How to apply for the newly reopened Housing Choice Voucher program in Philly

For the first time in 12 years, the waitlist for housing vouchers in Philadelphia will reopen for two weeks starting Jan. 23 — and this time applicants will be chosen by lottery.

Households will be able to apply through an online application at pha.phila.gov. The Housing Choice Voucher program is provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The vouchers pay for up to 70 percent of a tenant’s rent. Applicants must earn less than half the median income for the area.

For the tens of thousands of Philadelphians who have been waiting to apply for rental assistance through the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA), this move could result in nearly 2,000 of them receiving rental assistance in a matter of months, and another 8,000 being put on the waitlist for when more vouchers become available.

Why is this a big deal? Because instead of the usual first come, first served approach with a long waitlist of over 50,000 households — PHA will be selecting 10,000 applications at random in a move that they say is more equitable and will allow them to work through the waitlist faster.

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program — formerly known as Section 8 housing — is a federally funded rental assistance program through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The program helps people with low income, disabilities, and older adults pay for privately owned and managed housing — mostly of their choice. Almost 20,000 households already receive housing vouchers in Philadelphia.

Who it’s for: Households that make 50% or less than the area’s median income. For a family of four in the Philly region, that’s $52,700 per year or under.

How it works: Households pay 30% of their total monthly income on rent, and HUD will use federal funds to cover the rest.

The application will be available on pha.phila.gov from 6 a.m. Jan. 23 to 5:59 p.m. Feb. 5 (the application won’t appear on the homepage until Jan. 23). There is no paper or phone version.

Need help during the two-week application window? Call PHA at 215-999-3102 from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. or visit the PHA main offices at 2013 Ridge Ave. in North Philly.

The application is available in Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and Russian. Other languages are supported by using Google Translate.

Deadline to apply: Feb. 5 at 5:59 p.m.

What you need to apply:

To apply: Visit pha.phila.gov starting Jan. 23 (the application will appear on the homepage that day). Complete the application before Feb. 5 at 5:59 p.m.

In 2010, when the HCV waitlist was closed indefinitely, there were more than 55,000 people on the PHA waitlist for rental subsidies, which far exceeded the number of vouchers they had at the time. In order to catch up with the backlog of applicants, PHA closed the waitlist and hasn’t reopened it until now.

Over the last decade PHA has worked through their 2010 waitlist and are now reopening it to add 10,000 new households. In order to clear through this new waitlist in a three to five-year period, PHA is going with a new selection process.

“Under this system, all applications in the lottery pool have an equal chance of being selected.” said PHA President and CEO Kelvin A. Jeremiah. “Going forward, this process will allow PHA to open the HCV waiting list more frequently, providing others in the community a chance to apply in just a few years when the waiting list is reopened.”

Since the process to receive HCV has been slow in the past, and according to PHA, previous application periods favored those who applied first, this special application window will allow for all applicants to be chosen in a lottery at random — instead of first come, first served.

This isn’t unprecedented either. According to PHA, the lottery method is allowed under federal regulations and has been used successfully by other large U.S. housing agencies.

PHA will randomly select 10,000 applicants by lottery to be put on the HCV waitlist. However, there will be a preference to applicants who live, work, or have been hired to work within the Philadelphia city limits.

All applicants will be notified of whether they were selected to be placed on the HCV waitlist by March 1, 2023. PHA will send a letter to the mailing and email address provided on the application.

Out of the selected applicants, 2,000 housing vouchers will be distributed immediately to be used for rental assistance. The remaining households will be sorted and placed on the HCV waitlist to wait for available housing vouchers.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city’s push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org.