Los Angeles stops accepting the new candidates for section 8

The housing authority of the city of Los Angeles has ceased to accept the new candidates for the vouchers of section 8 who subsidize rent for tens of thousands of tenants in the city.

The local authority, funded by the federal government, said that it had taken precedence because it does not expect the congress to provide enough money this year to maintain current operations.

For the moment, the Housing Authority has only interrupted new requests. Those who currently have a voucher in article 8 are not affected and their rent subsidies will continue, although it is possible that certain families may possibly be eliminated.

“We are trying to make sure that we do everything possible to prevent it from taking place,” said the CEO of the housing authority, Lourdes Castro Ramirez.

The program of article 8, named after a section of the Federal Housing Act, is one of the most powerful tools in the United States government to maintain affordable rental housing and to fight overcrowding and homeless.

It is funded by federal dollars but administered by local authorities. In Los Angeles, some 60,000 families use section 8 vouchers to pay rent, generally to private owners.

Tenants generally pay 30% of their income for rent, the federal subsidy constituting the rest of the payment to the owner.

Since the rent tends to increase each year, the housing authorities must see their budgets increase by a certain amount each year to maintain current operations.

But funding from the federal government is expected to expire on March 14, and the Trump administration and the Congress Republicans seek to reduce government size.

Carlos Van natter, head of the section 8 program of La Housing Authority, said that the proposals of the Chamber and the Senate should not be enough to follow the obligations, which leads to expected annual deficits from almost $ 48 million to $ 114 million.

The housing authorities across the country are faced with similar problems, but the Los Angeles financing problem was aggravated because last year, under the Biden administration, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development resumed $ 38 million in reserves of the Authority to help finance local agencies elsewhere in the country which then experienced deficits, said Van Natter.

HUD did not immediately respond to a request for comments, but Van natter said that his agency said that the worst projections from the congress could demand that it cancel the vouchers of 6,000 households that are currently using them.

Van natter said that his agency was working with the federal agency to minimize the impact on tenants and owners and decided to suspend new candidates as the first step to start reducing its deficit, although it has not had an estimate on the amount of action that action will save.

There are 2,900 households in the middle of the request process of article 8 which will now not receive good, as well as 400 other people who applied to several other small programs for the homeless that the housing authority also stopped.

And 24,000 additional households on the waiting list of section 8 cannot go ahead in the process.

Some good programs have not been interrupted, including one specifically for homeless veterans, as well as a special type of section 8 that can only be used in specific properties.

People with a good traditional section 8 who have not yet found room to live will not see any change either and can continue to look with their subsidy.

Castro Ramirez called on Congress to provide more resources so that the authority can reopen requests and not risk new cuts.

“The economic and human impact of these financing gaps cannot be overestimated,” she said. “Los Angeles could see increased instability in housing, affecting thousands of families, owners and wider communities.”