Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, October 15, 2006
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1
For one brief window last month, Sacramento opened its long-closed waiting
list for federally subsidized housing. And applications flooded in.
On Friday, officials processed the last of those applications: More than
35,000 families had signed up between Sept. 25 and 29 for a chance at one of
10,000 spots on the waiting list.
Advocates for the poor and administrators of the Housing Choice Voucher
program say such a large turnout in such a short time illustrates a growing
unmet need for affordable housing among the region's poorest residents.
"Need is increasing much more quickly than funding," said MaryLiz
Paulson, assistant director of the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency
and manager of the Housing Choice Voucher program, widely known as Section 8.
The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development and administered by SHRA. It provides eligible low-income families
with vouchers to cover a portion of their rent -- the difference between what
the family can afford to pay and what the landlord is asking.
SHRA closes the waiting list when it gets too long; at times it has been
closed for more than seven years.
A spot on the program's waiting list is no guarantee of housing relief.
The 33,000 families who signed up when the list last opened -- between
October 1999 and June 2001 -- often waited five to seven years before getting
help. Some are still waiting.
This fall, the waiting list reopened for a tiny fraction of the time and
even more families stepped forward for aid. Paulson estimates the more than
35,000 families who applied represent up to 100,000 individuals.
Less than a third of the families will get a spot on the list, and they
will be chosen at random. Every family will receive notification in November
about their application's status.
The sheer quantity of applications surprised some affordable-housing
advocates.
"It's a remarkable number," said Ethan Evans, executive director
of the Sacramento Housing Alliance.
He and other advocates said the huge response should serve as a call to
action for local officials.
"I think it's a note to all of us that the biggest housing need is for
really poor people," said Rachel Iskow, executive director of Sacramento
Mutual Housing Association. Iskow said she was not at all surprised by the
number of applicants. People call her office all the time asking about Section
8, she said. Generally, when they call, the list is closed.
Iskow suspects the people who signed up for the waiting list in late
September represent just a fraction of the overall need.
Damaris Cornish found out about the chance to sign up for the waiting list
after a friend heard about it at work and told her.
Cornish, 31, doesn't have high hopes for getting on the list, but she had
to try.
"I'm just seeing the opportunity, I'm just going to go for it," she
said. "If it's the Lord's will, it's the Lord's will."
She and her husband have five children ages 5 and under, with a sixth on
the way. Her husband takes home about $1,600 a month from his job at a
lumberyard; rent on their four-bedroom apartment in Elk Grove eats up $1,400 of
that. They moved to Elk Grove, Cornish said, because they prefer the school
system there. If they could get some help with the rent, she said, they might
be able to save enough to buy a house someday.
Paulson, the assistant director of SHRA, said escalating rents have left
more families unable to afford housing. Funding from the federal government has
not kept pace with need, she said.
"Funding has become tighter, most definitely," she said.
She points to figures in the National Low Income Housing Coalition's
"Out of Reach" reports. In 2001, a Sacramento household at 49 percent
of area median income could afford the fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit.
In 2005, the same family would have to earn 64 percent of area median income to
afford that unit.
That translates to more applicants; but Paulson said the number of
available vouchers has not increased commensurate with demand. In 2001, 9,000
vouchers were available. This year, there are 11,000; most of them are already
spoken for.
Donna White, a HUD spokeswoman, said funding for the program has increased
nationwide -- from $11.2 billion in 2001 to $15.5 billion this year.
"There's been steady increases in the program, but it still doesn't
seem to meet the need that's there," White said.
Long waiting lists are common in big cities across the country, she said;
the department is attempting to reform the program in order to facilitate
homeownership and assist more families.
In 2001, HUD gave Sacramento $40 million to pay for 9,000 vouchers, Paulson
said. This year, the department gave $90 million to pay for 11,000 vouchers.
The increased allocation is quickly consumed by the accelerating cost of
rent and utilities and the increasing percentage of families who are very poor
and need more help with the rent, Paulson said.