The NYC Housing Lottery was designed with promises of equity, ensuring fair access based on income and luck, not connections; integration, through programs like Mandatory Inclusionary Housing to create mixed-income communities; and simplicity, via a single online platform. It aimed to partner with developers, offering incentives like density bonuses and tax breaks, to create affordable units without direct taxpayer spending.

However, the reality deviates significantly:

• There's extreme competition, with 6 million applications for only 10,000 units, meaning 600 people compete for every apartment. For the lowest-income units, the competition is even higher, making low-income families six times less likely to win than higher-income applicants.
• The system has perpetuated segregation, as "community preference" provisions concentrated affordable housing in already low-income, predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods, a practice a federal lawsuit forced to reduce.
• The process is bureaucratic, with months of paperwork required even after selection, causing many winners to give up.

The system is also plagued by corruption and conflicts of interest:

• Federal authorities arrested 70 NYCHA employees for accepting bribes to steer no-bid contracts, with investigators believing this was "the norm, not the exception" in affordable housing awards.
• Investigations revealed issues in developer selection, exemplified by developer Peter Fine, who lobbied a current housing commissioner he had previously had issues.
• The "developer partnership" model relies on making deals highly attractive to private developers, leading to large density bonuses, tax exemptions, and units often not truly affordable to those most in need.
• Area Median Income (AMI) calculations are gamed, including wealthy suburban counties, which inflates what counts as "affordable" and means a family of four making $155,000 can qualify, while a family making $25,000 qualifies for almost nothing.

Proposed solutions include immediate bureaucratic fixes like reduced paperwork and first-come, first-served systems for vacant units. Deeper structural changes involve reforming AMI to be based on actual NYC incomes and creating dedicated income bands for different income levels. Long-term systemic solutions suggest public development, social housing models, and community land trusts to keep land permanently affordable.

Ultimately, while the lottery has created over 10,000 new affordable apartments in the last year, providing stable housing for thousands, it also acts as a symptom of a fundamental housing shortage in NYC. It serves as "political cover" for officials to avoid broader policy changes like zoning reform and public investment, highlighting that fixing the housing crisis requires political leaders to make difficult choices about housing as a right versus a commodity.