The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) maintained that it had made substantial progress in cleaning up backlogs and getting its new Section 8 computer management system operational recently. The NYCHA has been clarifying communications breakdowns and identify processing backlogs which have left many lease renewals pending since at least January.
NYCHA now says that it has scanned all pending documents into its computer system and that lease renewals have returned to normal backlog. They also indicated that no Section 8 terminations have been issued since January as a result of the processing problems.
NYCHA officials pointed out numerous changes in Section 8 processing of which owners need to be aware of. Some highlights are posted on the NYCHA website. For example, owners should know that Housing Quality Standards Inspections (HQS) can now include problems in public areas, NYCHA forms are now bar-coded and must be submitted as originals, there are new addresses for the submission of leases, fees have been eliminated for the direct deposit of NYCHA payments, property managers are encouraged to sign on to NYCHA’s extranet to view Section 8 status and receive Email alerts and owners can now reach NYCHA through a special telephone number instead of 311.
NYCHA expressed its commitment to cure outstanding problems.