On October 17, HUD closed the deadline for public housing agencies (PHAs) that administer Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHV) to submit leasing data to be eligible for the expedited $100 Issuance Reporting Fee. However, many PHAs were unable to take advantage of the expedited EHV reporting incentive fee as the EHV program continues to be fraught with many challenges that have slowed EHV leasing nationwide. As of November 1, only 14,406 (as measured by IMS/PIC submission data) of the 70,000 EHVs available nationwide have been leased since the program launch on July 1. According to HUD, only 24 of the 626 PHAs with an EHV allocation have an EHV leasing rate over 50 percent. Most of these PHAs have an allocation of less than 100 EHVs and are mostly mid-sized agencies located in the southern regions of the U.S.
The CLPHA EHV Working Group recently convened again to discuss the most difficult challenges faced by large metropolitan PHAs and strategies to overcome some of these implementation barriers, including:
- Slow or incomplete referrals from Continuum of Care (CoC) service partners
- Lack of affordable housing units
- Staff capacity constraints
- Lack of owner interest to lease to voucher holders
For the next EHV meeting on November 30, the group will be joined by members of the CLPHA Communications Working Group to develop tactics to promote the availability of EHVs to owners of affordable housing units. In the coming months, CLPHA will continue to share progress reports from the EHV Working Group to the general membership, as well as any best practices and lessons learned. If you are interested in learning more about the EHV Working Group, email jbeverly@clpha.org.