Vancouver Housing Authority closed its waitlist for housing vouchers in December due to rising rents in Clark County. The waitlist had been open for at least eight years. Advocates say it’s a sign funding for housing voucher programs has not kept up with rent increases.
“The rental increases in our community have outpaced the increase in funding from (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) over the last couple of years, which put us into a tough financial situation on the voucher program,” said Andy Silver, the housing authority’s CEO.
Housing vouchers are government subsidies that pay a portion of rent for low-income households. Tenant-based vouchers, which can be used to rent privately owned housing, help about 2,000 people in Clark County.
They’re highly sought after, especially in metropolitan areas such as Vancouver, where rents have been soaring. Average apartment rents have increased about 35 percent in the last five years, according to data from the Washington Center for Real Estate Research.
Open, closed waitlists
Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, said she’s surprised Vancouver Housing Authority was able to keep its waitlist open as long as it did.
The last time Pierce County, for example, had its tenant-based housing voucher waitlist open was September 2019. It was only open for a year before it closed.
Before Vancouver’s waitlist closed, Seattle and Vancouver were the only housing authorities within the state with open tenant-based housing voucher waitlists.
That’s likely because Vancouver Housing Authority only had its waitlist open to certain preferences, such as a person who is experiencing homelessness in Clark County and has gone through the coordinated entry system.
Silver said the waitlist will likely not reopen until after late spring when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announces 2024 funding levels.
Need for more funding
A 2018 Harvard study found increases in federal rent assistance “have lagged far behind” growth in the number of renters with very low incomes. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, only 1 in 4 eligible households receive federal rental assistance.
Housing authorities receive a renewal amount based on the levels leased in the previous year, according to Zaterman. It’s adjusted for inflation, but that’s not enough to keep up, she said.
“We had some extraordinary rising costs of rent post-pandemic. So that’s had a big impact. We know we have shortfalls of supply of housing that voucher holders can use. We have a scarce resource, so the cost of that goes up,” Zaterman said.
Last August, HUD increased what’s considered fair market rent by 12 percent on average across the nation. Housing authorities use fair market rent to determine the maximum amount a Housing Choice Voucher will cover.
The change came with some funding, but housing authorities are still struggling to pay more money for rents, Zaterman said.
“You can see how that will eat away at it. It just costs more to serve the households you’re already serving,” she said.
That’s why many are advocating for Congress to approve more funding for these vouchers this year.
The 2024 president’s budget requests $32.7 billion for tenant-based rental assistance, which is $2.5 billion more than 2023 funding.
“We just need more resources in the community,” Zaterman said. “We’re just not meeting the need.”
