The New York City Council is pushing to reduce wait times for the city’s rental assistance program with just a few short weeks left in the legislative session.

Councilmembers took up a package of bills Wednesday designed to speed up responses by the city for tenants searching for affordable housing through the program, known as City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement, or CityFHEPS. It operates similarly to the federal Section 8 program , but uses city dollars to subsidize rents for low-income tenants.

Councilmember Diana Ayala, who chairs the general welfare committee that held Wednesday's hearing, said CityFHEPS “can be plagued with administrative issues, delays and complications, such as source-of-income discrimination, that make the voucher difficult to access

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