Director of Owner Services

About HPD

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is the nation’s largest municipal housing preservation and development agency. Its mission is to promote quality and affordability in the city's housing, and diversity and strength in the city’s neighborhoods because every New Yorker deserves a safe, affordable place to live in a neighborhood they love.

HPD is entrusted with fulfilling these objectives through the goals and strategies of Housing Our Neighbors: A Blueprint for Housing and Homelessness, Mayor Adams’ comprehensive housing framework. HPD is committed to reducing administrative and regulatory barriers and make investments to tackle New York City’s complex housing crisis, by addressing homelessness and housing instability, promoting economic stability and mobility, increasing homeownership opportunities, improving health and safety, and increasing opportunities for equitable growth.

Your Team

The Office of Housing Access and Stability (“HAS”) consists of the divisions of Housing Opportunity, Tenant and Owner Resources, Housing Stability, Budget and Program Operations, and Program Policy and Innovation. The mission of the office is to ensure fair, efficient, and transparent access to affordable housing. The Office provides subsidies, placement services, and tools that connect New Yorkers to affordable housing and ensures vulnerable households in subsidized housing have the support they need to be safely housed. Housing Access is committed to expanding housing choices, affirmatively furthering fair housing, and stabilizing the financial health of buildings.

At HPD, rent subsidy programs are administered by the Division of Tenant & Owner Resources (DTOR). HPD’s rental subsidies, including Section 8 or the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, provide funding to eligible low-income families for rental assistance toward decent, safe, and affordable housing in a neighborhood of their choice. Families pay approximately 30% of their income toward rent, and the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) pays the difference, directly to the owner. The unit must have a rent that is determined reasonable and affordable by HPD and must meet federal Housing Quality Standards (HQS) to be approved.

Your Impact

HPD's Division of Tenant & Owner Resources (DTOR) is responsible for the administration of rental subsidy programs that include Housing Choice Voucher (HCV), Project Based Voucher (PBV), Moderate Rehab Section 8, Moderate Rehab Single Room Occupancy (SRO), and Continuum of Care (CoC)-Shelter Plus Care (SPC) and NYC 15/15. Through these programs, HPD serves over 40,000 households and 9,000 landlords in all five boroughs. DTOR is responsible for the initial application screening; confirming eligibility requirements; briefing applicants; and issuing vouchers. DTOR also monitors tenant and landlord compliance of their obligations under each program and continues to administer the ongoing subsidies throughout their participation. These continued activities include processing annual and interim recertifications to update family income/assets, household composition, and rent amounts; tenant moves and transfers; approved rent increases; Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) abatements and reinstatements to enforce Housing Quality Standard (HQS) inspection results; and providing customer service to stakeholders through our Client Services office, call center and the DTR Portal.

Your Role

The Director of Owner Services manages the Owner Services unit, with a staff of about 35, responsible for providing customer service to participating and applying owners in all the Division’s rent subsidy programs. The team processes Landlord Packages to approve assisted tenancies, completes rent reasonableness determinations for both initial lease-up and at rent increase, processes ownership changes in assisted buildings resulting assignment of the rent subsidy contract, coordinate with other city agencies to facilitate and trouble shoot the vendor registration process and payment issuance to participating owners.

The Director of Owner Services will develop and implement strategies to enhance transparency of processes for owners, improve efficiency in processing operations, improve productivity and staff development, and manage relationships with owners, managing agents and other external constituencies. The candidate is responsible for ensuring high quality work performance and will develop and/or implement strategies to improve timely workload completion.

The Director of Owner Services will also assist in establishing program policies and procedures. They are responsible for the coordination of relevant operations and special projects with other units within the Division of Tenant & Owner Resources and throughout the agency to ensure maximum productivity and best practice standards are upheld. Candidate serves as a liaison with the public and represents the Unit, Division or Agency at a variety of internal and external meetings.

Responsibilities

The Director of Owner Services develops and implements strategies to enhance application processing and leasing operations, improving efficiency and productivity. They will be responsible for managing relationships with landlords, managing agents and other external constituencies. Candidate is responsible for ensuring high quality customer service to our clients and will develop and/or implement strategies to improve customer service. The candidate is responsible for staff development, coaching and supporting the professional growth of the members of their teams. The Executive Director is responsible for fostering a collaborative and inclusive work environment within the Division.

The Director provides overall direction and supervision to the Deputy Director and Project Manager, who are responsible for the supervision and coordination of the activities through the Owner Services teams. Along with these teams, the Director will ensure program integrity and compliance balanced with efficiency and transparency to support eligible owners’ participation in HPD programs. The Director is responsible for supporting owners’ and property managers’ use of the DTR Owner Portal. The Director will work in partnership across the agency and with external partners to develop and implement the use of new tools and systems to further the goal of moving applicants to stable housing as efficiently as possible.

The Owner Services team is responsible for the processing of the Landlord Package, enrolling owners through the NYC vendor registration process, conducting rent reasonableness determinations, processing requests for rent increases and supporting owner’s participation in the programs. They are responsible for identifying and addressing any bottlenecks in processing. They will set and track targets for service level delivery to external stake holders. They will collaborate with owners and other partners to understand and navigate layered affordable housing programs and requirements to determine the appropriate subsidized rents for housing units. They will develop training materials and facilitate training opportunities for both staff and external stakeholders to provide opportunities for learning about requirements and how to participate in HPD’s rent subsidy programs.

Preferred Skills

• Strong leadership and supervisory experience
• Experience managing programs as well as seeking ways to improve programs and procedures
• Exceptional project management, organizational, analytical, quantitative, and qualitative skills
• Exceptional presentation and interpersonal communication skills.
• Comfort with technology, including Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Visio, BI) and other analytical, process or flowchart, and other tools and data systems
• Familiarity with affordable housing programs and rental subsidy administration
• Knowledge of federal, state, and local housing laws and regulations
• Experience or understanding of residential property management, leasing, asset management
• Bilingual a Plus
  
  

Minimum Qualifications

• A master's degree from an accredited college in economics, finance, accounting, business or public administration, human resources management, management science, operations research, organizational behavior, industrial psychology, statistics, personnel administration, labor relations, psychology, sociology, human resources development, political science, urban studies or a closely related field, and two years of satisfactory full-time professional experience in one or a combination of the following: working with the budget of a large public or private concern in budget administration, accounting, economic or financial administration, or fiscal or economic research; in management or methods analysis, operations research, organizational research or program evaluation; in personnel or public administration, recruitment, position classification, personnel relations, employee benefits, staff development, employment program planning/administration, labor market research, economic planning, social services program planning/evaluation, or fiscal management; or in a related area. 18 months of this experience must have been in an executive, managerial, administrative or supervisory capacity. Supervision must have included supervising staff performing professional work in the areas described above; or
• A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college and four years of professional experience in the areas described in "1" above, including the 18 months of executive, managerial, administrative or supervisory experience, as described in "1" above.
  
  

55a Program

This position is also open to qualified persons with a disability who are eligible for the 55-a Program. Please indicate at the top of your resume and cover letter that you would like to be considered for the position through the 55-a Program.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness

As a prospective employee of the City of New York, you may be eligible for federal loan forgiveness programs and state repayment assistance programs. For more information, please visit the U.S. Department of Education’s website at https://studentaid.gov/pslf/.

Residency Requirement

New York City residency is generally required within 90 days of appointment. However, City Employees in certain titles who have worked for the City for 2 continuous years may also be eligible to reside in Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Westchester, Rockland, or Orange County. To determine if the residency requirement applies to you, please discuss with the agency representative at the time of interview.

Additional Information

The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.