Homelessness Prevention

  • Provide professional guidance for tenants facing eviction proceedings or threatened with displacement due to other factors
  • Help resolve landlord-tenant conflicts including lease disputes, rent arrears and code violations
  • Help tenants obtain public benefits or other funds to satisfy rent arrears
  • Address substandard housing conditions that threaten tenants’ health or safety and that could lead to their displacement if not resolved

Housing Disaster Relief Services

  • Help secure temporary shelter and meet other basic needs for families displaced by calamities such as fires, floods, and building condemnations due to code violations
  • Provide advocacy, benefits assistance, and landlord negotiations to help displaced families relocate to stable new housing

Housing Code Enforcement

  • Work closely with Yonkers code enforcement agencies to resolve substandard conditions at apartment buildings
  • Support code enforcement by helping tenants work collectively for improvements
  • Help tenants negotiate with landlords for needed repairs

Building-Level Services including Emergency Services

  • Collaborate with Yonkers code enforcement agencies and assist tenants when landlords abandon buildings, leaving properties without heat, utilities or other services that could lead the City to close the properties
  • Provide an “on-call” response service for building crises such as utility cut-offs or other service interruptions that landlords will not address; intervene with public utilities and private oil companies to forestall cut-offs and help tenants pool funds to cover bills
  • Arrange with contractors for urgently needed repairs that landlords will not address
  • Help tenants at troubled properties work together to improve the quality of life in their buildings and to negotiate with landlords for improved conditions
  • Provide advocacy and professional guidance to persuade unresponsive landlords to correct substandard conditions

Financial Assistance and Intensive Case Management

  • Provide short-term rent subsidies for qualifying households
  • Provide case management, budget counseling, and referrals for vocational training and employment to help clients gain financial independence and self-sufficiency
  • Provide benefits advocacy and referrals to public assistance programs, community resources and other service providers