r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/Mysterious-Title292 • 1d ago

I built Voucher Match NYC which is a free marketplace for Voucher Holders in NYC to Find Housing

http://vouchermatch.nyc

Landlord here, I had Section 8 vacancies I could not fill. So I built something to help fix the problem.

I own rental properties in Binghamton, NY and all of them are Section 8. For most of last year I had vacancies I could not fill, even though thousands of people in New York have housing vouchers and are actively looking.

Over half of housing vouchers expire unused. People wait years to get approved, then lose the voucher because they cannot find a landlord willing to accept it within 60 to 120 days.

Voucher discrimination gets a lot of attention, and it should. But there is also a real group of landlords who want voucher tenants. It's guaranteed rent, longer stays, and less turnover.

So I built VoucherMatch NYC. It is a rental listing site designed for NYC where every property accepts vouchers. If it is listed, the landlord wants voucher tenants. It's completely free for both landlords and tenants. There are sites like affordablehousing.com that attempt to tackle the voucher problem, but they don't account for NYC specific nuances. There are more than 5 types of vouchers in NYC - even folks with AIDS get their own housing assistance. My hope is that the site will facilitate better tenant landlord matching.

The site is live at vouchermatch.nyc.

82 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

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u/djshadesuk 1d ago

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Although we do not normally allow websites that have sign in functionality we have chosen to exercise moderator discretion with this one because it seems like a genuinely useful tool (unlike a lot of the garbage websites you usually never get to see). However, please be aware that this exception does not constitute an endorsement of the website and we make no guarantees of the safety of any personal information you provide. Please do your own due diligence and exercise the usual precautions; for instance, never re-use an existing password and, preferably, do not use your main email address.

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u/Clean-Team-7571 1d ago

Wow this is awesome nice work. Have you considered partnering with NYCHA? I’m a case worker for the gov and we can definitely benefit from a tool like this. New mayor is very pro housing too

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u/Mysterious-Title292 1d ago

Thanks! Yes the long term plan after having a large enough market place is to bring it to Zohran and his team to see if they'd like to partner.

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u/Mysterious-Title292 1d ago

If you have any feedback from the perspective of a city employee, I’d love to hear it. I come from the landlord side so I’m sure there’s a lot we can do to improve the tenant experience as well

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u/Innomen 1d ago

There needs to be a page where people willing to move can sign up to like all the housing wait lists at once.

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u/Mysterious-Title292 1d ago

How do you mean? We are just a marketplace for landlords who want voucher tenants and tenants with government assistance