Housing Choice Voucher use continues to climb

More than 95 percent of available vouchers now in use by low-income households in Seattle

SEATTLE—March 1, 2007—Nearly 8,000 low-income households within the City of Seattle are now leasing their housing with rental assistance from the Seattle Housing Authority, using a Housing Choice Voucher.

Several years ago, because of uncertainty over the funding of this program (also known as Section 8), the Housing Authority slowed the issuance of vouchers in order to safeguard funding for current voucher holders.

"We revised our policies to stretch the available subsidy and then made it our goal to serve as many people as we could and get vouchers into their hands as quickly as possible," said Lisa Cipollone-Wolters, SHA's director of Housing Advocacy and Rental Assistance. "One of our strategic plan goals is to make sure our vouchers serve as many people as possible."

After opening the Section 8 waiting list last spring, SHA staff made a special effort to bring in applicants from the new waiting list and help them to use their vouchers quickly. Many staff members volunteered to work overtime on Saturdays in order to move applicants quickly through the process.

"We could not have achieved this goal without the extraordinary efforts of PorchLight staff and the cooperation of our low-income housing partners," noted Cipollone-Wolters. "Although our lease up rate has now slowed, we hope to see as many of our vouchers as possible in the hands of households who need them by the end of 2007."

Seattle Housing is authorized to issue up to 8,309 vouchers for use in Seattle. At the same time, budget authority for that number of vouchers is a fixed amount, as determined by HUD. As SHA approaches 100 percent utilization of the authorized vouchers, the agency must be careful not to exceed its budget authority, since HUD no longer makes adjustments in budget authority to account for such variances. In order to approach 100 percent utilization, SHA has brought the average cost per voucher down over the past couple of years.