The Missoula Housing Authority’s Housing Choice Voucher Waitlist Remains Open
MHA is leasing as many families as possible through the remainder of this year by contacting an
average of forty applicants a week
MISSOULA – Tuesday, August 20, 2024 – The Missoula Housing Authority is aware that the State of Montana’s waitlist for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Housing Choice Voucher Rental Assistance Program, commonly known as HCV or “Section 8”, has closed.
This waitlist closure is specific to the statewide Public Housing Authority (PHA) at the Montana Department of Commerce. It does not impact other local Public or Tribal Housing Authorities in the state. MHA has many more vouchers than the state does in the Missoula area.
Opening and closing waitlists is a management decision for Public Housing Authorities. Vouchers can still be issued while a waitlist is closed or not be issued while a waitlist is open.
The Missoula Housing Authority’s Housing Choice Voucher waitlist remains open. Like other PHAs in the state facing funding cuts directly related to the impacts Fair Market Rents (FMR) and other HUD policies have on rural America, MHA is spending its reserves to maintain program solvency for future years.
MHA is contacting an average of forty applicants a week through the remainder of the 2024 calendar year and issuing vouchers to those qualified. There are currently 1553 applicants on the waitlist for an MHA-issued voucher.
Only 50% of those receiving a voucher can find housing and lease up using that voucher due to Montana’s shortage of affordable and attainable rental housing stock. Housing Choice 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 FMRs decided by HUD, the voucher becomes unusable.
For MHA, the concern is not about opening or closing the waitlist; it is the $4.5 million recaptured by HUD in housing choice voucher funding from reserve funds from housing authorities across Montana. The recaptured funds are from unusable vouchers. Ironically, the increased rental costs require PHAs to spend more money when HUD is recapturing reserves.
"HUD's seeming inability to grasp the real-world increase in housing costs reflected by unrealistic FMRs, inflation factors, and as a result insufficient funding is forcing Montana PHAs 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."
Like other housing authorities in the state, MHA faces a serious funding shortage, reducing the number of households they can serve. Rent inflation has been far greater than the funding authorized by HUD and Congress.
The bottom line is MHA is issuing vouchers and accepting new applicants.
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About Missoula Housing Authority (MHA)
Missoula Housing Authority (“MHA”) is an independent nonprofit public organization with a portfolio of 1,178 rent-restricted apartments and housing choice vouchers, providing affordable housing to more than 4,500 very low-, low and middle-income veterans, families with children, elderly and disabled, foster youth and homeless, as well as working Missoulians.
MHA is the second largest public housing authority in Montana and is recognized as a progressive, forward-thinking agency that creatively implements services and uses innovative development financing. Missoula Housing Authority’s mission is to provide quality housing solutions for low and middle-income households in Missoula and the surrounding area through creative partnerships and innovative development. MHA has been creating quality housing solutions since 1978.
Media Contact
Sara Stout
(406) 549-4113, ext. 727#
sara@missoulahousing.org
www.missoulahousing.org