1 week Ago By Jonathan Bach
Portland-area housing authority Home Forward on Tuesday will open applications for its Housing Choice Voucher Program and open the waitlist for more than a dozen low-income apartment complexes. The waiting lists will open from 9 a.m.
Tuesday through 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 21, Home Forward said.
The waiting list for the housing voucher program, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, last opened June 2023 .
Before that it had been nearly seven years. Vouchers help low-income tenants pay rent. Home Forward said it has to maintain a waitlist because demand is so high for it and the 13 low-income properties for which it is opening the doors.
Up to 3,000 new housing voucher program applicants will be added randomly through a lottery system, the housing authority said. Those who make the list are then awarded vouchers in the order they joined on a rolling basis, though they must go through a screening process once they’re selected from the list to ensure they’re eligible. “As rents have skyrocketed in Multnomah County and across the country, we want to encourage anyone who thinks — or is not sure — they qualify to apply beginning April 15,” Home Forward CEO Ivory Mathews said in a news release.
“Together with our partners, we want to make sure every person who wants to apply for the programs can do so.” The application period comes as the Trump administration seeks to make massive cuts across the federal government, including at HUD . Home Forward operations chief Ian Davie said the housing authority hadn’t seen any effects from the federal cost-cutting so far but “is continuing to monitor events at the federal level and provide informed and accurate information about impacts on our community.
” Davie said no policy changes have yet affected eligibility for federal rent aid. “While we have raised concerns about staffing at HUD, we are confident we will continue to receive support for our efforts to get these critical resources to our community,” Davie added. “If changes occur, we’ll be sure to update our partners and the public.
” According to Home Forward, residents who earn less than half the area median income, or up to $5,170 a month for a four-person household, may be eligible. More information about eligibility criteria, the properties and the waitlists is available at https://www.homeforward.
org/waitlists/ . -- Jonathan Bach covers housing and real estate. Reach him by email at jbach@oregonian.
com or by phone at 503-221-4303. Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today .
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