The Rochester Housing Authority has opened the waiting list for Section 8 applications for the first time since 2009. They’ll be taking applications until noon on September 26th.
Section 8 is a New York State housing assistance program that aims to help low and very low income families rent or buy decent housing. It also helps seniors and disabled persons on fixed incomes and displaced families. It issues monthly vouchers depending on income to eligible households, and those vouchers travel with the family when they move as long as they’re eligible.
The program has limited availability, so it’s been seven years since the RHA last took applications. When the list was last opened in 2009 they got 17,000 applications. More than a thousand people are still on the waiting list.
The authority is able to assist about 9,000 households a year. It’s a heavily-used program in rochester which has more people living at half the federal poverty level or less than any other city of similar size in this country.