Alecia Benson cried tears of joy Friday when she thought her number was called to receive a Housing Choice Voucher from the Chattanooga Housing Authority.
“I was sleeping in my truck,” she said at the CHA office, her face twitching with excitement only seconds after holding one of 200 numbers drawn during a CHA lottery for the vouchers.
Then she returned to her seat and learned the truth — it was her friend Camillia Lee who won the voucher, not her.
Benson realized she would spend another night in her truck, sleeping near a Walmart.
“Where else will I go?” she asked, this time through tears. “There is no other option.”
Benson, a disabled 52-year-old single woman, went from being one of 200 potential voucher holders to being among the 5,100 people still waiting for housing.
The vouchers use government money to pay for a market-rate single-family home or apartment.
Lee and Benson apparently turned in their applications and received their voucher tickets at the same time, said Tammie Reeves, CHA’s Housing Choice Voucher director. Although Benson held ticket 0309 at the drawing, it was Lee’s name on that application, and Benson’s ticket — 0308 — was not called.
Reeves said CHA officials anticipated such mix-ups and specified in the lottery guidelines that the ticket that matched the name on the application would determine who received the voucher.
“Per lottery guidelines, we have to go by the ticket that was attached to the application, which was Ms. Lee’s ticket,” Reeves said.