Hawai‘i County's Office of Housing and Community Development will open the waitlist for its Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program next month.
Applications will be accepted beginning at 9 a.m. Aug. 1 and the waitlist will remain open until further notice, the county said in a recent announcement.
Applications must be completed and submitted electronically through the OHCD’s online application portal.
The voucher program provides rental assistances to eligible low-income individuals and families who are at or below 80% of the area median income, the announcement noted.
You can find the income limits in the public notice. In Hawai‘i County, for example, a household of four can make up to $96,700 at 80% AMI, $60,450 at 50% AMI and $36,980 at 30% AMI.
Housing Administrator Kehaulani Costa told Aloha State Daily in an emailed response to questions that the wait list last opened in September 2022.
According to Costa, there is no predetermined number of slots available for the waiting list. Should a decision be made to close it, she says notice will be given at least two weeks in advance across a number of mediums: publication in local newspapers, on the county website and on OHCD's social media platforms.
The county, Costa says, uses a time-and-date-based system for placement on the list as opposed to a lottery. Applications are ordered by the date and time they're submitted, with priority given to applicants who meet specific Public Housing Agency-defined preferences.
Highest priority are Hawai‘i County resident families with a gross annual income at or below 30% of the AMI, with at least one child under the age of 18 and/or who include an elderly person or a person with a disability, and a lease agreement with a landlord who agrees to participate in the program.
Treated equally with the highest priority are applicants who are experiencing an emergency, such as those who are homeless or involuntarily displaced; families whose assistance had been terminated from the voucher program because of insufficient funds, and "specific special purpose voucher participants who qualify to 'move up.'"
Next, any resident family of the state or Hawai‘i County whose gross annual income is at or below 30%, with at least one child and/or who include an elderly person or person with a disability.
"The time it takes to work through the waiting list, based on the Public Housing Agency-defined preferences, varies with each opening," Costa says. "Over 2,000 households were added to the waiting list following the 2022 opening."
ICYMI: The City and County of Honolulu also has opened the waitlist for its Section 8 voucher program this week only. You can apply through 4:30 p.m. Friday, but the pre-applications received this week will be randomized and 3,000 will be selected for the list via a lottery.
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Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
