Ask ten Brooklyn landlords what "Section 8" means and you'll get ten slightly different, slightly wrong answers — and most of them have never heard of CityFHEPS, FHEPS, HASA, or HAVP at all. That's not a knock on owners; it's a fair reflection of how fragmented NYC's rental-assistance landscape actually is. Five programs, four different agencies, five different forms, and one legal rule that ties all of them together: you generally cannot refuse a qualified applicant because of how their rent gets paid.
This guide is the map. It's the pillar post for everything we publish about government-subsidized housing in Brooklyn, and it exists because so few property managers actually understand this world well enough to explain it clearly. We do, because it's our specialty — rent-stabilized and subsidized housing is the core of what Yak Management manages across roughly 400 units, from two-unit buildings to 60-unit multifamily properties, throughout Brooklyn and greater NYC.
The five programs, at a glance
| Program | Administered by | Who it serves | Funding level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section 8 / Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) | NYCHA (a separate, smaller Section 8 program is run by HPD) | Low- and moderate-income households, seniors, people with disabilities meeting federal income limits | Federal (HUD) |
| CityFHEPS | NYC Human Resources Administration / Department of Social Services (HRA/DSS) | Households facing eviction or exiting shelter who meet city eligibility criteria | City |
| FHEPS | NYC HRA/DSS, under state authorization | Families with children at risk of eviction or exiting shelter | State-authorized, city-administered |
| HASA | NYC HRA/DSS (HIV/AIDS Services Administration) | New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS who qualify for HASA assistance | City |
| HAVP | New York State, via local social-services districts | Households at risk of homelessness who don't qualify for existing federal/city programs | State |
Every row shares two things: the subsidy is paid to the landlord, not routed through the tenant, and the paperwork has to be correct before that payment starts — and every time it renews. That second part is where most of the friction happens, and where most generalist Brooklyn property managers quietly fall short.
Section 8 / Housing Choice Voucher (HCV)
Section 8 is the largest and best-known rental-assistance program in the city, and the one most Brooklyn owners have already encountered. In NYC, it's primarily administered by NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) — the biggest voucher administrator in the country — with HPD running a separate, smaller Section 8 program of its own.
The mechanics: the tenant and landlord file a Request for Tenancy Approval (RFTA), the agency reviews rent reasonableness, the unit has to pass a Housing Quality Standards (HQS) inspection, and once approved, the owner signs a Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) contract alongside the tenant's lease. That contract — not the lease alone — is what authorizes NYCHA's monthly payment to the owner. Recertifications and reinspections continue for as long as the tenancy runs.
For the full mechanics — HQS prep, common inspection fails, and how we run the RFTA-to-HAP-contract sequence for owners — see our dedicated Section 8 / Housing Choice Voucher Management page.
CityFHEPS and FHEPS
CityFHEPS (City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement) is administered by HRA/DSS and was created to help households exit the shelter system or avoid eviction by covering a substantial share of monthly rent, paid directly to the landlord. FHEPS (Family Homelessness & Eviction Prevention Supplement) is a closely related, state-authorized supplement that HRA also administers, generally for families with children facing the same risks.
Rather than a HAP contract, CityFHEPS and FHEPS tenancies run on an HRA lease rider or addendum, a separate habitability inspection distinct from HUD's HQS standard, and periodic HRA recertification. The core requirement is the same as with Section 8: a habitable, code-compliant unit and a paperwork package that matches the actual lease terms exactly. Discrepancies between the lease and what's submitted to HRA are one of the most common reasons a CityFHEPS approval stalls.
We cover the full lease-rider process, inspection prep, and how CityFHEPS payment structure actually works on our CityFHEPS Voucher Management page.
HASA
HASA — the HIV/AIDS Services Administration — is a distinct division of HRA/DSS that provides rental assistance and support services specifically to New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. Mechanically, it resembles CityFHEPS and FHEPS: HRA sets the payment split based on the household's case, the agency's portion is paid directly to the landlord, and the unit has to meet housing-quality standards and stay current on recertification.
One nuance worth knowing: some HASA arrangements can cover a larger share of rent than other voucher programs, depending on the individual case — but the exact split is determined by HRA case by case, not a fixed rule an owner can assume in advance. See our full HASA glossary entry for more detail.
HAVP
HAVP, the Housing Access Voucher Program, is the newest and least understood of the five — because unlike the others, it's a New York State program rather than a city or federal one, implemented through local social-services districts. It was created to extend voucher-style assistance to households who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, or facing eviction but who don't qualify for existing federal or city vouchers.
Because HAVP is state-funded, its rollout, funding levels, and specific local rules are worth confirming directly with the administering agency before marketing a unit as HAVP-eligible — implementation details can vary by jurisdiction and change over time. Mechanically, though, it works like the others: agency-set payment standard, tenant income-based contribution, and an inspection requirement before payments begin. Read the full breakdown in our HAVP glossary entry.
The legal rule that ties all five together: source-of-income protection
This is the single most important thing every Brooklyn landlord needs to understand, and the most commonly misunderstood: under the NYC Human Rights Law, source-of-income discrimination is illegal. "Lawful source of income" is a protected category, and it explicitly covers Section 8, CityFHEPS, FHEPS, HASA, HAVP, and other government or nonprofit rental assistance. In practice, an owner generally cannot:
- Refuse to rent to an applicant because they hold a voucher.
- Advertise a listing as "no Section 8" or "no vouchers."
- Steer voucher applicants toward inferior units, floors, or buildings.
- Impose different deposit amounts, screening standards, or lease terms on voucher holders than on other qualified applicants.
Owners can still screen every applicant — voucher or not — on the same legitimate criteria: credit history, rental history, background review, and whether total income (the tenant's contribution plus the voucher payment) supports the rent. What the law prohibits is rejecting an applicant because of how the rent gets paid, not evaluating whether they're otherwise qualified. There are narrow carve-outs in the law (for example, certain very small owner-occupied buildings), but for the overwhelming majority of Brooklyn's 2-to-60-unit multifamily stock — exactly the range we manage — the rule is straightforward. (This is general information, not legal advice; for a specific fair-housing question, consult a landlord-tenant attorney.)
How payment standards actually work (and why we never quote a dollar figure)
Every one of these programs sets a payment standard — a maximum monthly subsidy tied to unit size and geographic area — that determines how much of the rent the agency will cover, with the tenant generally responsible for the remainder based on income. Payment standards, income limits, and rent-reasonableness benchmarks are set and updated annually by each administering agency (NYCHA, HPD, HRA/DSS, or the state agency behind HAVP), and they vary by bedroom count and neighborhood.
We deliberately don't publish specific dollar figures in this guide, because any number printed today could be outdated within months, and an owner who underwrites a unit around a stale figure can end up with a rent that clears no agency's review. What matters is understanding the mechanism — a published, revised-on-a-cycle standard, a rent-reasonableness check, and (on regulated units) a legal DHCR rent that the voucher-approved figure has to match — and always confirming the current number directly with the administering agency before setting an asking rent.
Where rent stabilization and voucher housing overlap
Brooklyn has one of the largest concentrations of rent-stabilized housing in the country, layered on top of a citywide population that relies heavily on these five programs to afford that stock. A meaningful share of the multifamily buildings we manage have at least one unit where stabilization and a voucher program apply to the same lease — which means several systems have to line up at once:
- The legal regulated rent and the voucher-approved rent have to match. DHCR tracks the legal rent under HCR rules, with annual increases set by the NYC Rent Guidelines Board; a voucher agency's approved payment has to be pegged to that actual legal rent, not an outdated or informal figure.
- Preferential rent has to be handled correctly. Since the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA), preferential rent generally carries forward at renewal rather than jumping to the full legal rent — a detail that matters enormously when a voucher payment is calculated against whatever figure appears on the lease.
- Vacancy deregulation and the vacancy bonus are gone. HSTPA eliminated both, and IAI/MCI increase rules were tightened at the same time — see our rent stabilization guide for the fuller picture.
- HPD compliance underpins everything. Open HPD violations can stall a lease renewal, a DHCR filing, and a voucher inspection simultaneously.
Very few Brooklyn property managers can move fluently between DHCR filings, a NYCHA HAP contract, and HRA lease-rider paperwork for the same unit in the same week. That intersection is exactly what our rent-stabilization compliance management and voucher work are both built around.
Common mistakes Brooklyn owners make across these programs
- Treating "accepting a voucher" as a one-time decision instead of an ongoing process. Every program requires periodic recertification and reinspection; missed windows are the leading cause of a paused payment.
- Advertising "no vouchers" or screening voucher holders differently. This is illegal source-of-income discrimination, regardless of intent.
- Letting a unit fail inspection that a proactive walkthrough would have caught. Missing smoke/CO detectors, peeling paint, and window-guard gaps are inexpensive to fix in advance and expensive to fix on an inspector's timeline.
- Setting a proposed rent that doesn't match the legal DHCR rent on a stabilized unit. This gets flagged at the rent-reasonableness stage and can trigger a compliance question later.
- Confusing the programs' agencies and forms. Filing HRA paperwork with NYCHA conventions (or vice versa) is a common, entirely avoidable source of delay.
When to bring in professional help
You can absolutely manage voucher tenancies well as a self-managing owner — but the agencies, forms, and recertification calendars multiply fast once a building has more than one program in play, especially layered on top of rent stabilization. Owners tend to reach out when a building already has voucher tenants inherited from a previous manager, when a payment has stalled and the cause isn't obvious, or when they're simply tired of learning a new agency's process from scratch every time.
That's the work we do every day. At Yak Management, Section 8, CityFHEPS, FHEPS, HASA, and HAVP tenancies aren't a specialty we tolerate — they're the specialty our whole company is organized around, alongside rent-stabilization compliance. We know which agency to call, which form governs which situation, and how to keep a subsidy payment flowing on time, whether that's a NYCHA HAP contract, an HRA CityFHEPS disbursement, or an HCR-supervised arrangement — with principals personally involved in every case, not a call center reading from a script.
If you own — or are thinking about accepting voucher tenants in — a Brooklyn building, schedule a Property Consultation and we'll review your current leases, subsidy contracts, and HPD standing, and tell you plainly where you stand. Or call us directly at 718-568-9278.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Program rules, payment standards, and agency procedures change and are fact-specific. Consult a qualified New York attorney, and verify current figures directly with NYCHA, HRA/DSS, or HCR, before acting on your specific situation.