LONG BEACH, Calif. — After four years of sleeping in her car, April Hurd keeps her new apartment keys around her neck and close to her heart.
“I’m grateful for each and every day,” Hurd said inside her newly rented apartment in South Los Angeles.
After years of waiting to receive a Section 8 housing voucher, it took Hurd months of frantic searching to find a landlord to accept it.
If she missed the deadline, her voucher could have expired — sending her to the back of the line for a new one.
It’s a common experience in Los Angeles and Long beach, where half of all Section 8 voucher holders could not find a landlord to accept it before it expired in 2019, according to newly released data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The new report found nationwide, only about 60% of voucher holders successfully found an apartment in time. While they are paid by the federal government, vouchers are administered by local housing authorities.
In Southern California, vouchers are the largest tool, bringing people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing. They also provide the largest hang-up: voucher holders like Hurd must navigate paperwork and red tape to compete in the private market, often failing to lease up a unit in time.
In Hurd’s case, she grappled with homelessness — living in her car and taking care of her dog, Sassy Girl, while they struggled to find a place.
In Long Beach, the housing authority is about to try something new.
“Since the pandemic, it has put a lot of pressure on housing authorities to innovate and find new ways to help support people,” Mayor Rex Richardson said.
Beginning next year, the Long Beach Housing Pledge will give 100 voucher holders immediate cash payments of $900 while they seek a permanent place to live.
The city will partner with the Fund for Guaranteed Income (F4GI), which has pioneered guaranteed income pilots in Long Beach and across the country and is now seeing if cash payments can help HUD improve lease-up rates.
“If these pilots, like the Long Beach Housing Pledge, are successful, these can scale across the county because the issues in Long Beach are not unique,” Richardson said.
The money will be given to voucher-holders with no-strings attached. The pilot program is privately funded by F4GI, the United Way and other donations.
F4GI founder Nika Soon-Shiong said they found pilot participants often use their guaranteed income payments for rent, so connecting cash payments with Section 8 vouchers made sense.