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  ...