PORTLAND, Ore. — The lobby inside Street Roots was bustling Monday morning as homeless people lined up to apply for a Section 8 housing voucher. The waitlist for the program opened this week for the first time in nearly seven years.
“It's a big day today,” said DeVon Pouncey, who runs the vendor program at Street Roots, a homeless services nonprofit and newspaper located in the heart of Old Town. “This morning we started helping folks to get signed up.”
Down the street at Blanchet House, another homeless nonprofit and transitional housing program, case managers helped people like Chris Harvey apply for a voucher online.
“It can be daunting at times,” said Harvey, who lives at Blanchet House and used an iPad to sign up Monday morning.
Harvey was one of 5,000 people to apply in just the first few hours of its opening.
A Section 8 voucher is a form of federal rent assistance meant to help people who make at or below 50% of the area’s median income. In Multnomah County that’s roughly $39,000 for an individual and $56,000 for a family of four.
“We know that the first day is always going to be the busiest. Traffic will spike applications, so we do expect that to taper off in the next few days,” explained Ian Davie, chief operating officer at Home Forward.
Home Forward is the housing authority serving Multnomah County, and manages the Section 8 vouchers. The last time their waitlist opened seven years ago, 17,000 people applied. This week they’re expecting more than 20,000 applications.
“Our goal is to start pulling those names later in the summer and work as quickly as we can to get them into people's hands,” said Davie.
Home Forward has a hotline for people to call who don’t have access to computers. That number is 503-415-8050, and it’s open this week daily from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“I think it's just one of those things where spreading the word is really, really important,” said Pouncey.
This year, 2,000 people will be picked at random for the waitlist. It could still take up to three years before they get their voucher.
“There's definitely plenty more work to do up top for us to be able to create more housing opportunities for our neighbors out on the streets,” Pouncey said.
It’s a message that's been realized in Washington, D.C. Announced Monday, nearly $1 million is coming to Oregon for housing vouchers — about $800,000 going to programs in Portland. It's a needed boost. Back in 2017 and 2018, Multnomah County stopped handing out vouchers to those on the waitlist because they didn't have enough funding.
“The demand is a reflection of the need. We know that for every one housing choice voucher there are four or five other families that don't have access to that,” Davie said.
It’s a harsh reality that homeless people like Harvey know all too well.
“I have to take care of myself now. I can't worry about five, seven, eight years down the road. I need to worry about now. I need a place today,” he said.
The deadline to submit an application through Home Forward is at 11:59 p.m. Pacific on Friday, June 9.