Last week, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) opened its Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) waiting list to new applicants for the first time since 2004. The rush of new applicants in the first few days has some thinking this may be the largest response to a wait list opening in many years. In any case, it highlights the tremendous need for affordable housing around the country, and how many more families could be served by these programs.
The HACLA opened its HCV waiting list on October 16, and reached 150,000 applicants by the eighth day of the opening, representing 370,00 household members.On the first day alone, the HACLA received between 80,000 and 90,000 applications, and had a peak of 4,500 users at one time at 8:00 a.m. PT.
Other housing authorities across the country have also seen large numbers of people apply when Section 8 waiting lists are opened. Because of the overwhelming demand, many housing authorities in high populated areas announce lotteries from which a limited number of households will be chosen to be put on the wait list.
One of the largest recent responses to a wait list opening occurred in Chicago, IL in 2014. The Chicago Housing Authority held a lottery for Public Housing, Section 8 HCV and Section 8 Project-Based rental assistance. During the month that the wait list was open, more than 282,000 households applied for the lottery. The Section 8 wait list had 50,000 available spots on the waiting list, Public Housing had 30,000 and Project-Based Section 8 had 16,000. CHA estimates that total number of applicants equaled nearly half of all low-income households in Chicago. New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) last opened its wait list for three months in 2007. NYCHA received 230,526 applications.
Some states have statewide housing authorities administering Section 8 programs serving areas outside of larger cities. Some of these state housing agencies have also seen large numbers of households apply when Section 8 waitlists open. The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs opened its Section 8 waitlist statewide for one week in June 2016 and received more than 100,000 applications.
Other large cities also experience overwhelming responses to waitlist openings relative to how many people they can serve. Atlanta, GA opened its Section 8 waitlist for one week in 2017 and received 83,300 applications for 30,000 waitlist slots determined by lottery. Philadelphia, PA last opened its Section 8 waitlist in 2010 for two weeks and received 55,000 applications. They are still serving applicants from this opening, with 13,500 households still remaining on the waitlist after regular voucher issuances and purges. Baltimore Housing Authority received 73,552 applications when its waitlist opened in late 2015, closing in May 2016.
County-wide housing authorities that administer Section 8 programs, and those near or including large cities often manage many vouchers. Some of these county housing authorities report substantial demand for the program. For instance, the Cuyahoga County Housing Authority, serving the area that includes Cleveland, OH, received 51,000 applications for 10,000 lottery slots when it opened its Section 8 waitlist for five days in 2016. The Alameda County Housing Authority, serving an area near San Francisco, CA opened its waitlist for one week in 2015 and received 41,804 applications.
Even mid-sized and smaller cities experience large demand when they open their Section 8 waiting lists. Cincinnati, OH received 14,400 applications when it opened its waiting list for just four days in January 2017. Rochester, New York’s housing authority received 3,000 applications when it opened its waitlist for two weeks in 2016, as did the Bremerton Housing Authority (BHA) in Washington state. BHA’s 3,000 applicants were vying for only 300 lottery slots. Yonkers Housing Authority in New York last opened its wait list in January 2012 and received more than 10,000 applications.
Affordable Housing Online contacted the largest housing authorities that had Section 8 waitlist openings since 2010 for information about their applicant demand. These housing authorities administered between 6,500 and 53,000 vouchers each and kept their waitlists open more than one day.
Affordable Housing Online will provide an update to this report once HACLA closes its wait list. We will also include more information from other large housing authorities, and provide a better picture of how HACLA’s wait list opening compares historically. No matter what, it shows what many other housing authorities have demonstrated when they open up their programs to new households. There is far more need and demand for affordable housing than resources currently available to meet it.
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