FACT SHEET: HUD Marks Important New Milestone in American Rescue Plan's Emergency Housing Voucher Program

October 13, 2022

"At HUD we are pleased that over 35,000 households have been averted from homelessness and have successfully leased their own rental housing thanks to our Emergency Housing Voucher Program. This marks a major step forward in our efforts to realize the ambitious goals we set when the program was established through the President's American Rescue Plan. We will continue to meet the challenge of addressing our nation's homelessness and affordability crises with the urgency they require through this program, our House America initiative, and all of the housing assistance we provide."
- HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge

Today, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia L. Fudge will travel to Atlanta, Georgia, where she will meet with several representatives from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) to discuss homeownership and asset building within their communities. Secretary Fudge will then travel to Columbus, Georgia to attend a meeting with NeighborWorks, where she will meet with residents to announce an important milestone in the Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) program: With this milestone, 50 percent of the total number of EHVs provided through President Biden's American Rescue Plan have been leased up.

The Emergency Housing Voucher program is the first-ever special purpose voucher program within HUD to address homelessness not specific to veterans. The program is leasing at a rate faster than any previous housing voucher program within HUD and is driving unprecedented collaboration among public housing agencies (PHAs), homeless services organizations, and victim services organizations to provide housing assistance to vulnerable populations, including individuals and families who are experiencing or at-risk of homelessness; fleeing, or attempting to flee, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human trafficking; or were recently homeless or have a high risk of housing instability. The EHV program is an anchor program of HUD's House America initiative in which HUD, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), and other federal agencies have enlisted leaders in 105 state and local communities to make specific commitments to re-house people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing.

The EHV program provides communities new flexibilities and resources to help individuals and families with higher barriers successfully use housing vouchers. This includes robust administrative funding and a new service fee that allows program administrators to pay for costs necessary to help families find and retain housing. PHAs are required to coordinate with their CoC partners to provide housing search assistance and can also use service fees for landlord incentives, tenants' security and utility deposits, and even for furniture and household goods, which are often a significant expense for families who are directly transitioning from homelessness.

HUD is taking aggressive action to ensure that more individuals and families can secure and retain homes. HUD and the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to build on this progress to make sure more households have a safe and stable place to call home. The Administration recognizes the importance of housing vouchers to securing affordable housing, and is fighting for an additional increase to the program. The President's Fiscal Year 2023 HUD Budget requests $1.6 billion for an additional 200,000 new housing vouchers.

Highlights to date include:

IMPROVING VOUCHER ISSUANCES AND UTILIZATION, WITH AN EMPHASIS ON THE MOST VULNERABLE HOUSEHOLDS

The EHV program has already helped over 35,000 households who were homeless, survivors of domestic violence, or otherwise at risk to afford a safe, stable place to call home. At the current rate - the fastest leasing rate of any previous HUD housing voucher program - the program is on track to reach full lease-up by the end of next year.

• All 613 EHV PHAs have executed a memorandum of understanding with a homeless service provider or victim service provider, and, at 50% utilized to date, the EHV program is leasing at a rate faster than any previous housing voucher program within HUD.
• To date, approximately 100 percent of EHVs are in use - either leased or currently issued. Over 35,000 households have been housed, while another 36,000 voucher holders are in the process of searching for a unit or completing the lease process.
• PHAs continue to issue roughly 700 EHVs per week, and the time for issuance to lease is averaging 77 days. Of the vouchers issued 180 or more days ago, about 57% have been housed. At this rate, the program is on track to reach full lease-up by the end of 2023.

CREATIVELY USING SERVICE FEES TO HELP HOUSE INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES

PHAs across the country are creatively and successfully using their service fees to help house individuals and families, including through landlord incentives, housing search services, and application fees and security deposit assistance. Examples:

• Housing Authority of Santa Barbara (California): The Housing Authority of Santa Barbara (HASB) - which has a 84% EHV utilization rate and has used 67% of its service fees - offers a $1,500 signing bonus to landlords leasing to an EHV family and a $2,000 security deposit for each unit leased to an EHV family. HASB established a Landlord Mitigation Fund that provides financial assistance to landlords to mitigate damages to units.
• Greenville Housing Authority (North Carolina): The Greenville Housing Authority (GHA) - which has a 96% EHV utilization rate and has used 59% of its service fees - provides a landlord leasing incentive that consists of $1,000 for a new landlord who has not previously participated as a landlord in a GHA program in the past 12 months and $250 for each additional unit leased, as well as a $500 one-time bonus for current landlords for the first unit leased and $250 for each additional unit leased to an EHV family. GHA also provides a Landlord Mitigation Fund that enables landlords to apply for up to $2,500 per unit for damages. Additionally, households may apply for application fee costs up to $50 and for security deposit assistance.
• San Diego Housing Commission (California): The San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC) - which has a 95% EHV utilization rate and has used 63% of its service fees - provides application fee assistance to EHV families, up to two times the contract rent in security deposits and an average of $100 in utility assistance per household, and "holding deposits" that are credited toward security deposit amounts upon approval of the rental application. SDHC also provides landlords renting to EHV recipients $500 for the first unit rented and $250 for each subsequent unit. SDHC hired full-time staff to serve as housing specialists/navigators. Staff members are specifically assigned to EHV families, facilitating landlord incentives, housing search services, service provider coordination, and rental assistance staff communication. Additionally, SDHC leverages funding from the City of San Diego Affordable Housing Fund to reserve vacancies while Housing Specialists identify candidate applicants and facilitate rental application submissions, process voucher documents, and execute the move-in processes. This Vacancy Loss Incentive serves as a benefit to give the Housing Specialists time to line up suitable tenant options while the owner is compensated for their collaboration with SDHC.

PROVIDING DIRECT SUPPORT AND LANDLORD ENGAGEMENT IN RESPONSE TO UTILIZATION CHALLENGES

From rising rental costs to difficulty finding landlords to the higher barriers to housing experienced by EHV households, the challenges around housing the most disadvantage are real. That is why HUD is proactively working with PHAs, providing direct support through technical assistance, engaging landlords, and providing other support and resources to address these challenges head on and ensure that more households can obtain decent, stable housing through the EHV program.

• The Department is preparing landlord symposiums in housing markets across the U.S. to encourage more landlord participation in HUD's housing voucher programs and to dispel myths and misconceptions of voucher-assisted households.
• HUD provides monthly office hours to discuss a wide range of topics related to EHV best practices. Recent office hours topics include serving survivors of domestic violence, serving returning citizens, and serving youth households. The August 9, 2022 event on serving returning citizens featured presentations from Philadelphia and Baltimore on partnerships and using service fees to effectively serve formerly incarcerated individuals.
• HUD has provided direct technical assistance to 90 communities, including San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Tucson/Pima County, New Orleans, and others, to expand understanding of the program and its flexibilities and to build coordinated landlord engagement approaches. Examples of the types of technical assistance (TA) provided include:
  • New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)/ New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (NYHPD) (New York) - HUD assigned TA to NYCHA and NYHPD to reduce bottlenecks in the referral process from the Continuum of Care (CoC) and other partner agencies. The TA provider worked closely with NYCHA and NYHPD to refine how applicants were guided through the system and provided helpful feedback on NYCHA's portal system to reduce wait times. The two PHAs have issued 7,345 EHVs as a result.
    • Regarding the benefits of EHV technical assistance, NYHPD stated: "Envisioning and building New York City's sweeping Emergency Housing Voucher initiative demanded we navigate a thousand complexities tied to launching a new program with a new set of partners. HUD's Technical Advisors assisted with devising solutions to help us deliver. Our TA partners brought housing groups together to plan through challenges; helped develop communications, training resources, and new media campaigns. Their support was crucial to shortening the learning curve as we worked to meet the needs of communities not historically given priority for federal vouchers. We look forward to continued collaboration to help New Yorkers navigate an especially competitive rental market."
  • Tucson and Pima County (Arizona) - HUD assigned TA to help develop and refine landlord incentive policies and landlord outreach. As a result, the PHAs have leased 127 families and 55 additional families are searching for housing.
• In response to the utilization challenges PHAs are experiencing in competitive rental markets across the country, HUD hosted a four-part EHV landlord engagement series. More information about the webinar series is available at www.hud.gov/ehv.

ADVANCING BEST PRACTICES AND ENGAGING PEOPLE WITH LIVED EXPERIENCE TO HELP MORE HOUSEHOLDS SECURE HOUSING

HUD is bringing together PHAs and people with lived experience to foster collaboration, address inequities, and strengthen support and resources to improve outcomes of the EHV program and other voucher programs administered by the Department.

• HUD accepted 10 EHV communities to participate in the first cohort of a Community of Practice focused on advancing equity in the EHV program. HUD plans to use this Community of Practice to draw upon the strengths of communities to foster and encourage resource sharing, innovative thinking, and connections among PHAs, while exploring inequalities within their existing systems and developing system adjustments to ensure efforts to advance equity throughout the EHV program.
• Earlier this year, HUD released the Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHV): A How-To Guide for Public Housing Agencies (www.hudexchange.info/news/emergency-housing-vouchers-a-how-to-guide-for-public-housing-agencies-now-available/) to provide an overview of EHV operating requirements, outline considerations for PHAs in the design of their EHV programs, and highlight best practices in program implementation.
• HUD's efforts around the EHV program are informing work around the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program - the federal government's major program for providing housing assistance to over 2.3 million American families - and other Special Purpose Voucher (SPV) programs. HUD will bring the innovative approach of the EHV program to these other voucher programs to improve housing outcomes for households across the U.S.
• King County Housing Authority and Seattle Housing Authority - After an initial slow start in issuances and utilization, the two public housing agencies in Seattle/King County are now leading the region in their lease-up of Emergency Housing Vouchers. At the time of this writing, King County Housing Authority has leased 88.71% of their 762 awarded EHVs and Seattle Housing Authority has leased 80% of their 498 EHVs. Both housing authorities and their referring partner, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, attribute this turn-around to improvements in coordination between the two PHAs and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, leading to an increase in the pace of referrals of people experiencing homelessness, as well as a more coordinated and centralized approach to landlord recruitment.

ENSURING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE EHV PROGRAM

HUD has prioritized informing the public on EHV leasing, issuances, and unit utilization to provide transparency and ensure accountability in the program.

• In 2021, HUD launched the Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) Data Dashboard to provide unprecedented transparency and accountability for this new special purpose voucher program. The dashboard provides updates (with potential delays as PHAs gather and submit data) on leasing, issuances, unit utilization, services fee spending, and information on voucher awards and funding by PHA. The dashboard showcases EHV data at the national, regional, field office, state, and PHA-level for ease of use by a variety of audiences. The dashboard is also a valuable tool for identifying communities that are facing challenges and that could benefit from additional assistance.

MAKING IT EASIER TO ACCESS AFFORDABLE HOUSING WITH VOUCHERS

The 2023 Fair Market Rents (FMRs), which HUD published on September 1 and which went into effect on October 1, will make it easier for voucher holders to lease in most markets. The new FMR levels will enable the voucher program to keep up with rent increases in the private market, particularly in areas with rapidly rising rents. These new FMRs will allow voucher holders to access and secure leases in more units so that they can benefit from the housing affordability and stability that vouchers provide. HUD's action on FMRs will improve the utilization of both the baseline vouchers and the supplemental vouchers created under the Biden-Harris Administration.

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