The goal of the Columbia Housing Authority (CHA) is to provide affordable housing to low and moderate income people. Two programs allows CHA to accomplish this goal: the Public Housing Program and the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCV) commonly referred to as Section 8.
Nancy Stoudenmire, CHA Director of Human Resources, Planning & Special Projects, tells SC Public Radio, the loss of 176 units of CHA housing, during the flood, is one factor affecting the availability of affordable housing in the area.
CHA is the third oldest housing authority in the country. It’s first, low-income rent housing project, University Terrance, opened for occupancy August 1, 1937. Today, the agency serves about 20,000 people in Richland County, by providing rent assistance in the amount of $20 million annually.
4,000 Section 8 vouchers are administered each month. The program offers rental assistance to persons with low-income who wish to live in homes in the private rental market, but cannot afford market rental rates. Participants pay 30% of their adjusted gross income for rent and utilities. The Housing Authority Assistance Payments Program subsidizes the balance of rent for the property owner.
At the end of July, Stoudenmire said there were 150 vouchers on the streets of Richland County and she would soon release more.
“The terrible thing is I’m going to be releasing another 250 vouchers next month. We know that we’re having a problem with the 150, and now we got another 150 that we’re going to be releasing.”
Whitney Spry, 28, is the mother of three boys. The Richland County resident said she received her voucher in February and has been looking for a home ever since.
“We found one [a house] two days ago and we had to turn it in, in order to see if it’s affordable and to schedule the inspection.”
Spry said finding a place was has been very hard. Twice before, she said she found a house, but the applications were denied because one house didn’t pass HUD’s safety and hazard inspection and the other was out of her price range. Spry said, this time, her voucher expires August 5.
Spry said she spent most of her search time riding around the city after work, looking for available houses.
“A lot of places that accept the vouchers don’t advertise online.”
UPDATE: Months of looking for an affordable home finally comes to an end for Richland County resident.
The above screenshot is of a page from SCHousingsearch.com, the website CHA refers its clients to help search for a home. Voucher holders can customize their search by the number of bedrooms, baths, price range and zip code.
A search for a two or three bedroom, one and a half bath dwelling, with a rent range of $500 to $800 (in 10 zip codes on the Columbia area) yielded a listing of 44 properties. Thirteen had availability, 23 had a waiting lists and the remaining eight either had upcoming available dates or outdated available dates.
Clients have 60 days to use their voucher. Stoudenmire said a 30-day extension may be granted, but sometimes that is not enough.
“Clients who are in the Section 8 voucher program [say] they can’t find a place to live. In some cases, they are turning back the voucher because they’re saying to us we, can’t find a place to live in Richland County.”
Program guidelines require first-time voucher holders to live in the county for one year before ‘porting’ the voucher outside the CHA jurisdiction.
Stoudenmire said the fact that it’s taken more than nine months to place CHA’s last flood-displaced survivor in a home, speaks to the need for more affordable housing in the area.
“I moved the last person back into housing June 17. One of the big issues was it wasn’t just one area of Richland County. We had people in Eastover that got flooded out. We had people in the Forest Acres area that got flooded out. We lost a lot of houses in the Garners Ferry Road area.”
Stoudenmire said CHA is working to find solutions to the affordable housing needs of the area, including working with developers for a project-based HCV voucher program.
“We commit to the developer to guarantee the rents for 10 years. So they will take clients off of our waiting list for 10 years.” She said this is good for the clients, because it will help eliminate the time they spend looking for a place to live. Stoudenmire also said the agency has advocated to the Governor, Richland and Lexington Counties as well as the City of Columbia that there need to be programs to create more affordable housing.
Stoudenmire said, addressing the affordable housing needs in the community, will also help the economics of the area.
“I tell people all the time, it’s great to have all these restaurants and hotels doing so well in downtown Columbia now, but if you don’t have people to work in those restaurants, that don’t live by here, to get to the downtown area, you won’t be able to have good quality restaurants.
More About the Housing Choice Voucher Program
The Housing Choice Voucher Program is a federally funded program that subsidizes rents for eligible participants who rent units in the private market. It is designed to assist very low-income families, the elderly and the disabled to rent decent, safe and sanitary housing. A housing subsidy is paid directly to the landlord on behalf of a participating family.
For more information about Columbia Housing Authority's HCV8 program, please call (803) 254-3886, ex. 235.