Room for Hope on Low-Income Rental Subsidies

For the first time in more than four years, the Orange County Housing Authority will accept applications for a low-income housing subsidy program, a rare opportunity for the poor to get in line for help with rent payments in a county that has the nation’s worst shortage of affordable housing.

But the window allowing low-income county residents to apply for the federal Section 8 subsidy program will swing open only briefly, from March 1 to March 15, officials said.

The Housing Authority has declined to accept new applications for Section 8 subsidies since November 1991, when the backlog stood at more than 13,000 people. The decision to close the list then was an attempt to prevent unwarranted hope among the needy people the program serves, said Dhongchai Pusavat, the county’s housing and redevelopment director.

But with the list now winnowed to about 1,000 people--through a massive purge of outdated names and by gradually serving those who remained--housing officials say they are ready to accept new applications.

“We are very excited to be able to do this,” Pusavat said. “People call every day to ask about Section 8, so this will be very welcome news for a lot of people.”

Details of the application process were still being worked out Friday, but the housing director said requests received between March 1 and March 15 will be placed into a container, then drawn out, lottery-style, and assigned numbers on the waiting list. The application forms will be available beginning March 1 at the Housing Authority office in Santa Ana, and at most city housing and redevelopment departments throughout the county.

The rental assistance program known simply as Section 8 was named for the portion of the law that created it in the Federal Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. It subsidizes rents for households earning less than half their community’s median annual income, or $29,550 a year for a family of four in Orange County.

Those who qualify will pay no more than 30% of their annual incomes in rent, with the federal government picking up the rest, up to a limit set by federal rules.

Launched by President Richard Nixon, Section 8 was seen as an alternative to conventional public housing and was designed to give low-income families the freedom to choose their own homes with rental assistance from the government. But demand for the help has far exceeded the supply, in Orange County and elsewhere.

Orange County has the nation’s most severe shortage of low-income housing, according to a 1995 study by the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The study, which analyzed housing data from the nation’s 44 largest metropolitan areas, found five times as many low-income renters here as there are apartments they can afford.

About 6,650 Orange County households currently receive Section 8 subsidies through the county program, Pusavat said. He said he expects that at least 4,000 to 5,000 people will apply for the subsidies in March, and that about 1,200 of those will be helped in the next year. The rest may have to wait for several years, he said.

“This is really a golden opportunity that some people can come in almost immediately,” he said. “We have to make some attempts to outreach in the next few weeks to make sure this goes to the people who really need it.”

Already, news that the county’s Section 8 program will accept new applications has been greeted with cheers by those who work with the poor and homeless.

“That is going to be really exciting to a lot of families,” said Margie Wakeham, executive director of Irvine Temporary Housing, a nonprofit agency that tries to prevent homelessness. “Most of the people we see have lost their housing or can’t find any housing because it’s so darned expensive here. This will help a lot of those people.”

Tim Shaw, who heads Orange County’s Homeless Issues Task Force, said he too was happy to learn that the list would be reactivated. “But before we all get too excited about it, we need to remember that this simply means they’re opening a waiting list,” Shaw said.

“The folks [at the Housing Authority] are to be commended for making the effort to do this. But it’s a little like a restaurant announcing that it’s going to open, but it’s really to make people stand in line,” he said.

Allen Baldwin, executive director of the Orange County Community Housing Corp., characterized as “remarkable” the decision to open the list, given the number of years that have passed.

But Baldwin said he believed the list should stay open all the time. “I think a waiting list of five or six years is not giving people false hope,” he said. “It’s hope. And without the list open, there’s no hope at all.”

The Garden Grove Housing Authority, one of three other housing authorities in the county, is likely to open its Section 8 waiting list along with the county’s, housing officials there said. The city’s list, which has been closed since 1991, stands now at about 2,000, they said.

But the lists in Anaheim and Santa Ana, which have both been closed about a year, will not reopen for the time being.

“We’re not opening only because it would be an injustice to give people expectations that they’d be served in any reasonable amount of time,” said Linda Foster, assisted housing supervisor for the Santa Ana Housing Authority. About 6,200 households are on that city’s Section 8 waiting list, she said.

Pusavat said a spot on the county’s waiting list makes residents eligible to receive either Section 8 “certificates” or “vouchers.” There is a slight difference between the two programs.

Under the certificate program, the Housing Authority handles the lease and tenants pay no more than 30% of their income toward rent, which is established by guidelines set by the federal government.

Under the voucher program, housing officials pay a set amount to the tenant, who then shops for a unit and negotiates the rent with the landlord.

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Housing Help

The Orange County Housing Authority will select families who qualify for federal programs that provide rental assistance and put them on a waiting list. Those selected pay no more than 30% of their annual incomes in rent, with the government picking up the rest. Who qualifies and how to apply:

ELIGIBILITY

* Annual income must be no more than 50% of the median income for Orange County residents. For example, an individual living alone may make no more than $20,700 per year; annual income for a family of four may not exceed $29,550.

* Residents of other counties may apply, but Orange County residents have priority.

SELECTION

Completed applications will be placed into a drum and selected, lottery-style, to determine order on the waiting list. Qualifiers will be notified by mail of their waiting-list number.

APPLICATION

Residents should apply at the Orange County Housing Authority office or city housing and community development department offices countywide. Garden Grove residents should apply in their own city. Applications available March 1-15 at:

Orange County Housing Authority

1770 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, CA 92706

Information: (714) 480-2900

Source: Orange County Housing Authority