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Contact: Lydia Agro,Communications Director, 617-988-4109
Location: Boston, MA
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Boston Housing Authority Administrator Sandra Henriquez announced today that on May 7, 2004, the Authority intends to stop accepting new applications for its public housing and Section 8 rental assistance program waiting lists. The closing of the public housing waiting list is a temporary measure designed to allow the BHA to implement a site-based waiting list for all applicants throughout the City of Boston. It is anticipated that the public housing waiting list will reopen in the late fall of 2004. The closing of the Section 8 waiting list is due to the current lack of available Section 8 vouchers and the sizeable number of applicants already on the waiting list.
“The closing of these lists represents both good and bad news for public housing and Section 8 applicants in the City of Boston. We will now be able to offer public housing applicants choice in where they would like to live and raise their families. The temporary closing of the public housing waiting list will free up the administrative resources necessary to implement this important policy change,“ explained Henriquez. “Unfortunately, the closing of the Section 8 priority one waiting list is due to the lack of resources and the approximately 9,000 applicants who are already on the waiting list.”
The BHA has utilized all of its available Section 8 subsidies and currently subsidizes approximately 11,000 families in its Section 8 program. In addition, due to current funding constraints and proposed federal cuts to the program, the BHA does not expect to receive additional funding or vouchers for this program. The BHA will continue to process Section 8 vouchers for those applicants currently on the list if and when vouchers become available through annual turnover.
It is important to note that the closing of these lists contain the following exceptions. For public housing, the BHA will continue to accept applications from persons with disabilities who require wheelchair accessible apartments. Due to an initiative to increase the number of handicapped accessible apartments in public housing, the BHA expects to have a number of wheelchair accessible apartments of varied bedroom sizes becoming available in the near future. The BHA will also continue to accept applications from current residents who need emergency transfers.
In addition, the BHA will continue to accept Priority 1 applications for the Project Based and Moderate Rehabilitation Voucher programs. Many of the developments subsidized by the Project Based and Moderate Rehabilitation programs serve special populations (e.g. persons with disabilities, persons needing assisted living, or persons who are homeless and are mentally ill). Because of the limited number of persons on the Authority’s Section 8 waiting list who qualify for these developments, it is necessary that the BHA continue to accept these applications.
The implementation of the public housing site-based waiting list is a result of a new and improved BHA Admissions and Continued Occupancy Policy (ACOP 2004) which describes the admission, occupancy and transfer policies by which the BHA determines eligibility for admission, selects prospective residents, assigns apartments, admits residents and processes transfers in a fair and non-discriminatory manner.
The BHA has adopted this new policy after a two-year extensive public process through which applicants, residents, advocates, elected officials and all other interested parties had an opportunity to comment and express concerns. In addition, ACOP 2004 has been reviewed and approved by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development.
The temporary closing of the public housing waiting list will allow the BHA to obtain from all current public housing applicants their choices for the site-based waiting lists that will exist for developments throughout the city. There are currently more than 22,000 applicants on the public housing waiting list. The BHA will soon be reaching out to all of these applicants and informing them that they can now choose to have their names on waiting lists for specific developments and providing them with instructions on how to do so. While the BHA will not be taking new applications during the time the waiting list is closed, staff will continue to process those currently on the list and make apartment offers as vacancies occur.
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