Applicants approved for Section 8 vouchers face potentially months long wait for housing
With more than 100,000 Section 8 vouchers at its disposal at any given time, there are a lot of questions about why it takes Los Angeles County so long to find housing for approved applicants and how that might contribute to the homelessness crisis.
The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in LA is nearly $3,000 a month, though what the federal government will pay for that same apartment under Section 8 is far less.
Experts said there are not enough affordable rentals to go around and not enough landlords willing to open their doors to Section 8 tenants.
Fernando Gomez's path to homelessness began with the loss of his mother.
"I never intended to be homeless. I don't think anyone does."
The East LA college student lost his job when he left the state to attend his mother's funeral, and then he lost his apartment. Gomez ended up sleeping on a bench at the El Monte Bus Station.
"I would stay in front of the bus station where the cameras were, but it was scary because I had my school laptop with me and my schoolbooks."
Social workers eventually got the college student into a motel, and then, in November, he got word that he qualified for a Section 8 emergency housing voucher.
"I felt like everything would be solved and I could finally focus on my schoolwork," he told CBSLA.
Instead, Gomez experienced weeks and then months of waiting.
"It's like an emotional game. I have kind of given up again," he said at the time.
Carissa Ciampaglia, with Homeless Outreach Program Integrative Care Services and Gomez's social worker, said that getting people into housing can be a challenge.
"It can be hard to find housing for anyone, for a variety of reasons."
Ciampaglia said it's not unusual for the process to take months, between the time that someone is accepted into the Section 8 voucher program to when they actually get a permanent roof over their head.
"One of the issues that comes up most commonly is a low credit score," she said.
A poor credit score is not at all unusual for those who are working poor or struggling with homelessness. To make matters even more difficult, landlords also tend to want a stable employment history.
"If they have any kind of background, anything that could come up, a felony or even misdemeanor, that can get in the way. Sometimes, they have been in the system and they are pigeonholed as a type of person," Ciampaglia said.
The county of LA has about 100,000 Section 8 vouchers available at any given time, and this summer, the county received an additional 7,000 emergency vouchers under the American Rescue Plan.
Emilio Salas, who is with the LA County Development Authority, said there is simply not enough housing to go around.
"So, there's already a scarcity of rental units available, when you then consider they are competing against renters who have a stable job, great credit history and rental history. Our clients may have evictions on their records, may not be stably employed, may have mental health issues. So, from a property owners perspective, they may be much more hesitant," Salas told CBSLA.
There are incentives for for landlords to rent to Section 8 tenants, such as secure rent guaranteed by the federal government, an upfront signing bonus of $2,500 and up to $5,000 in reimbursement for repairs and renovations, but that's often still not enough.
"One of the things we are experiencing right now in light of the eviction moratorium, some aren't interested in any kind of government program. They feel burned and resentful," said Salas.
Even with skyrocketing rents over the last two years, up until a few weeks ago, the most a Section 8 landlord could receive for a two-bedroom unit in LA County was $2,450. The county just got permission to bump it up to $2,700, but that's still not enough.
"It has not kept pace in the sense that what's happening on the streets, those rents are definitely outpacing what that payment standard is set at," Salas said.
As for Gomez, he did finally get an apartment, almost four months after he received his voucher. He admits that he was about ready to give up, but with a place to now call his own, he said his dream is to transfer to the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, to study law.
"I want to help people who live in LA, in the same situation as I am," Gomez said.
Section 8 was originally meant to give people access to modest neighborhoods with good schools, but at the rate its paying, experts said recipients are almost always forced into areas with extreme poverty, where schools are struggling, all of which creates a cycle of poverty that is very hard to overcome.
