupled with a commitment to reduce administrative and regulatory barriers, is a multi-pronged strategy to tackle New York City’s complex housing crisis, by addressing homelessness and housing instability, promoting economic stability and mobility, increasing homeownership opportunities, improving health and safety, and increasing opportunities for equitable growth.
Your Team:
The Office of Housing Access and Stability (“HAS”) consists of the divisions of Housing Opportunity, Tenant and Owner Resources, Housing Stability, Budget and Program Operations, and Program Policy and Innovation. The mission of the office is to ensure fair, efficient, and transparent access to affordable housing. The Office provides subsidies, placement services, and tools that connect New Yorkers to affordable housing and ensures vulnerable households in subsidized housing have the support they need to be safely housed. Housing Access is committed to expanding housing choices, affirmatively furthering fair housing, and stabilizing the financial health of buildings.
The Division of Housing Opportunity & Program Services ensures that HPD’s affordable housing is made available through fair, transparent, and accessible programming. Developers creating affordable housing are required to offer many types of units through an open lottery process on NYC Housing Connect and fill other units through a placement process for households in the City’s shelter system. Housing Opportunity & Program Services (HOPS) administers the housing lottery and homeless placements programs and crafts policy and procedures to ensure that these programs offer equal opportunity to all applicants and affirmatively further fair housing.
Your Impact:
As a Housing Connect Project Manager, you will work to ensure the fair and equitable distribution of affordable rental and homeownership opportunities. You will help to ensure that affordable housing serves the households it is intended to serve. You will help to make the process of accessing affordable housing inclusive and protective of applicants with housing instability, poor credit, justice involvement, disabilities, language access needs, complex income scenarios, and other barriers to housing. You will provide assistance to developers and applicants, alike, in navigating regulatory and statutory requirements to achieve successful lease ups of affordable housing.
Your Role:
Your role as a Project Manager in the Housing Connect program includes educating developers, marketing agents, and applicants on the Housing Connect lottery system; ensuring that developers and marketing agents adhere to the policies, procedures, and requirements for marketing and tenant selection, which are outlined in the HPD/HDC Marketing Handbook; and interacting with applicants and the public to provide assistance in the housing search and application process.
NYC Housing Connect 2.0:
You will be required to track and monitor the timely lease-up or sale of assigned projects administered through HPD’s online NYC Housing Connect system. You will work to ensure that marketing agents and developers adhere to the HPD Marketing Handbook during the unit designation and lease-up or sales process.
Meetings:
You will be required to chair or co-chair marketing and compliance meetings with developers and marketing agents. You will prepare the agendas and put together packages of program-related and project-specific materials for everyone attending these meetings.
Public events and communication:
You will be required to attend community outreach events where you will represent the Housing Connect program, handing out or presenting materials and answering questions about the affordable housing lottery process. You will also interact with housing applicants through the Housing Connect phone hotline and other day-to-day communications to ensure they have the information they need to navigate their housing search.
Field work:
You may be required to commute to various locations within the city, in order to perform on-site applicant file reviews, supervise the data entry of paper lottery applications, meet developers/marketing agents at a post office to open a P.O. Box to receive paper lottery applications, among other functions.
Your Responsibilities:
Facilitating marketing and compliance meetings; reviewing developers’ marketing plans to ensure compliance with HPD’s Marketing guidelines
Monitoring lotteries and reviewing lottery logs throughout the tenant selection period to ensure that applicants are processed in the appropriate order, taking into consideration preference categories and disability set asides
Reviewing applicants’ files and required documentation to ensure they meet income and other eligibility standards
Answering the Housing Connect hotline to assist applicants with any questions they may have about the lottery process by phone
Reviewing and drafting correspondence in response to applicant inquiries, concerns, complaints, appeals
Preferred skills:
Strong analytical ability and attention to detail
Strong time management skills, demonstrated ability to work under tight deadlines and effectively manage multiple projects
Excellent organizational and communication skills (oral and written)
Proficiency in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint; MS Access a plus
Demonstrated ability to think creatively and be a team player
Understanding of affordable housing and tax credit rules and regulations
Familiarity with housing lotteries and the process of marketing affordable apartments and homes
Qualifications
A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college and two years of experience in community work or community centered activities in an area related to the duties described above; or
High school graduation or equivalent and six years of experience in community work or community centered activities in an area related to the duties as described above; or
Education and/or experience which is equivalent to "1" or "2" above. However, all candidates must have at least one year of experience as described in "1" above.
Additional Information
The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.