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The Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHV) program, introduced by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 2021, was designed as a post-pandemic rapid response tool to keep people experiencing housing instability in their homes. A number of factors were permitted for the approval of such vouchers, including homelessness risk, attempting to flee domestic violence or stalking or those who became recently homeless.
Roughly 70,000 such vouchers were distributed by HUD as part of this program, but funding lapses will bring as many as 60,000 of those vouchers to a premature end next year, at least four years before the program’s originally scheduled lapse in 2030.
According to HUD, the allocated $5 billion will run out ahead of schedule, and a department spokesperson told the Washington Post that the blame rests with the Biden administration.
“Due to rapidly increasing inflation and housing costs during the Biden administration, HUD estimates that funding for [emergency housing vouchers] will only cover such costs through 2026,” the spokesperson told the outlet on Tuesday. While the same statement said that HUD will attempt to seek out “additional options” for people served by the program, it did not specify what was on the table.
The program was implemented by one of former President Joe Biden’s signature pieces of legislation, the American Rescue Plan Act, which was passed in response to the ongoing economic turmoil stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The law allocated $5 billion for the program, but the additional scrutiny of assistance programs since the inauguration of President Donald Trump has led to a wholesale reappraisal of many government assistance and subsidy programs. HUD, however, attributes the funding lapse more specifically to cost increases that took place during the Biden years.
News of the impending end of the program rattled communities across the country. In March, a letter from HUD to local public housing authorities (PHAs) had advised them that while some additional cash could keep the program running into next year, they should proceed with “the expectation that no additional funding from HUD will be forthcoming,” according to a copy of the letter shared by California-focused news outlet CalMatters.
Lisa Jones, CEO of the San Diego Housing Commission, told that outlet in March that there is likely enough funding to supply the city’s 400 EHV recipients with assistance through December. The outlet previously cited HUD data showing that more than 15,000 EHV recipients resided in California alone. Speaking to the Post on Tuesday, Jones revised the figure upward to 460 impacted households who would lose access to their vouchers beginning next summer.
The loss of funding also endangers the 892 EHV recipients in the state of Colorado with potential homelessness, according to Colorado Newsline. A spokesperson for the Colorado Division of Housing (DOH), Shannon Gray, told that outlet that the division is concerned about nonrenewal of the program’s funding.
“Should the funding for this program end, many participants will go back to the dangerous living situations they were in,” she said.
In King County, Washington — home to the city of Seattle — local reporting by the Seattle Times stated that 1,300 EHV recipients would be impacted, with a leader at the Seattle Housing Authority saying that it was working on ways to “mitigate” the impact that the lapse would have on residents. The King County Housing Authority (KCHA) told the Times it has enough funding to support the more than 700 EHVs it directly manages through the end of next year.
In Ohio, an estimated 1,100 residents receive EHVs, according to a local ABC News affiliate in Cleveland. Local housing advocates in Indiana are concerned about the loss of the program according to March reporting by local outlet MirrorIndy, compounded by issues that led to a federal takeover of the Indianapolis Housing Agency (IHA) last year.
Local reporting late last month by the Utah News Dispatch estimated that 281 EHV recipients will be impacted by the program’s end in that state should no additional funding be infused into it.
