Overview:
Until the last 18 months, tenants lucky enough to win the housing choice voucher lottery had just a one-in-three chance of finding housing before it expired, due in part to Fresno’s increasingly competitive rental market. Two new programs have helped improve those chances, but one of them is soon to expire.
Some cash-strapped Fresnans lucky enough to receive federal assistance have had an easier time finding housing in recent months, but that luck might not last much longer.
The redemption rate of the Housing Choice Voucher Program, formerly known as Section 8, has improved with the introduction of new initiatives by the Fresno Housing Authority.
The Housing Choice Voucher Program is a federal rental assistance policy that subsidizes the monthly payments for qualifying low-income residents. The program has been running since 1974, and is run by local housing authorities.
Before the summer of 2022, just 34% of voucher recipients were able to secure housing before it expired.
Recent data from the housing authority show that the number improved by the end of 2022 to 40% in the city and 42% in the county, and then grew even higher by the end of 2023, with a redemption rate of 57% in the city and 64% in the county.
The improvements meant that more voucher holders–often poor and lower-income families–were able to secure housing at a price that is often out of their reach.
Fresno Housing Authority CEO Tyrone Roderick Williams credited the increased success of voucher holders primarily to two major changes by the housing authority — the introduction of the Voucher Incentive Program in 2023 and the Department of Housing and Urban Development increasing the value of each voucher in October 2022.
“It has been a game-changer,” Williams said. “I think the combination of us being able to help voucher holders pay more, with our outreach to landlords, has allowed us to experience an increase in voucher utilization that we’ve not seen before.”
The program offered landlords cash incentives to accept more housing vouchers. The California Apartment Association, a landlord trade association, applauded the initiative.
“The California Apartment Association — strongly supports more funding for rental assistance programs and is committed to working with cities, counties, and housing authorities to expand these programs and reduce barriers that may prevent a housing provider from accepting a resident with a voucher,” said Greg Terzakis, CAA Senior Vice President of local public affairs in an emailed statement to Fresnoland.
“This is why CAA has supported the Voucher Incentive Program since its inception and has been partnering with the City of Fresno and Fresno Housing to inform our members of this program,” the statement said.
But despite growing momentum amid California’s lingering housing crisis, supporters fear the program could soon vanish.
Landlord cash incentives could soon dry up
The cash incentives for landlords are scheduled to sunset at the end of the year, with an option to extend it through 2025 pending city manager approval.
The voucher incentive program was one of many policies created by Mayor Jerry Dyer to help fight the local affordable housing crisis. It was initially funded with $1 million of Fresno’s American Rescue Plan funds and was set to run from 2023-2024. The ARPA funds, however, are a one-time source of funds for the city, and they’ll likely face issues securing additional resources for the program as City Hall faces a projected $37 million budget deficit heading into the next fiscal year.
Williams supports continuing the landlord cash incentives after this year, but acknowledged that the housing authority and the city created the program with the understanding that long term funding was anything but guaranteed.
“We went into this understanding that there was no long-term commitment by the city or the city council,” Williams said. “We were taking advantage of funds that were currently available to see what we could do to increase the number of voucher holders who could find landlords.
“I have not seen a reason why at this point, if the funds were available, why we wouldn’t seek to continue the program,” Williams added. “But we didn’t go in with an understanding that this would be a long-term funded opportunity.”
HUD puts more money behind Housing Choice Vouchers
The housing authority also improved their redemption rate by reaching out to HUD to increase the amount of money voucher holders could have subsidized. In 2022, HUD allowed the housing authority to pay voucher holders an amount equal to 111-120% of fair market rent. HUD’s typical payment standards are 90-110%.
Increasing the subsidy rate would mean that voucher holders could shop for housing units priced above fair market rent. Though that may not help alleviate the climbing costs of the rental housing market, Williams said he felt the housing authority had a responsibility to do what they could to make sure voucher holders could find housing in a competitive open market.
“HUD gave us the ability to request that waiver because across the country, housing authorities were running into this challenge of rents increasing at a higher rate than tenants were able to pay,” Williams said. “HUD recognized that to be successful with the voucher program, it could not remain at the same level.
“For us, we want to throw everything we have at trying to expand housing options…we have to do what we can to do the best we can to help those who are most in need, and that’s why we chose to go that way,” Williams said.
Finding housing is still not easy
But increasing the money that voucher holders can spend is far from a guarantee that they’ll be able to redeem their voucher on time. Voucher holders are given at least 60 days to find, apply and move into their new housing unit.
That can be difficult in a city like Fresno — where the housing market has become competitive and rental rates have climbed exponentially. A study done by Forbes found Fresno’s vacancy rate at 2.9% in 2023, less than the United States Census Bureau’s reported state vacancy rate of 4.4% and national rental vacancy rate of 6.6% for 2023.
It was even more difficult for people like Michael Yamamura, whose family up until recently used a housing voucher to afford their home. Yamamura, 20, had to help his family find housing and pay bills at a young age since his mother came down with an illness. In an already competitive housing market, it was difficult for him to find housing that met his family’s needs.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Yamamura said. “We didn’t find a place for a while. I think it was about a year and a half later that we managed to find an apartment.”
When he learned about the old 34% redemption rate, he said that it was really “sucky” but not surprising.
“I didn’t think it’d be that high, personally,” Yamamura said.
He remembered the difficulty involved in the process of finding housing before his family’s voucher expired.
“We were lucky enough to get an extension [from our initial deadline],” Yamamura said. “So we still kept looking and looking and the [new] deadline came and we still couldn’t find a place and we got another extension. You know, we’re looking and looking and the final deadline is coming, but we managed to find a home.
“A lot of people have really specific needs that go into their living situation and finding a suitable place.”
The process is even harder for people who aren’t native English speakers, or lack computer access or skills and simply feel intimidated by the process.
Paying Her, program manager at Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries, helps out many of the refugees seeking housing in Fresno. Though FIRM does what it can to make sure the applicants are primed for acceptance, it’s still sometimes not enough.
“These individuals, even though they can speak a little bit of English, are not able to navigate the portal in the [housing authority] site,” Her said. “We’re talking about how hard it is for individuals to even remember their password. To even have a working existing email…teach them how to get comfortable with having to open up their email and look at it.”
Finding housing in the open market also means that apartment hunting residents are at the mercy of a landlord to accept their application. Some landlords have discriminated against voucher holders by improperly scaling income requirements for voucher holders and advertising a preference for tenants applying without a voucher. Though landlord discrimination against prospective tenants is illegal through the Fair Housing Act, lower-income residents still struggle in ultra-competitive markets like Fresno.
Robert Cortez, an attorney with Central California Legal Services, represents many voucher holders who encounter issues before and after finding housing. He appreciates what housing vouchers do for low-income residents but also acknowledges its shortcomings.
“If the choice is having the Housing Choice Voucher program and the other choice is nothing, I would take the program,” Cortez said. “But there’s a lot of room for improvement.
“What I prefer is public housing, that’s what I would prefer, owned and operated either by the Housing Authority or by some other government agency…without motive for profit,” Cortez said. “If the landlord has a motive for profit, we get the whole scenario where they’re willing to take that Housing Choice Voucher in a down market because it guarantees rent, but they’re unwilling in an up market, because it limits their rent.
“They’re in the business of making a profit. And I think that’s where a lot of the problem is.”
Every housing authority only has a fixed number of vouchers that they can disperse through a local community, and that number is almost always dwarfed by the number of applicants a local housing authority receives.
Fresno Housing received over 24,000 applicants for their voucher interest list in June 2023, according to a housing authority representative. The total number of vouchers they have is around 13,000, according to their website. Availability opens based on current voucher holders leaving the program and vacating their spots.
Most housing authorities have followed HUD’s recommendation to create a lottery system for voucher applicants instead of distributing them on a first-come, first-serve basis. The system is supposed to help create equity for a level of demand these local housing authorities aren’t equipped to handle.
“In many circumstances, a lottery or random selection can help a PHA ensure that its selection practices comply with all applicable fair housing and civil rights requirements by ensuring an equal opportunity for similarly eligible applicants to be selected,” reads HUD’s an excerpt from HUD’s Public Housing Occupancy guidebook.
“HUD encourages PHAs to use this method unless the PHA has a specific reason to consider first-come-first-serve to be a more appropriate method for its specific circumstances,” the guidebook reads.
Funding questions are the ‘most significant challenge’
Andrew Aurand is the senior vice president for research at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. He, too, appreciates the help that cash incentives for landlords and tenants provide families, but said cities should also be doing more to increase their affordable housing stock.
“These landlord services and these incentive programs can help but you still need more housing…that’s modestly priced,” Aurand said. “You sort of need both the supply side and the cooperation of landlords…you really need both to come together.
“The [housing choice vouchers] really is an important program. I mean it helps like 2 million families afford their housing,” Aurand said. “I would say probably the most significant challenge is that it’s just so severely underfunded. There’s so many families on a waiting list for a voucher…We know that nationally speaking only about one out of every four eligible families receive housing assistance of any kind, and it’s just because we so severely underfund our programs.”