Hundreds were about to be kicked off housing vouchers. A last-minute fix gives them a path forward

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

After months of fear about dwindling federal funding for a pandemic-era housing assistance program, Long Beach housing officials say they have secured enough money to keep nearly 500 households from potentially falling back into homelessness.

The last-minute announcement saves the city from what would have been the worst-case scenario: having to kick hundreds of formerly homeless people off of federal housing assistance. The situation illustrates just how dependent Long Beach’s homelessness and health services are on state and federal funding, which has stagnated or been cut in recent years.

Long Beach officials thought they would run out of money to pay rental subsidies for the 480 households currently on Emergency Housing Vouchers as early as this month, but they now say they have the time — and money — to transition all of those households to other rental assistance programs by November.

An estimated $480,000 increase in federal funding for Long Beach, cost-saving measures and help from a neighboring housing authority made that possible, according to a city memo.

The Emergency Housing Voucher program was a one-of-a-kind opportunity for people defined as “chronically homeless” or at risk of losing their housing to have a slew of services paid for to get them housing. That included security deposits, moving costs and paying past utility debt.

Long Beach quickly used all 582 vouchers allocated to it.

The swift spending gave people like Clark Inglish, a new mother living on the Los Angeles River, a streamlined and effective way to get back on their feet, according to local health officials. The program “really changed my life,” said Inglish, who was able to start working as a counselor and put her son in preschool after getting a roof over her head.

The vouchers were supposed to be good through 2030, but when rent rates increased more quickly than anticipated, the program ran out of money years ahead of schedule, and in April last year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development notified housing officials that Congress did not allocate new funding for it.

Instead, a last-second increase in federal dollars to a different housing program will allow the Long Beach Housing Authority to transfer 400 households from EHVs to Housing Choice Vouchers – also known as Section 8.

HUD will also give Long Beach’s housing authority an additional $1,000 for each EHV voucher that they convert to Section 8.

The 80 remaining households on EHVs will receive assistance from the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles.

Over the next few months, housing officials will assist each household with completing the paperwork necessary to make the transition.

If you’re on an Emergency Housing Voucher and have a question, you can email the city at HA-EHV@longbeach.gov.