During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration authorized over a billion dollars in housing vouchers to help people stay off the streets. The program had problems, but one city — San Diego — succeeded in a big way.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration authorized over a billion dollars in housing vouchers to help people stay off the streets. The program had problems, but one city — San Diego — succeeded in a big way.
Today, we find out how they did it. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: Former L.A. Times fellow Anumita Kaur
More reading:
How San Diego achieved surprising success housing homeless people
How San Francisco fell behind on housing its homeless population
Homeless people wait as Los Angeles lets thousands of federal housing vouchers go unused
Gustavo: Helping people get off the streets and into homes was the very first thing the new mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, promised to address.
News clip of Karen Bass: I will start my first day as mayor at the city's Emergency Operation Centers, where my first act as mayor will be to declare a state of emergency on homelessness.
Gustavo: One tool the city will continue to use to get people off the streets is a federal housing voucher program commonly known as Section 8.
But it has struggled for years, with long wait lists and other challenges.
News clip: The housing authority tells us more than 100,000 people applied for the Section 8 housing wait list. On the first day that that list opened.
Gustavo: Last year, though, the federal government did something it's never done before.
It rolled out a $1.1-billion rental assistance program similar to Section 8, but more streamlined.
The goal was to quickly get people into housing during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Both the failures and successes of this wide-reaching, one-time program offer valuable lessons in our nation's ongoing battle, to get the unhoused housed.
Gustavo: I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to The Times Essential News from the LA Times.
It's Monday, Dec. 19, 2022.
Today, we look at one city's success getting people into homes ...and another city's failure.
And what both examples can teach the rest of the country about how to help get people off the streets.
Gustavo: Anumita Kaur is a former fellow for the Los Angeles Times. Anumita, welcome to The Times.
Anumita: Thanks for having me.
Gustavo: So this federal emergency housing voucher program, what did it actually entail and what was the reason for it?
Anumita: Yeah, so this emergency housing voucher program was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, so last spring, the federal housing agency, HUD, distributed 70,000 emergency housing vouchers across the nation. And the point was to rapidly house the most marginalized and vulnerable people at the height of the pandemic. So these were distributed to local housing authorities across the nation to identify folks that needed them and place them into homes as soon as possible. And so these are effectively a scaled-up version of Section 8 vouchers, right? So higher rent caps, easier to get them, easier documentation to get them.
Gustavo: And Section 8 housing, of course, is a program to help people pay their rent in the first place.
Anumita: Yeah, it's for low-income folks to be able to secure a roof over their heads. And it's been around for a long time. It's a program in which the federal government picks up a large portion of someone's rent in order to allow them to have a roof over their heads. However, that program historically has had a lot of hurdles. There's very long wait lists. And it comes with challenges. And so again, when this emergency housing vouchers program was unveiled, it was seen as something that could possibly be a better, more efficient version of that.
Gustavo: Was this pandemic voucher program successful?
Anumita: You know, it's hard to say yes or no. I don't think it's a clear answer.
Anumita: What we're seeing is across the nation, so many of these local housing authorities, including in California – L.A., San Francisco, San Diego – they have managed to issue these vouchers to people. So people have vouchers in hand, and that is a good thing. However, the hurdle is now that in these major cities, particularly L.A., particularly San Francisco, you have all these folks that have vouchers in hand but are unable to find themselves housing with them.
Anumita: When we look at it that way, I mean, can it be a full success if folks aren't actually in a home with their voucher?
Gustavo: Yeah, how frustrating to hear these folks with vouchers. They’re ready to pay rent, and yet they can’t find places to live, so clearly the program has problems. But you also found a success story, down in San Diego, where they were actually able to use these housing vouchers to get people into homes. What happened there?
Anumita: San Diego, despite having low rental vacancy rates, a high cost of living, high houselessness, has managed to lease up, meaning folks are actually in a home with their voucher, a hundred percent of the vouchers that they were issued through the federal housing agency. So that is quite a success knowing that it has similar challenges to San Francisco and L.A. When I went there, there were a couple reasons that I found for that. One is that they seem to have a more streamlined process that gets folks from getting a voucher and into a home. One of the stories that really depicts the success of the program in San Diego is of Hope Shaw – Jonathan Tisnado. Jonathan Tisnado is someone that was houseless for a couple years living out of his car.
Jonathan: I was super skeptical. And like, best believe, I was definitely calling Hope, like, “Hey, like, what's up?” Like every, like, every week, you know what I mean? But, yeah, it worked out. Um, luckily pretty fast. Yeah.
Anumita: So one of the things that the San Diego Housing Commission did that's different from L.A. and San Francisco is that they also hired five full-time in-house housing specialists. So the job of those housing specialists is to just quite literally find homes for these folks with these emergency housing vouchers.
Hope Shaw: Hey, this is Hope calling you guys with Path. I was looking to speak to a manager or someone, Uh-huh speaking. OK, so … .
Anumita: One of those folks is Hope Shaw, and her entire role is to find housing for folks that have these emergency housing vouchers, and it really just creates a more streamlined process.
Hope: So my client, he has a one-bedroom voucher and I know that that's good for 1740. But I had a question for you. So he found a unit in National City that's 1895.
Anumita: You know, having a housing specialist or housing navigator on your side is so crucial, and we see that again with Hope because, you know, in my time shadowing her, it was so clear that she is truly advocating on behalf of her clients.
Hope: Yeah, if it was just a little bit over. OK. Is it, can we make it work? Let me see how we can make it work. OK.
Anumita: So she is personally calling landlords every single day to pitch her client's cases. She is calling them every single day. Explain to them why, you know, despite perhaps a low credit score despite, you know, whatever preconceived notions they might have about a houseless person, why they should house this person, why they should accept their application. I remember looking at her schedule for the day one day. And effectively, five out of the eight hours of her working day were simply allotted to searching for vacant apartments for her clients. And so you really see both the amount of effort that is put in to find someone housing. As well as the amount of advocacy it takes on their behalf. And I think that's something that struck me about what Hope does that I didn't realize going in, was that not only is she doing that front-end work, right, of like, finding an apartment, advocating to the landlord. She's also, then, the one that actually fills out the form for them often. She's the one that will apply on their behalf. She will send in the documents that are necessary. And then she will make sure that the deposit is paid for. She will make sure that if there's a holding fee, that that is taken care of. And so, there's so much that goes into it, and you really see the necessity of it as well.
Hope: Are you guys gonna help 'em with the deposit? Um, Path is gonna pay, we're gonna pay for his application for the holding deposit. So what if they're not willing to budge to 1825 and they're solid on 1895? Is it possible I can still apply and you guys approve it if he's willing to pay that, his pro rate. Yeah, we could talk to the owner directly. OK. Yeah, let me, I can call her. I can just call her and see if there's any way she'll lower it to 1825. She might do it.
Anumita: So that's one thing that they're doing differently. And the other thing that San Diego and the San Diego Housing Commission is doing differently is calculating the rent caps for these vouchers differently. So they have something called small area fair market rents, which means that a voucher's rent cap is calculated on a ZIP code by ZIP code basis instead of a flat rate across the city, which is what San Francisco does, which is what L.A. does.
Gustavo: Yeah, that's important for a city like San Diego, because the neighborhoods are vastly different in rent — something on the coast is going to go, for way more than, say, something more inland. And people don’t want to move just anywhere, they want to stay close to schools, work, in neighborhoods they know. But that can mean huge disparities in rent prices.
Anumita: Mm-hmm. And you know, I think we see it in northern cities as well, right? Like one neighborhood can be much more expensive versus another. And so to have that flexibility with a voucher is very important and has lended success to San Diego's program.
Gustavo: Coming up after the break, what went wrong in other cities in California?
Gustavo: Anumita, so San Diego used up all their emergency vouchers and got people housed, but other cities in California didn't do as well. What happened there. What were the stats?
Anumita: Yeah, so other cities have really struggled to get people into homes, even with these vouchers. So in Los Angeles, as of November, less than a fourth of the vouchers have actually placed people in homes.
Gustavo: Wow.
Anumita: In San Francisco, I believe it's about less than 45%. And so, you know, you have hundreds of people in California that have a voucher in hand that are still on the street. And so the problems that they're facing aren't new, right? Rent is high. There are few available apartments. Landlords are unwilling. But I think what has exacerbated the situation is that the programs in these cities often shuffle people from one organization to another, right? And so you might have one person at one organization that's helping you find housing with your voucher, but at another organization you have your case manager. And at another organization they're the ones who approved you for the voucher. And so, you know, when you're houseless and you're being shuffled from one organization to the other it's easier to fall through the cracks.
Anumita: So one of the people that really exemplifies some of the struggles that San Francisco is facing is Reyna de la Cruz.
News clip: OK. So due to COVID, then she was laid off and she was, they were not able to keep on paying rent. And then that's how she came here.
Anumita: She is living with her family in a camper in the Bayview district of San Francisco. She has been there for quite a long time now, since the beginning of the pandemic, and she has a voucher in hand. So technically she has a golden ticket to get into housing, and yet she is still on the street.
Anumita: So when were you issued the emergency housing voucher?
News clip: OK, so it is more than three months. She got an extension.
Anumita: So since she got it, what struggles has she faced to find an apartment?
Reyna: OK. When they go to see the unit, they say that they are not eligible or that the amount they have been granted does not cover the rent or that they don't work with Section 8.
Anumita: Hmm.
Anumita: So you know Reyna de la Cruz. Looking for housing, was connected to a housing navigator in San Francisco. However, the housing navigator that she was connected to didn't speak Spanish and Reyna only speaks Spanish, and so she was very much on her own for a lot of the housing search, which was unsuccessful for her because landlords were unwilling to work with her when they found out, for example, she only speaks Spanish, or when they found out that she's currently on the street.
Anumita: How many apartments has she tried to go to see since she's gotten the voucher?
News clip: Oh, wow – 15. They have seen 15.
Anumita: And all 15 have rejected her?
News clip: In the end, all of them rejected them.
Anumita: You know, even when she was connected to a housing navigator, there was a lack of intention or there was a lack of understanding there because they connected her to someone that didn't speak Spanish. And you know, she's not the only one, right? She is not the only one that had to deal with that hurdle and that lack of planning. And so it caused so many more obstacles in her process and elongated the time that she had to spend living out on the street with her family. And the second thing that really struck me was, you know, then she was forced to navigate this rental market alone, you know, she described to me she was calling landlord after landlord after landlord. I mean, it was a lengthy process and she was putting so much active effort to find herself an apartment on her own. But you find that, you know, landlords, particularly in such competitive markets, right, like San Francisco, they have no incentive to take someone that might have a low credit score who might not speak English that is living on the street so currently doesn't have a real permanent address. They have no incentive to accept an application from someone that has those markers. And so she's calling and calling and calling and she's visiting apartments, but to really no success and that lengthy struggle which, again, sounds like some of it could have been alleviated in the way that we saw in San Diego.
Anumita: But … do you mind asking her, like, how do you, you know, she's seen 15 apartments, she's been rejected so many times. How do you keep going?
News clip: Um, ahora coma continuar …?
Reyna: I feel very frustrated, disappointed because I know that this is what will happen and I expect it. And I sometimes don't want to keep on going. I want to just give up.
Anumita: You know, she's an example of someone that was just lost in the process because there were gaps in San Francisco’s system.
Gustavo: So why didn't anyone step in to stop those gaps the way San Diego did?
Anumita: That's a great question. I spoke to both the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, and I spoke to the San Francisco Housing Authority to find out why folks were falling through the gaps and why folks weren't stepping in to ensure they weren't. And you know some of the reasons that I got were that the nature of houselessness very much can hinder the process, right? Houseless folks often don't have access to their phones or are often moving around throughout the city, and so it can be hard for city workers, for San Francisco Housing Authority workers to remain in touch with them. However, I think that the city of San Diego and their program there proves that there is a way to overcome that.
Anumita: One of the folks that I spoke to, Dora Torres, she is someone that was able to get successfully housed in San Francisco. So she got a voucher and then she was able to move into her new home in Visitacion Valley.
Anumita: Tell me a little bit how you envision your space? How are you trying to decorate it?
Dora Torres: Um, so I wanna put a family tree right there, like, kind of like this, but it's a sticker one, right? Oh. And so, um, it has like little branches and then you put the pictures that you want on the branches.
Anumita: However, in speaking with her, it was clear that even folks that do manage to find housing in San Francisco, most of the onus remains on them. The supposed systems in place to support these folks through the housing search still seem to be falling through.
Dora: And so I just started applying, applying, applying. And then, so I, what I did was like, instead of going through like the actual landlord mm-hmm. I went through a broker. And then I was just like, I'm gonna try it a different way, you know? I wasn't gonna just, I wasn't gonna give it up.
Anumita: It took her months to find her home in Visitation Valley. There was no one really helping her navigate that process. And one of the primary hurdles that she faced in landing a home was that she had a low credit score. And you know, that's a problem many houseless folks face when they're trying to find housing. And because she didn't have anyone to advocate for her on her behalf it took her much longer to be able to land a home. And it wasn't until she herself physically went into a San Francisco nonprofit and advocated for herself to them before she landed in a home.
Dora: This is a great house, right? Look at that view: the morning light. I know. And just the mountains, how serene. Yeah, I know. It's so calming in the morning too. …
Anumita: So while it's wonderful that Dora was able to land in a home, it's clear that the journey there was perhaps harder than it should have been.
Anumita: What would you tell folks that currently have EHVs but are struggling to find an apartment and they're going through, you know, what you described as a really difficult, lengthy process to find themselves an apartment and get approved?
Dora: Um, it's just, you know, you gotta be consistent with what you do. Like don't give up because if you give up, you're not gonna make it happen. Mm-hmm.
Dora: Mm-hmm. You know, it's like you gotta pick yourself up and sometimes when you're in the process of doing it, it makes you not wanna do it, but that's when you should struggle even harder to do it. You know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, somebody's gonna say, yes, it's not, it might not be what you want. You know what I mean? But it's something better than the street. I'm the type of person that, if you give me something, I want to get it on my own or I wanna find it on my own. So if you give me a voucher, of course I'm gonna go try to get my own home.
Gustavo: More after the break.
Gustavo: So, Anumita, the federal government distributed 70,000 of these vouchers to cities and counties across the nation. Outside of California, the examples that you talked about, how did other states and cities do when it came to getting people into homes while the pandemic was raging?
Anumita: If you look across the nation as of November, the utilization rate, right? So the percent of vouchers that are actually placing people into homes across the nation is at 52%. And so it's obviously not great.
Gustavo: Oh, wow. Better than L.A. or San Francisco.
Anumita: It is better than L.A. or San Francisco, but it's also not necessarily quite high. And if you look at New York, if you look at Philadelphia, those cities are also struggling. However, some cities are doing well. So Chicago, for example, is a city that has a pretty high utilization rate. And what's interesting about Chicago is that it also, similar to San Diego, utilizes those small area fair market rents, meaning they vary the voucher rent cap based on neighborhoods. So again, it kind of points to some possible solutions to make this program better.
Gustavo: Finally, this was a one-time emergency program, but as you mentioned, it's similar to Section 8 vouchers, which helps people pay for their rent. Can Section 8, which has always faced a lot of problems, can it learn some lessons from San Diego's success with the emergency housing vouchers?
Anumita: Absolutely. I think that one of the things that I'm interested to see explored is, you know, the adoption of small fair market rents. I think that that made a big difference in San Diego's success, and I think it potentially could make a big difference in other areas as well, right? In addition to that, I think about, again, streamlining that process.
Anumita: I know I keep using that term, but it really is what it is. And ensuring that houseless folks who are already dealing with so much in their day to day who are already busy just trying to survive often to ensure that they are dealing with the least amount of people and agencies can be a really effective method.
Gustavo: Amunita, thank you so much for this conversation.
Anumita: Thanks for having me.
Gustavo: And that's it for this episode of The Times Essential News from the LA Times.
Kinsee Morlan was the jefa on this episode, Mark Nieto mixed and mastered it and Jazmin Aguilera edited it.
Our show is produced by Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian, David Toledo and Ashlea Brown. Our editorial assistants are Roberto Reyes and Nicolas Perez. Our fellow is Helen Li. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen.
I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back Wednesday with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.