• Agency: NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (NYC HPD)
• Status: Currently Available

The Supportive Housing Loan Program (SHLP) provides financing (up to $90,000 per unit) to non-profit organizations to develop supportive housing for homeless single adults, including but not limited to people with mental illnesses, HIV/AIDS, and disabilities. Loans have a 30-year term and neither the principal nor the interest are repaid if the sponsor complies with the terms of a regulatory agreement requiring that the property be used for housing for low-income homeless tenants for 30 years. Projects may be new construction or rehabilitation, and on city-owned or privately-owned land. Acquisition costs up to the appraised value of the units are covered by the loan as well. All tenants must be very low-income (under 60 percent of Area Median Income (AMI)) and 60 percent of the units must be rented to homeless persons previously residing in New York City’s emergency shelter system. Forty percent of the units can be rented to low-income seniors or community board residents.

This program was formerly called the Single Room Occupancy (SRO) Loan Program. A New York City moratorium banning conversion or demolition of Single Room Occupancy buildings, combined with rising homelessness rates during the mid-1980s, led the Mayor’s Office of Single Room Occupancy Housing to establish the Single Room Occupancy (SRO) Loan Program in 1985. The program provided financing to non-profit sponsors for acquisition and rehabilitation of Single Room Occupancy buildings. In 1987, the SRO Loan Program moved to the City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), funded in part by a $45,000 fee landlords paid to avoid the moratorium on SRO conversion. The program provided one percent loans for up to 30 years, and a portion of the loan was forgivable in projects owned by non-profit organizations that provided permanent housing for homeless individuals.