About
Last Updated August 26, 2024
ACCESS NYC provides a mobile-friendly front door for New Yorkers to screen for benefit and program eligibility, learn how to apply, gather required documents, and find local help.
Target Audience
Benefits-seeking residents in NYC, especially those identified as groups who may need additional support such as:
- Residents with low digital literacy
- Residents with limited technology access, mobile phone dependent
- Residents who do not speak fluent English
- Residents with limited visual capabilities
Website
Partners
15+ City, State, and Federal Agencies
Key Features
Eligibility Screening
Check potential eligibility for over 30 benefits in 10 easy steps. Text or email your eligibility results.
Program Guides
Get information for over 40 city, state, and federal benefits and services. Details include: how a program works, how to qualify, what documents are needed, options for how to apply (online, phone, mail, in-person), and how to receive help.
Find Help Nearby
Search for a nearby service center, filter for relevant benefit categories, and get directions.
Languages
ACCESS NYC is professionally translated into English, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Traditional), French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Urdu.
This makes ACCESS NYC the first website in the City to be fully compliant under Local Law 30, which requires documents and services distributed to the public by City agencies be made available in 11 languages, so that an estimated 86% of New Yorkers can navigate in their primary language.
How We Created ACCESS NYC
ACCESS NYC was redesigned by the Service Design Studio and Product Team at the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity) starting in the summer of 2016 through an iterative prototyping process that engaged residents, social workers, case managers, and government agency staff. The new design and core user experience were created in-house.
ACCESS NYC relaunched in March 2017 with support from our technology development partner, Blue State Digital. We continue to engage New Yorkers, providers, and government agencies in the ongoing improvement and expansion of ACCESS NYC.
Technology Powering ACCESS NYC
- Public program information is managed and updated in partnership with government agencies using GatherContent, an editorial workflow and content management tool.
- This is pulled into WordPress, an open-source content management system, which also uses a variety of WP plugins for customization, and is hosted on WP Engine.
- The ACCESS NYC screener is a single page web application powered by an API built on the Drools Business Rules Management System hosted on Amazon Web Services through the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.
- All benefit program information and screener calculations used on ACCESS NYC are publicly available through the NYC Benefits Platform resources below.
- ACCESS NYC’s underlying code open source and available through the github repo.
- ACCESS NYC’s Pattern Library borrows from the U.S. Web Design System, the Bourbon SASS Tool Set, and Tailwind.css Utility Framework.
Links
NYC Benefits Platform
We support organizations that make it easier for NYC residents to discover and be aware of multiple benefits they may be eligible for through open resources including:
- NYC Benefits and Programs Dataset: plain language, standardized public info for 80+ programs featured on ACCESS NYC and other websites our office maintains.
- NYC Benefits Screening API: Machine-readable calculations and criteria for benefits screening that power the ACCESS NYC screening questionnaire. We hope this can aid in accelerating the creation of new screening tools, and provide opportunities to screen households based on existing information.
- Overview Slides from NYC Open Data Week 2021
Awards & Recognition
- ACCESS NYC Receives “2020 Government Experience Award” Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity | 09.30.2020
- ACCESS NYC Is Named “City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge” Winner Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity | 12.11.2019
- ACCESS NYC Receives Award for “Best Application Serving The Public” Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity | 9.22.2017
Read More About ACCESS NYC
- New York City Demystifies Social Service Benefits Screening GovTech | 4.15.2019
- NYC Opportunity and the Public Engagement Unit Partner for Facilitated Benefits Screening and Enrollment Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity | 4.10.2018
- Increasing Online Language Accessibility: ACCESS NYC Now in Eleven Languages Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity | 3.8.2018
- Case Study of ACCESS NYC – Part 1 Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity | 3.8.2018
- Case Study of ACCESS NYC – Part 2 Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity | 3.13.2018
- Rebuilding ACCESS NYC with Blue State Digital Torque: from WPEngine | 2.14.2018
Contact Us
We offer on-demand trainings for City agencies and community-based organizations and provide outreach materials via our Training & Support Page.