(DNAINFO)  Amy Zimmer | March 2, 2017 — DNAinfo has a guide to some of the city’s rental assistance programs and their challenges.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new plan to tackle the skyrocketing homeless population across the city includes an expanded effort to keep at-risk New Yorkers in their homes through rental assistance programs, he said Tuesday.

The various rental assistance programs — which provide cash or other assistance to those struggling to pay rent — is not only a boon to renters, it’s also significantly cheaper for the city than paying the roughly $41,000 a year it costs to house a family in the shelter system, according to city data.

And the need for the aid has been increasing as incomes have failed to keep pace with rising rents. Nearly 900,000 households — or roughly 42 percent of the city’s renters —  paid more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and half of those are “severely” rent burdened, shelling out more than 50 percent of their income for rent, according to a 2015 report from the Citizen’s Budget Commission.

Source: What You Need to Know if You Can’t Pay Your Rent, and How the City Can Help – Bushwick – DNAinfo New York