[soraki_soladead]

According to this the SOTA program requires the income to make rental payments beyond the one year: https://www.nyc.gov/site/hra/help/sota.page

“SOTA is only provided to households whom DSS has determined will likely have the future ability to pay the rent once they no longer have the SOTA grant to cover their rent.”

That sounds like a very high bar for people in the situation of needing rent coverage and especially if they have mental illness and/or drug addiction. Note that busing people to another city appears to be a separate program.