CHA opens Housing Choice Voucher Program waiting list Oct. 19

Tammie Carpenter, CHA Housing Choice Voucher Program director
Tammie Carpenter, CHA Housing Choice Voucher Program director

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Online: The Housing Choice Voucher preliminary application will be available at www.chahousing.org

Arrielle Brown lives at the Maclellan Shelter for Families while studying for her GED, working part-time as a banquet server at the Chattanooga Convention Center and caring for her children.

"I just want to better my life for my kids," she said, pounding her knuckles into the palm of her hand.

The 26-year-old single mother of three will be one of an expected thousands applying for the Chattanooga Housing Authority's Housing Choice Voucher Program on Oct. 19.

CHA will create a waiting list by using a lottery system where applicants randomly will be selected. It will accept online applications for 24 hours on Oct. 19 from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m.

No paper applications will be accepted. Applicants can apply from any location that has Internet access, including a smartphone. Computers and assistance also will be available at the CHA office.

CHA will randomly select 1,000 applicants to go on its waiting list, then it will list the identification numbers of those selected on its website about one week after the lottery.

The Housing Choice Voucher Program provides low-income families with the opportunity for housing and financial assistance from the federal government to help pay for it.

More than 6,500 people applied for housing in January. Only 1,000 of them were considered for the program.

"There are 5,500 people out there, I'm guessing, who need housing," said Tammie Carpenter, CHA's Housing Choice Voucher Program director.

However, many of the people who applied earlier this year didn't attend meetings to receive their housing vouchers. That's why the waiting list opened so quickly this year, less than 11 months after it opened in January, Carpenter said.

CHA officials said they aren't sure why some people don't follow through after they apply for housing, but the staff wants applicants to get housed.

"Administratively, it's a lot of work without the end result. If we have vouchers that we don't have leased, we're losing money to run the program," Carpenter said.

Housing officials mailed letters to 500 applicants this summer asking them to come for processing. Only 286 came. CHA tried contacting and rescheduling the no-shows again. Only 50 more people came in.

Brown vows that if she's contacted, getting to the housing agency for her appointment will be top priority.

"It's hard [being homeless]," she said. "Family turns on you. Friends run away. And everything is out of budget."

Finding housing is not as easy as some people think, Brown said.

Some assume because she has a medical-needs child and gets financial assistance to care for him that housing should not be a problem, but his check and her part-time income don't pay enough to cover the $700-plus needed for a two-bedroom apartment, she said.

This week, she couldn't find a two-bedroom for less than $795, she said. And that doesn't include utilities.

So for the past year she has lived from couch to couch with her children, including her 4-year-old son who has a tracheostomy and feeding tube.

"I put that smile on and say, 'Today is a good day,' but inside I'm crumbling," she said. "It's not as easy as people make it seem."

Through the Housing Choice Voucher Program she hopes to get a three- or four-bedroom house with a small yard.

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

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