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Staff Photo by Laura-Chase McGehee/Chattanooga Times Free Press/ - Women wait to see if their voucher numbers will be called to receive Section 8 housing at a lottery drawing held at the Chattanooga Housing Authority office on Friday.
Angela Liard jumped out of her car, walked in one direction and looked in the other, trying to decide which door to enter at the Chattanooga Housing Authority.
The 36-year-old mother of two had a mission: Get out of public housing.
"I'm working on a plan," she said as she walked in the CHA entrance. "It's to get out of the Woodlawn [public housing], get me a Section 8 voucher and better myself."
Liard had submitted an application for the authority's Housing Choice Voucher Program, formerly known as Section 8. Recipients of the voucher get government assistance to pay for a market-rate single-family home or apartment.
There were 5,300 applications for 200 vouchers. On Friday morning, about 100 applicants -- including Liard -- watched the voucher lottery drawing in the CHA meeting room. The drawing marks the first time new applicants have been chosen for vouchers since 2008.
Roberta Brock, 46, also attended the lottery drawing, saying she had "bounced" her two teenage daughters from house to house while looking for a place to live.
Also present were Tamesha Bruce, 22, who slept outside the housing agency to make sure she was the first person to get a voucher application when they first were offered Sept. 30, and Valerie Roush, 51, who lives with her disabled husband in a cabin with no running water.
Within the next 30 days, CHA officials will do background and income verification checks on those selected in Friday's drawing. The ones who pass those checks will be called back in to CHA and given the vouchers, said Tammy Reeves, CHA's Housing Choice Voucher Program executive director.
"They can expect to hear from us quickly," Reeves said.
Officials said they won't know until the end of the year if the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will provide the agency with more vouchers for 2011.
Around 10 a.m. Friday, CHA Administrative Coordinator Roz Spence greeted the applicants and wished everybody luck.
Housing Choice Voucher Program staffer Theresa Biggs started pulling numbers -- 1663, then 1672, then 5260, each number representing a person who would be processed for a voucher.
Biggs pulled 14 numbers, but none of the people were present. Reeves kept a record of every number called. CHA employees started calling the names of applicants that matched the drawn numbers.
Sharon Strickland heard her name and her hand shot up.
She showed her identification. Biggs gave her a high five and Strickland danced out the door. Outside, she leaned on the wall and cried.
"Oh Jesus, thank you," she said. "I just got laid off my job."
LOTTERY RESULTS
* Online at www.chahousing.org
* At all CHA Public Housing Communities
* By calling United Way's 2-1-1
Source: Chattanooga Housing Authority
Yolanda Putman has been a reporter at the Times Free Press for 11 years. She covers housing and previously covered education and crime. Yolanda is a Chattanooga native who has a master’s degree in communication from the University of Tennessee and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Alabama State University. She previously worked at the Lima (Ohio) News. She enjoys running, reading and writing and is the mother of one son, Tyreese. She has also ...
Is that really a designer handbag and designer sunglasses in the staff photo or are those knockoffs?
Please look at the AP article in the Chattanooga Times yesterday about the situation with housing authorities not doing any work to document income of public housing or section 8 recipients. Once you have section 8 it is almost impossible to lose it. You can deal drugs and destroy property, but you still get section 8.
This should be a local and state issue, not federal. Several people need and should receive support from those who can provide assistance. Those recipients healthy enough and able should perform some community service in return.
Most federal programs are not efficiently managed or well run, this is probably not an exception. Like most fed programs the roar of the cannon sounds good but they rarely hit the target.
The lady wants to get out of public housing and into Section 8. What's the difference? Either way the taxpayer is paying her rent. Either way the taxpayer is getting hosed.
How about get a job and buy your house or pay rent like the rest of us do? Pull your own weight instead of being a government freeloader!
Where in Chattanooga would one find a job that pays well enough to support them? People without a degree or craft skill are hard pressed to make a living. Companies can no longer afford to fund an elaborate in house training program. The city and county would do well to provide learning centers that taught people some specialized job skills and how to be a good employee. So many have no idea how to get or hold a job.
Governments keep increasing those that are dependent on government without providing them a way not to be. Is it on purpose? Probably not, we really don't elect menial giants to office since none run and most of those that would do the right things don't run. Our delusional mayor is a good example.
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