There are currently 1,553 applicants on the waitlist for low-income “Section 8” housing vouchers from the Missoula Housing Authority, the organization said on Tuesday.
And due to “Montana’s shortage of affordable and attainable rental housing stock,” only half of those receiving a voucher will be able to find housing and lease up using that voucher in the window of time that’s required.
Officially known as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Housing Choice Voucher Rental Assistance Program, the vouchers subsidize a portion of rent for the voucher-holder, so they only pay 30% of their income to rent. But rent inflation in Missoula and across Montana “has been far greater than the funding authorized by HUD and Congress,” according to the Missoula Housing Authority.
Westside Place, located on Cooley Street in Missoula, includes 72 workforce homes and some residents use low-income housing vouchers.
Recently, the Montana Department of Commerce’s Public Housing Authority announced that the state’s waitlist for vouchers was closed due to restrictions from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
People are also reading…
But the Missoula Housing Authority sent a news release out on Tuesday to raise awareness that their waitlist, which is separate from the state’s waitlist, will remain open.
The Missoula Housing Authority has many more vouchers than the state does in the Missoula area.
“Like other Public Housing Authorities in the state facing funding cuts directly related to the impacts Fair Market Rents and other HUD policies have on rural America, MHA is spending its reserves to maintain program solvency for future years,” the Missoula Housing Authority wrote in its news release. “MHA is contacting an average of forty applicants a week through the remainder of the 2024 calendar year and issuing vouchers to those qualified.”
Voucher recipients have 60-120 days to find a place to live that meets the program requirements. If a voucher holder cannot find suitable housing that complies with Fair Market Rents decided by HUD, the voucher becomes unusable. Because rents have been soaring in Missoula for the past decade, voucher holders are finding that even the amount of money that the voucher will subsidize is not enough to cover the rent and still leave them with 70% of their income.
“HUD’s seeming inability to grasp the real-world increase in housing costs reflected by unrealistic Fair Market Rents, inflation factors, and as a result insufficient funding is forcing Montana Public Housing Authorities into crisis,” said Missoula Housing Authority’s Director of HUD Programs Jim McGrath. “MHA has chosen to respond by trying to house as many families as we can. That’s what we do.”
McGrath said that the federal government is “recapturing” $4.5 million this year from the reserve funds from Public Housing Authorities across Montana in the form of unusable vouchers.
The Missoula Housing Authority is facing a “serious funding shortage, reducing the number of households they can serve,” according to the release.
But, the bottom line is they are still issuing vouchers and accepting new applicants, McGrath said.
The Missoula Housing Authority is an independent nonprofit public organization with 1,178 rent-restricted apartments and they provide housing to more than 4,500 low-income people.
David Erickson is the business reporter for the Missoulian.
