A bit regarding housing vouchers. In 2017, NYC initiated the Special One-Time Assistance voucher (SOTA). The voucher provided a one-time full year of rental payments to a landlord for accepting a tenant from an NYC homeless shelter. The voucher was set at 50% of the tenant's

income, and allowed the tenant to move anywhere in the US as long as the tenant had employment in the vicinity. The payment was provided as a single upfront payment to the landlord. This was in some respects a win/win as landlords got a full year of rent upfront, and tenants got

a year to get on their feet rent-free, at a rent which was affordable on the basis of their income. The stated point was to transition tenants to housing which matched their income and to transition them out of shelters. The real point was to shift homeless populations from NYC

to outlying areas. Many of these tenants were to be evicted at the end of the year and to fall upon NJ and CT's social services. Landlords were often able to get astronomical rents for subpar units since after all, almost any apartment beats an NYC homeless shelter.

But here in NJ we have no legal right to reject a tenant on the basis of their voucher, and we wanted to give these tenants a real shot at turning things around. We specifically worked with case workers who screened for good tenants, and rented apartments at the market rate.

Most of the tenants we took were homeless because they ran away from abusive spouses, or were displaced by fire. Other landlords took tenants from halfway houses and addiction programs. We provided quality apartments, while they gave over derelict apartments.

Now when a slumlord gets a full year of rent upfront, there is NO incentive to make repairs or perform even basic maintenance, and many of these tenants ended up in AWEFUL housing situations that rivaled the conditions of the shelters. Most case workers ignored these

tenants once they were out of the shelter. We chose case workers that committed to maintaining contact with the tenants to assist in the transition. Obviously, the landlord abuse let to changes in the program in which payments were made monthly for one year, and would be stopped

if the apartment was deemed to be subpar. That basically killed the program since most landlords wanted the large upfront payment, and now would prefer section 8 over SOTA. But they also hurt a lot of good tenants. We sought out good SOTA tenants much harder with the lump payment

A recap for us: We took over two dozen tenants. Of these tenants, all of their vouchers have expired and we have only had to evict a single tenant. No worse that what we would expect with a mainstream tenant. The other tenants are making payments as expected.

So a combination of misaligned government motives and predatory landlords killed a program which took people off the streets, and helped landlords work hand-in-hand with tenants to improve their lives.