Michigan’s largest distributor of housing vouchers hasn’t pulled a name off its general waitlist in nearly a year.

That’s the longest that the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) has gone without selecting people to receive the federally funded housing subsidy that has helped to lift generations of Michiganders out of poverty.

For most people languishing on the waitlist, the program is essentially on hold, and there are reports of similar circumstances in other parts of the country, including Maine and Oklahoma.

Some 85,000 people remain on MSHDA’s waitlist for a coveted federal housing choice voucher, formerly known as Section 8, that can ease rent costs to just 30% of a person’s income. The number of applicants on the waitlist is slightly more than the population of Farmington Hills. Among those on the list are 5,000 who are unhoused. The pause has lasted so long that MSHDA has stopped adding applicants to its waitlist. 

That’s just one agency. There are about 3,000 applicants on a waitlist for the Detroit Housing Commission. Both have stopped issuing new housing subsidies. 

The problem? The federal money coming into the program from Congress isn’t keeping up with rising rents, and a shortage of affordable housing continues to force those rents up. 

“It’s costing more per voucher, which means it’s putting a bigger strain on the funding that we receive from Congress,” said Richard Monocchio, principal deputy assistant secretary for public and Indian housing at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

‘I can’t afford to lose my house’ 

After more than a year of waiting for a housing choice voucher while living in a shelter with her four children, Khrystena Humber was disappointed to learn she had to wait longer.

Although she did leave the shelter earlier this year thanks to another rental assistance program through the nonprofit Community & Home Supports, Inc., that aid will likely end in February. Humber, who works a part time job, worries about being able to afford the rent on her own.

“I would hate to have to go back to the shelter,” Humber, 31 of Detroit, said. “I would hate to be back homeless. I would hate to have to go back to that state of mind that I was in if Section 8 don’t come because I can’t afford to lose my house or just not have a house, period, to be stable for my kids.” 

She ended up in a shelter in late 2022 after living in her car for three months with her children. One of the reasons they had left their previous home was because a caved in roof and damaged walls and carpet made it unlivable, she said. While living out of a car, Humber struggled to feed her family, find a restroom and get her children to school. She wasn’t working during that time because she didn’t have childcare, she said.

Months later, Humber was finally able to get into shelter after repeatedly calling the central hotline for housing help, she said. She lived in that shelter from November 2022 to February of this year. 

Now, as the end of her current lease and rental aid approaches, she worries about being able to afford rent on the income of her part-time job alone. She wants to stay in the single family home she is in now, but doesn’t know if she can.

Families facing homelessness or housing instability are among the hardest hit by the halt in the voucher program. 

Unhoused residents account for roughly 6% of applicants on MSHDA’s voucher waitlist. The Michigan housing authority has 23,300 applicants on its waitlist from Detroit alone — 763 of whom are homeless.

“Those experiencing homelessness may not have the financial resources and other supports necessary to stabilize their housing in the absence of the voucher assistance,” said Lisa Kemmis, MSHDA director of rental assistance and homeless solutions in a statement to the Free Press. “The voucher assistance is one resource in the homeless crisis response system for keeping individuals and families from cycling back to emergency shelters or the street.” 

Housing agencies: no new vouchers 

Rising rents have forced agencies that administer waitlists for federal housing subsidies to indefinitely stop issuing vouchers, leaving tens of thousands of Michiganders waiting for help as they struggle to find permanent homes.

Federal funding for the voucher program for 2024 isn’t enough to meet rising housing costs, according to MSHDA. The average cost for a housing unit for a family in Michigan is $780 a month, but the agency received $727. Last year, the average monthly cost for a unit was about $720.

In total, this year, the state housing authority got about $250 million from the federal government. Last year, MSHDA received $242.5 million and spent $244.6 million, using about $2 million from its reserves. 

Last fall, MSHDA stopped drawing names from its waitlist after it began to see an increase in monthly costs because of inflation and rental housing prices, agency officials said during a July webinar. Then, earlier this year, HUD notified MSHDA that the agency’s projected costs for the year would exceed the money available from the federal government, according to officials. 

That meant the state housing agency had to reduce costs and immediately suspended pulling names from its waitlist and issuing vouchers, with exceptions for project-based vouchers — which are tied to specific housing developments — and programs for veteran and rural homelessness.

The more than 28,000 families with active vouchers through MSHDA won’t see a change. 

“Families that are currently on the voucher program receiving rental assistance from MSHDA will continue to receive rental assistance during this shortfall. So, they are not impacted. We’re not removing folks from the program. It’s just, we’re very limited at this time on the number of families that we can assist,” Kemmis said during the webinar.

As many as 300 families exit monthly because their incomes are too high, they voluntarily withdraw or for other reasons. However, MSHDA can’t pull people from its waitlist to reallocate those vouchers.

The Detroit Housing Commission, which also administers the housing choice voucher program, posted on its website that “due to budget constraints,” it would not release new vouchers for the foreseeable future. In a statement to the Free Press, the commission said the 5,000 current voucher holders in its program will not lose their housing assistance.

The Detroit Housing Commission stopped selecting people from its waitlist earlier in the year. That waitlist has about 3,000 applicants, the agency said.

“While we cannot estimate at this time when waiting list selections will reopen, we are committed to keeping our families informed,” the Detroit Housing Commission said in a statement, directing people to its website at www.dhcmi.org and other open waiting lists.

Monocchio, with HUD, said the issue comes down to rising rents and the cost of vouchers. Public housing agencies — which administer housing choice vouchers and are overseen by HUD — are spending 100% of the funding appropriation for the program from Congress, he said. 

The U.S. needs to build more housing and ramp up rental assistance, he said.

“We have a supply shortage. We need to build more housing,” Monocchio said. “That’s going to be the main way that we bring housing costs down in this country, is by building more but by also providing more rental assistance.” 

Michigan is in the midst of a housing crisis, housing experts warn. The state is short 140,000 homes, according to MSHDA. 

Last month, Detroit city officials pitched a plan to speed up affordable housing development in the city. The proposed ordinance would offer property tax cuts to developers based on rent prices. The more affordable the units, the deeper the tax reduction. It would also shrink the approval time for projects if developers agree to keep rents reduced for 15 years. 

But the plan, touted by one Detroit developer as a “game changer” for affordable housing, has not yet begun. The Detroit City Council must still approve it before a developer can start to build or rehab a building with the proposed tax cuts. And it’s unclear when MSHDA or the Detroit Housing Commission will start issuing new subsidies again. 

In the meantime, families like Humber and her children are left in indefinite limbo as they wait for the rental subsidy. 

Humber is applying for project-based vouchers — which are tied to specific buildings — as a backup, but she wants to stay in the home she’s in now. She’s trying to balance bills and childcare, while maintaining her house and saving money.

“I’m hoping I can find a stable job that can help me to be able to pay my rent if Section 8 don’t come,” she said.

MSHDA is referring families facing homelessness or housing insecurity to agencies across the state to find alternative programs and services while the voucher program remains on hold. For a list of housing agencies by county, go to https://bit.ly/HARAList.    

Contact Nushrat Rahman: nrahman@freepress.com. Follow her on X: @NushratR.