Thousands apply to get on Chattanooga Housing Authority voucher waiting list

Betsy McCright, executive director of the Chattanooga Housing Authority, speaks to reporters at the agency offices in this Jan. 26, 2015,file photo.
Betsy McCright, executive director of the Chattanooga Housing Authority, speaks to reporters at the agency offices in this Jan. 26, 2015,file photo.

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Visit chahousing.org for more information and to view (after noon on Feb. 2) a listing of the 1,000 applicants selected.

The Chattanooga Housing Authority opened its Housing Choice voucher program waiting list for the first time in four years on Monday.

Housing Choice voucher waiting lists also recently opened in Washington, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Iowa and New York. For every 100 extremely low-income renter households nationally, there are only 30 units of affordable housing available, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

More than 4,600 people had completed online applications for the Chattanooga Housing Choice voucher program by 3 p.m. Monday, just hours after CHA Executive Director Betsy McCright hosted a news conference about the open waiting list. The housing authority hasn't accepted Housing Choice voucher applications since 2010 when more than 5,660 applicants applied.

The Housing Choice voucher program, formerly called Section 8, is a federally funded program that allows low-income tenants to pay only 30 percent of their income for rent while the housing authority issues payment vouchers to landlords that pay the remainder.

Some 70,000 people are expected to fill out applications in Alameda, Calif. Only 750 people will be selected when that housing authority opens its list on Thursday.

The Atlanta Housing Authority opened and closed its waiting list this month after randomly selecting 10,000 applicants for housing.

For the Chattanooga Housing Authority's Housing Choice voucher waiting list a computer will randomly select 1,000 voucher applicants. All other applicants must reapply.

Even if an applicant receives a voucher, that's no guarantee of housing. McCright said Monday that only 30 percent to 50 percent of voucher holders in the past found landlords willing to accept their vouchers.

To boost landlord participation, the housing authority plans to have quarterly meetings and invite present and potential landlords and housing managers to attend. The meetings would include speakers and address any concerns or questions that the property provider has. McCright expects the meetings to start within the first quarter of the year.

The authority expects it will take about 18 months to get through the waiting list of 1,000 people. It will post the 1,000 applications selected on its website by noon Feb. 2.

By the second week of February the housing authority will start pulling names from the list to make sure those applicants qualify and pass criminal background checks.

The authority has 250 vouchers available.

East Lake Courts resident Sidney Hannah wants to get one of them. Hannah, 50, lives with his disabled brother in the city's second-largest and second-oldest public housing site.

In the four years he's lived in East Lake he's been robbed, his jaw has been broken and he's been held at gunpoint.

"I just can't take any more," Hannah said.

He was among a few people coming into the housing authority offices on Monday for help filling out the online application.

Other applicants include a 55-year-old widow who lived in a house with no heat or running water for seven years and a 31-year-old single father who wants to move from his East Chattanooga community to an area with better schools for his 7-year-old son.

To further illustrate the need for low-income housing, McCright noted that the Chattanooga Housing Authority has waiting lists for all 16 of its public housing sites that house about 2,964 families.

CHA assists a total of 3,350 families with vouchers. Nationally the Housing Choice voucher program assists about 2.1 million households, according to news reports.

Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yput man@timesfreepress.com or 757-6431.

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