Eviction averted for thousands of formerly homeless people losing housing vouchers

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Set us as preferred Thousands of formerly homeless people whose housing subsidies will expire in December are no longer at risk of eviction, local housing officials announced Thursday.An infusion of new funds approved by Congress this year and a waiver of eligibility procedures have staved off a potential crisis that would have left 4,200 back on the street.“We are now able to ensure that every household that is participating will be able to stay housed,” said Lourdes Castro Ramirez, president and chief executive of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles.Castro Ramirez and Emilio Salas, executive director of the Los Angeles County Development Authority, said in a joint announcement that the county’s two largest housing authorities now have the funds and administrative authority to convert all the expiring pandemic-era emergency vouchers into the permanent federal subsidy program, called housing choice vouchers.The eviction crisis arose when federal officials announced last year that the $5-billion emergency voucher program approved by Congress in 2021 was running out of funds at the end of 2026.The rising cost of housing nationwide drained the account four years ahead of schedule, causing housing authorities across the nation to warn that some 46,000 voucher holders could face eviction by the end of this year.In January, HACLA sent notices to its 2,760 emergency voucher, or EHV, holders and 1,700 landlords of the impending cutoff.

LACDA notified its 1,500 EHV holders.“These households have been on pins and needles over the past several months because they’ve all been notified that the subsidy was running out at the end of the calendar year,” Salas said.At the time, LACDA had only sufficient funds to reissue housing choice vouchers that became available through attrition.HACLA was in worse shape, facing a...