The lottery waitlist for Section 8 vouchers, a federal rental assistance program that helps low-income tenants pay rent for private housing, will open at 8 a.m. on Oct. 23.
The lottery, which is being administered by the San Francisco Housing Authority, will operate daily, and closes on Monday, Nov. 6, at 5 p.m.
The vouchers can be used for any landlord, and will pay up to $2,669 for a studio, $3,300 for a one-bedroom and $3,949 for a two-bedroom apartment. Voucher holders end up contributing up to 40 percent of their income towards rent.
Some 6,500 qualified applicants in San Francisco will be randomly selected through the lottery. Applicants will hear whether they have made the waitlist within 30 days after the application closes, and they will be notified when their name comes to the top of the waitlist.
The program is meant for tenants making 50 percent of area median income or less — $65,050 a year for a single-person household, or $92,900 for a four-person household; if a household is already receiving other forms of rental assistance, then income must be less than 80 percent of area median income.
A number of factors determine one’s place on the waitlist, including veteran status, disability, one’s place on the public housing waitlist, and past involuntary displacement from a San Francisco residence.
The application takes about 10 to 20 minutes to complete, and requires a full name, date of birth and Social Security Number, if available, for all household members, plus a valid email address and phone number.
Several community groups say they are available to assist with the application, including Dolores Street Community Services, YMCA Mission Branch, Mission Neighborhood Center, Mission Economic Development Association, and Instituto Familiar de La Raza in the Mission.
The Latino Task Force has expanded its hours to help applicants with the hours listed below in the flyer below.
Other groups outside the Mission are listed here.
The House Choice Voucher program is paid directly to landlords by the Housing Authority. The amount tenants pay is meant to be capped at 40 percent of one’s adjusted monthly income.
You can find more details on eligibility and income requirements and application assistance, and you apply online only through Housing Authority’s portal. No fee is needed for application or assistance. Free access to computers and the internet is available at San Francisco public libraries.
Why is there only offices in the mission to apply? I live in the Ingleside district and see no sites in this area.
For the record and as an FYI, it is literally illegal for any landlord to reject a prospective tenant based on them being a voucher-holder. Unfortunately, landlords continue to post vacancy listings with phrases like “No Section 8” or “No voucher holders” because the state carries out little to no enforcement, but this is called “source of income discrimination” and it’s 100% illegal. Just another barrier faced even by those lucky enough to win the voucher lottery.
Technically it is against the law to refuse a S8 applicant. But that is near impossible to prove if that landlord also got applications from higher income folks. A landlord is always going to want to see a higher income, and that it is earned.