The Chattanooga Housing Authority will call 500 to 650 people on its Housing Choice voucher program’s waiting list in June and pay property owners more money to house them.
“We’re excited,” said Eddie Holmes, the authority’s board chairman. “We have some working people who can’t make it on the living that they bring in. This funding allows us to help a lot of people.”
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development increased its funding this year to the Housing Choice voucher program, formerly known as Section 8, program director Tammie Reeves said.
In January, HUD started giving the housing authority $200,000 more per month for its voucher program, officials said. By then, the waiting list had nearly 4,200 residents.
Since January, the authority has issued 215 vouchers, officials said. About 2,700 people have been eliminated from the waiting list because they didn’t pass the background check or they didn’t respond to requests for information, they said, and the waiting list now is at about 1,500 people.