\t\t\t\t\tWhy this matters: <\/p>\n
A federal funding shortfall has left housing authorities and those receiving rental assistance scrambling to find alternative housing before the funds dry up starting in the fall of this year.<\/p>\n
\n Keep San Diego housing agencies\u2019 budgets and decisions in daylight\u2014support inewsource reporting. More than 650 San Diego households that were promised rental assistance through 2030 during the COVID-19 pandemic have to look for a new place to live because their federal funding has run out years ahead of schedule.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Emergency Housing Voucher program \u2013 which has helped tens of thousands of households nationwide escape or avoid homelessness \u2013 pays out $1.4 million in federal funding locally for monthly housing assistance across four housing authorities, the San Diego Housing Commission and agencies representing National City, Oceanside and San Diego County. The majority of the funds \u2013 nearly $1 million \u2013 are funneled through the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n The end of the program is the latest in a string of challenges that have pushed local housing authorities to make difficult cuts, including more than 30 layoffs at the city housing commission.<\/p>\n Housing authority officials told inewsource that as of late February less than 20% of the 650-plus affected households had an alternative affordable housing option lined up. That means 500-plus did not.<\/p>\n The shortfall has left housing authorities and those receiving the rental assistance scrambling to find alternative housing before the funds dry up starting in the fall of this year.<\/p>\n Natalie Raschke, who was homeless for two and a half years before getting a home with emergency housing vouchers in 2022, was furious about the funds running out. She declined another kind of voucher in San Ysidro because she didn\u2019t want to move her family there. She was offered a project-based voucher that provides rental assistance for specific units, unlike emergency housing vouchers or housing choice vouchers, known as Section 8 assistance.<\/p>\n \u201cWe get into this housing and you live a year with this anxiety because you\u2019re waiting for that ball to drop,\u201d she said. \u201cNow look. Here we are. My kids don\u2019t even really know or understand this is happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey want me to tell my f\u2014\u2014 kids we\u2019re about to be homeless?\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s touchy. I\u2019m in a touchy place.\u201d<\/p>\n The program used up its fixed budget years earlier than expected due to increasing rental costs and income stagnation, which meant the vouchers had to cover more of the rent.<\/p>\n That created a cliff for tens of thousands of families nationwide who used vouchers for stability.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cStopping support could have a real detrimental impact on the overall rates of homelessness,\u201d said Christi Economy, a researcher at UC Berkeley\u2019s Terner Center for Housing Innovation who studied the program nationally.\u00a0 \u201cI think, unfortunately, the risk of returning to homelessness is quite real for a lot of these households.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suggested housing authorities move people from emergency housing vouchers to housing choice vouchers, but that hasn\u2019t been an easy fix.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey made this suggestion and guidance without providing any funding to actually accomplish those transitions,\u201d Gilberto Vera, director of the housing justice collaborative at the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, said. \u201cIndependent of that, housing authorities like the city of San Diego were already projecting budget deficits.\u201d<\/p>\n Closed Section 8 waitlists<\/p>\n Those financial pressures forced housing officials to stop adding people to ballooning Section 8 voucher waitlists early this year. Still, San Diego County moved emergency housing voucher holders to the top of the waitlists.<\/p>\n County officials gave 50 new housing choice vouchers to emergency housing voucher holders, the first time they have pulled from the waitlist since July 2022. That waitlist has grown to include 124,000 people.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, San Diego\u2019s position is not a unique one,\u201d Economy said. \u201cMost of the EHVs are in public housing authorities that have maxed out their budgets,\u201d adding that many have years-long and closed waitlists.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe wind-down of the EHV program poses a set of impossible trade-offs for public housing agencies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n People who were formerly unhoused for years are coming to Interfaith Family Services CEO Greg Anglea\u2019s team \u201ctotally distraught\u201d that the vouchers that have given them stable housing are ending. The funds are set to expire for the city of San Diego, Oceanside and National City in the fall while the county housing authority has said its funding will last until February 2027.<\/p>\n In order to transition 50 households, the county will exhaust its reserve funds for section 8 housing choice vouchers this year. Reserves dropped from $9.6 million in 2024 to $2.5 million in 2025. The 50 selected out of the county\u2019s 138 emergency housing voucher households were those who had been on the program the longest. That leaves 88 households searching for options.<\/p>\n The county is also leaning on project-based vouchers, one of the only affordable housing options that is currently expanding, with the recent opening of two affordable housing communities<\/a> in Fallbrook at Mirasol Meadows and San Marcos at Villa Serena, Nine of the newly available units were given priority for emergency housing voucher holders.\u00a0<\/p>\n HUD allocations haven\u2019t been released for 2026. If they come in lower than expected, the authority could end up in a budget shortfall without the cushion of reserve funds. In the case of a shortfall, HUD will usually cover additional funds needed but restrict program operations.<\/p>\n The uncertainty has led county officials to be cautious with its leases and expenditures.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to make sure that we\u2019re living within the means,\u201d said Nick Martinez, assistant director at the County of San Diego Housing and Community Development Services.<\/p>\n
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