Nearly 37,000 people applied for PHA housing vouchers. Only 10,000 will get on the waiting list this round.

Nearly 37,000 people applied for the Philadelphia Housing Authority’s housing voucher lottery, hoping to become one of the 10,000 randomly selected for the wait list.

The vouchers, better known as Section 8, subsidize about 70% of the cost of rental housing.

“Only 10,000 of the people are going to get on the [waiting] list, so we are still in crisis mode,” PHA spokesperson Nichole Tillman said.

Community Legal Services attorney Jenna Collins said the list would not even scratch the surface on the need for low-income housing in the city.

“Almost everybody comes with some housing insecurity issue, even if they come to our public benefits unit,” Collins said of the clients Community Legal Services works with. “Often, they’re balancing benefits with housing costs.”

Despite the number of applications — fewer than one-third of this year’s applicants will get on the new waiting list — Tillman said PHA had expected even more people apply.

PHA opened the voucher lottery for the first time since 2010 after clearing a waiting list of more than 100,000 applicants. In some cases, families waited more than 10 years for access to a subsidy voucher.

Tillman said the previous wait list was “fully depleted,” with the last 1,000 families being processed to receive vouchers before January’s lottery. Anyone who believes they are still waiting from the previous voucher period should contact PHA, she said.

Philadelphia is the poorest of the nation’s 25 most populous cities. About 23% of Philadelphia households, or 350,602 individuals, fall below the poverty rate, which means they have household incomes of $25,750 for a family of four. That’s down more than 2 percentage points from just a few years ago and is the lowest rate since 2000.

People living in deep poverty, with a household income of $12,875 for a family of four, account for about 180,000 Philadelphians.

The disparity between white people and people of color living in poverty is gaping. Less than 13% of white Philadelphians are living in poverty compared to 30% of Latino people, more than 28% of Black people, and nearly 23% of Asian Philadelphians.

This population is especially vulnerable, said Collins, so she was concerned that PHA chose to accept only applications submitted online or over the phone rather than allowing paper applications. Collins said that approach could pose a barrier to the city’s poorest residents, who often lack consistent access to internet and may have limited phone minutes.

Collins said she understood the appeal of online applications but worried they could alienate the poorest people.

“I was concerned about accessibility,” she said.

Online and phone applications were the most equitable option, PHA said. Earlier application periods, said Tillman, saw people standing in line for hours and even camping out for a chance to get on the wait list. The agency did offer in-person assistance, she said.

Tillman also said other public housing agencies across the country are switching to online-only applications.

The Allegheny County Housing Authority, which includes Pittsburgh, only accepted online applications but offered a computer at its headquarters and telephone assistance to people with disabilities, according to its website. Bergen County New Jersey’s housing authority also limited applications to online but allowed applicants to make an appointment to use a self-service kiosk at the headquarters.

Next, PHA is preparing to roll out the vouchers in a process that could take up to five years. A limited number of vouchers are available, and there’s little turnover among the 19,500 households accessing the housing subsidies. Those households account for 44,000 total people, Tillman said.

On March 1, the 10,000 people randomly selected in the lottery to earn a spot on the waiting list will be notified via letter. PHA will start calling the 2,000 households at the top of the list in spring, Tillman said, and begin processing applications. Those households still won’t receive a voucher yet, but they’ll undergo the housing authority’s vetting process, which includes identification confirmation and a criminal background check. Federal housing guidelines prohibit people with certain felonies from accessing public housing, and PHA has various restrictions for different types of crimes.

After processing, the first 2,000 people vetted can begin receiving vouchers. From there, they’ll have to find a landlord who will accept a subsidized housing voucher. Private landlords can conduct criminal background checks, as well as credit checks and eviction history searches.

Checking credit and eviction history, said Collins, seems counterintuitive to providing housing for the city’s poorest residents.

“We know that some of this credit worthiness disproportionately affects Black and brown people,” she said, “so this seems to be a not totally equitable solution for figuring out who are the ‘worthy poor.’”

Even with the several layers of barriers, Tillman and Collins agree the need for not just affordable housing, but specifically low-income accommodations, is immense.

“That is what keeps me coming back every day,” said Collins, “and making sure that we’re making that system as accessible as we can to the largest number of people that we can.”

This story has been updated to clarify that the Philadelphia Housing Authority offered in-person assistance with applications.

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.