Using Emergency Housing Vouchers to Address Homelessness

This analysis is published as part of the Housing Crisis Research Collaborative.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the urgency to respond to the nation’s homelessness crisis. At the start of the pandemic, an estimated 578,000 people were experiencing homelessness across the United States on a given night, and faced heightened risks of severe illness and death from the disease.^1,2 As part of the broader pandemic response focused on homelessness,³ the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 appropriated funding for 70,000 Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHVs) to subsidize housing for people experiencing or at imminent risk of homelessness.

The size and scope of this deployment of EHVs created an unprecedented opportunity to house a significant share of people at risk of or currently experiencing homelessness. However, research has highlighted challenges to the program’s rollout, which occurred amid pandemic-related disruptions and the deployment of several other pandemic response programs.⁴ Surveys of Continuums of Care (CoCs) about six months after the program’s launch found that only about half of the communities had actually started leasing housing with EHVs,⁵ and as of February 2023, only two-thirds of EHVs had been successfully leased up. Tapping into the unused potential of these tenant-based vouchers is critical; research has shown that long-term housing subsidies are effective in helping people exit homelessness and stay housed.⁶

This commentary looks at the successes and challenges for the EHV program almost two years since the program’s launch. We begin by describing the EHV program, and present data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) EHV Data Dashboard, as of February 21, 2023.⁷ We then take a closer look at the key challenges to making sure awarded EHVs are used in California, and the strategies that some jurisdictions have employed to overcome these challenges. These findings come from 18 interviews with staff members at 10 housing authorities, six local homelessness systems (including interviews with staff at county departments and CoC lead agencies), and two direct service providers across California conducted in 2022. Our findings highlight ongoing challenges of using EHVs in tighter housing markets, but also point to important strategies that can help to ensure that EHVs and other voucher programs are successfully leased up and lead to more people experiencing homelessness finding safe, stable housing.

Background on Emergency Housing Vouchers

The EHV program was created during the pandemic to safely and quickly house vulnerable populations who were not yet reached by the nation’s housing programs. Like Housing Choice Vouchers (commonly known as Section 8), EHVs are a type of tenant-based voucher: participants receive a housing subsidy that they can use in the private rental market, which covers rent and utility expenses beyond 30 percent of their adjusted monthly incomes.⁸

The EHV program differs from typical Housing Choice Vouchers in five key ways:⁹

• EHVs specifically serve people who are currently experiencing, have recently experienced, or are at-risk of homelessness, as well as people fleeing domestic violence, sexual assault, or human trafficking.
• EHVs come with additional funding (approximately $3,500 per voucher) for the housing authority to use in support of housing navigation, landlord incentives, and other services for finding and moving into housing.¹⁰
• Public housing authorities (PHAs) are required to coordinate with local CoCs to identify eligible recipients for the vouchers. CoCs are administrative entities defined by HUD that coordinate local homelessness services and funding, including maintaining lists of people experiencing homelessness who are seeking housing assistance.
• EHVs can be applied to a wider range of rental units, including higher cost units. The EHV program allows PHAs to use 120 percent of HUD’s Fair Market Rent as the payment standard for all vouchers. The HCV program payment standards, on the other hand, are typically between 90–110 percent of the Fair Market Rent, with some exceptions that can allow paying more.
• If a household exits the EHV program, PHAs are not allowed to reissue the voucher to another household after September 30, 2023. However, awarded EHVs can be issued and leased for the first time after this date.¹¹

The EHV program also allows for a variety of waivers that can be used to expedite the leasing process, such as self-certification of income or citizenship requirements. If PHAs are unable to lease their EHVs within a “reasonable period of time,” as defined by HUD, their unused vouchers can be revoked and redistributed to other jurisdictions.¹²

Findings

EHVs expand resources to address homelessness.

Nationwide, the 70,000 awarded EHVs could help house 12 percent of the roughly 578,000 people estimated to be experiencing homelessness on a given night in the 2022 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count.¹³ EHVs thus represent a large influx of resources to address homelessness, especially since this capacity was added all at once.

The scale of this additional capacity varies between different parts of the country, however.¹⁴ Figure 1 shows states’ total numbers of EHVs as a percentage of their 2022 PIT Counts of homelessness. California received the largest total number of EHVs (over 17,000), but the state also has the largest number of people experiencing homelessness (over 171,000). In contrast, Mississippi was awarded only 381 EHVs, but these vouchers could help house about 32 percent of the state’s roughly 1,200 people experiencing homelessness.

Figure 1. States’ Total Numbers of Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHVs) as a Percentage of Their 2022 Point-in-Time Counts of Homelessness

Link to interactive map

Notes: Numbers of EHVs are from HUD’s EHV dashboard on February 21, 2023. Numbers of people experiencing homelessness are from HUD’s Point-in-Time Counts of Homelessness, conducted in early 2022.

Many EHVs have yet to successfully help people obtain housing.

As of February 21, 2023, 67 percent of awarded EHVs were leased, representing almost 47,000 households that were helped to exit or avoid homelessness. However, over 30,000 more households had received an EHV and were still looking for housing.¹⁵ (Many PHAs issue more vouchers than their total number awarded because not all vouchers will be leased at any given moment.)

Lease-up rates vary significantly between places. Figure 2 shows the number of PHAs by what share of their awarded EHVs that have been leased.¹⁶ More than one fifth of PHAs that were awarded EHVs—129 of 610 PHAs—had leased less than half of their total EHV authority. Another 311 PHAs still had significant shares of EHVs (between 10 and 50 percent) that needed to be leased up. Only 62 PHAs have successfully managed to lease all of their EHVs.

Figure 2. Number of Public Housing Authorities by the Percentage of Awarded EHVs that are Leased

Notes: Percentages of EHVs that are leased for each Public Housing Authority are from HUD’s EHV dashboard on February 21, 2023. Six of the 610 housing authorities with EHVs were missing information on the number that are leased.

Figure 3 shows the percentage of awarded EHVs that have been leased by state, which illustrates the unevenness of success in leasing vouchers across different places. In addition, many EHVs have not even been issued, meaning people have not yet been connected with a voucher to start looking for housing. As of late February 2023, 250 of the reporting PHAs still had EHVs left to issue and 15 percent still had at least one-quarter of their EHVs left to issue. Yet again, these patterns differed between states. For example, PHAs in California and New York had collectively issued thousands more EHVs than they were awarded, anticipating that not all EHVs would be successfully leased. Meanwhile, PHAs in Georgia had yet to issue 361 of the almost 1,400 EHVs across the state.

Figure 3. Percentage of Awarded Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHVs) that Have Been Leased, By State

Link to interactive map
Notes: Numbers of EHVs awarded, issued, and leased are from HUD’s EHV dashboard on February 21, 2023.

Lessons from California: Program Successes and Challenges in Tight Housing Markets

California has over 171,000 people experiencing homelessness—two-thirds of whom are unsheltered—and some of the tightest regional housing markets in the country. These factors make the state an interesting context to explore challenges in successfully using EHVs and how entities implementing the program are working to overcome them. As shown above in Figure 3, 63 percent of awarded EHVs in California were leased up in February 2023. Almost 11,000 EHVs had been successfully leased in California while over 9,000 recipients were still looking for housing.

Interviews with staff from PHAs and local homelessness systems across the state pointed to three primary challenges to successfully distribute and lease up EHVs: identifying eligible participants, locating available units, and recruiting landlords to participate.

Identifying eligible recipients for EHVs requires considerable effort and system coordination.

PHAs that administer vouchers and CoCs, which coordinate homelessness services, are separate entities with distinct resources and responsibilities, and often different geographic service areas. As a result, the processes by which people experiencing homelessness are connected to services and voucher eligibility determination are sometimes not fully coordinated at the local level.

Several interviewees highlighted challenges coordinating with local homelessness systems to identify people who would be eligible for the EHV programs. Many reflected on the challenges of taking referrals from Coordinated Entry Systems.¹⁷ Coordinated Entry Systems are designed to identify and match people experiencing homelessness with housing assistance, but they typically do not include the Housing Choice Voucher program. As a result, agencies often needed to take on additional back-and-forth correspondence in order to certify EHV recipients who were referred from the Coordinated Entry System, causing delays and strain on staff resources. One interviewee commented that their Coordinated Entry System “didn’t have the capacity” to prepare the necessary documentation, saying this expectation was “an unfunded mandate” for the CoC.¹⁸

Other interviewees noted that extra coordination effort was often required to surmount the unique barriers and circumstances faced by households experiencing homelessness, who can be “a harder population to house”¹⁹ or “extra burdened with so many challenges.”²⁰ For example, it can be difficult to locate unsheltered participants who have been enrolled in the EHV program but may have relocated over the course of administrative delays. These challenges are not unique to the EHV program; the Housing Choice Voucher program must confront the same issues to serve people experiencing homelessness.²¹ However, these challenges are much more common for the EHV program because the program primarily serves people experiencing homelessness.

To overcome these hurdles, interviewees emphasized that the strength of relationships between CoCs and PHAs were important to the success of EHV implementation. Some PHAs and local homelessness systems had already forged strong relationships, and were able to set up and implement the processes necessary to implement the EHV program more easily. In one locality, the PHA directors were on the CoC board and were therefore “super bought in”, as one interviewee put it, to the process of providing vouchers to people experiencing homelessness.²² In another large jurisdiction, a pre-existing partnership to house people experiencing homelessness with traditional Housing Choice Vouchers enabled a “seamless” process of setting up a memorandum of understanding between the PHA and CoC for the EHV program.²³

In places without these solid foundations, some stakeholders used the EHV program as a means of building stronger relationships between the housing authorities and local homelessness systems. One PHA staff member described working with the city, county, and a local community-based organization to prioritize families experiencing homelessness for EHVs.²⁴ Another stated that the presence of EHV programming promoted partnership between the CoC and PHA, commenting that the relationship has been “enhanced with ongoing communication” because the CoC “now meets bi-weekly with the Executive Director and the Director of the Housing Choice Voucher program” to coordinate efforts.²⁵

Developing prioritization schemas to quickly reach populations in need was another strategy that interviewees described to identify eligible participants. Many jurisdictions targeted individuals and families with whom they already had touchpoints or who were exiting other programs. For example, one PHA prioritized households exiting the Emergency Rental Assistance program who were at risk of homelessness,²⁶ while another described prioritizing households exiting rapid re-housing and other short-term subsidy programs.²⁷ One Public Housing Authority dedicated 40 percent of their EHVs to a “moving on” program, which allowed people currently living in transitional or permanent supportive housing who no longer needed that level of supportive service to transition to an EHV. Staff reflected that this strategy had notable effects on “unclogging the CoC;” the openings created by shifting these households into private units with an EHV allowed them to move in new people from shelters who needed a high level of supportive services.²⁸

Respondents also discussed using the additional flexible EHV funding to invest in their local Coordinated Entry Systems. One Public Housing Authority described using a quarter of the additional $3,500/voucher to supplement staffing for Coordinated Entry in their local system.²⁹ Another PHA described strengthening partnerships by sharing part of the EHV supplementary funds with the local 2-1-1 phone line that handles Coordinated Entry intakes in anticipation of the influx of referrals and housing applications for the program.³⁰

Housing navigation and other support can help EHV recipients successfully find housing in tight housing markets, but there are limits to what these strategies can accomplish. 

Tight housing markets with low vacancy rates make it difficult for households to find a unit to rent, even with the support of a voucher. As one interviewee put it, “You can't issue vouchers when there's no apartments and expect magic to happen.”³¹ PHA staff across California echoed these concerns, citing the scarcity of available units as the primary barrier for voucher holders to obtain permanent housing. One stakeholder captured a common sentiment, reflecting: “We need new housing that is dedicated for homeless individuals. We live in a community, just like many other communities, that has a housing crisis.… There's no homes, there's no inventory.”³² This broader challenge was compounded by the simultaneous expansion of various other housing subsidies as part of the pandemic response, including a large growth in rapid re-housing assistance designed to help people experiencing homelessness quickly secure permanent housing with a time-limited subsidy. This array of housing assistance was vital in getting and keeping people housed, but these programs also increased competition for affordable units among recipients in tight markets.³³

Although the EHV program came with supplemental funding for housing navigation, landlord incentives, or other services, a few interviewees reflected that the funding was insufficient to cover the expenses necessary in areas with high rental rates. One PHA staff member said that the $3,500 per voucher was often equal to the required security deposits in the area, leaving no resources for additional support like housing navigation.³⁴ Another interviewee described that even when using the funds for housing navigation, locating units often involved a massive effort. The interviewee noted: “You had very limited supply of housing. And what was there you know, was not necessarily targeted to affordability. So you really had to work and grind it out to find units for people to live in.”³⁵

Despite these challenges, some interviewees described successfully employing housing navigation services to find available units, even in strained housing markets. Housing navigation refers to one-on-one assistance from a caseworker in finding a housing unit, and can include assistance like helping a voucher holder search listings for available and appropriate units, filling out rental applications, gathering necessary documentation, and meeting with potential landlords. One PHA staff member explained that these types of services help people “navigate through the application process”³⁶ and can be “critical for finding units that are rentable.” Another credited their success with administering EHVs to increased funding for supportive services like housing navigation, saying, “the throughput has been amazing compared to just handing somebody a voucher and saying ‘good luck to you.’”³⁷

Housing navigation services can also take the form of broad, proactive outreach or searches for units not specific to a particular client. For example, one Public Housing Authority stated that they created a team “dedicated to exclusively going out and hitting the streets and talking to landlords” to help identify available units.³⁸ Another PHA described hiring brokers to provide assistance locating units in the community and working with landlords to make those listings available to EHV holders.³⁹ One interviewee reflected that their ability to use the $3,500 flexibly created a “gold standard” of support that enabled them to achieve “100 times better outcomes” for participants.⁴⁰

PHAs used the EHV program’s supplemental funding to increase landlords’ willingness to participate in the program. 

One of the most commonly cited challenges to leasing up vouchers (and a challenge that is also common for tenant-based Housing Choice Vouchers) is attracting and retaining landlords to participate in the program.⁴¹ Although it is illegal in California to discriminate against someone based on their source of income, interviewees said that landlords can be hesitant to rent to people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness. One interviewee reflected on this challenge, asking “Who’s willing to rent to our population? And how are we enforcing the fact that we have all these rules, and you can’t discriminate based on source of income and criminal background, but they do and they will… We have got to stop pretending that our folks can just go shop for a unit and then pick one up.”⁴²

These challenges may be especially pronounced for people of color. Systemic racism contributes to profound racial disparities in homelessness. Black and Native American people are overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness in California, and homelessness among Latine people has grown more rapidly than homelessness for the state overall.⁴³ The same factors that create racial disparities in homelessness—including disproportionate rates of prior incarceration and evictions for people of color—can be grounds for landlords to decline to rent to EHV recipients, in turn perpetuating racial inequities.⁴⁴

Landlords are also often hesitant to engage with the bureaucratic requirements needed to participate in the voucher program. Lengthy and rigorous inspection processes, exacting requirements for housing quality, and/or required documents necessary to contract with a PHA can all disincentivize landlords from participating. In addition, PHA funding constraints can exacerbate the time it takes to conduct these processes. For example, one interviewee commented, “The other big challenge we have is our housing authority is just not customer-service oriented with our landlords. So it can take a month, a month and a half to get an inspection completed for a voucher.”⁴⁵

To overcome these challenges, several interviewees discussed the importance of strategies that support recruitment of and engagement with landlords. The extra funding provided as part of the EHV program may be used for landlord incentive programs, typically a one-time bonus or reimbursement payments aimed to encourage participation in the voucher program. For example, one PHA discussed their landlord bonus program, through which any “landlord willing to take a homeless client will get a $2,000 bonus.”⁴⁶ Another PHA provided $1,000 for landlords willing to take voucher holders through the EHV program and said that “it made a big difference” in successfully leasing up the vouchers.⁴⁷ Other interviewees described using a variety of strategies to incentivize participation, such as using the funds to bring units up to HUD Housing Quality Standards, providing extra security deposit funds above what is typically required, or creating a reimbursement fund that landlords could access in case of any damages.

Interviewees also described using the EHV program to foster relationships and build trust with landlords to encourage program participation. These relationships could provide benefits beyond EHV implementation; for example, landlords who had a positive experience with the PHA might also choose to also participate in the ongoing Housing Choice Voucher program. One PHA staff member described how EHV-funded navigation assistance provided by community-based organizations gave landlords an opportunity to troubleshoot issues and put them more at ease about contracting with the PHA, noting, “for a landlord to have a face to talk to, someone who’s not a [HUD] inspector… that landlord feels a lot better about getting into this relationship if they have something like that.”⁴⁸ Another noted that the flexible funding allowed the PHA to work more closely with service providers and rely on them to provide additional support to landlords once participants were in their unit. They described this service as a complement to the incentive payments that are offered to landlords prior to lease up, saying, “we're able to tell the landlords that after [participants are] housed, they can contact the service providers who can provide that additional support. So it's sort of both ends of it. At the front end, where you're giving them that incentive, and then also the supports at the back end.”⁴⁹

Recommendations and Conclusion

EHVs can be a powerful tool to reduce homelessness. In some states, the program has added capacity to house over 30 percent of the population experiencing homelessness. However, EHVs are not being used to their full potential everywhere. The program rolled out simultaneously with other pandemic-response efforts, and local jurisdictions differed widely in their capacity to quickly stand up multiple new housing-related programs.⁵⁰ Many PHAs (129 out of 610) have yet to lease up more than half of their EHVs. Challenges identifying eligible participants, locating available units, and recruiting landlords to participate can lead to unsuccessful attempts to house people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness and can undermine the potential of EHVs to meaningfully reduce the number of people without housing.

It is critical to expand the stock of housing available to voucher-holders. Even within tight housing markets, however, interviews with PHAs and other stakeholders in California point to strategies that can help EHVs work better. Some practical examples of these strategies include prioritizing users from other programs (such as permanent supportive housing participants who no longer need high levels of support) and connecting them to an EHV; establishing frequent meetings between PHA and CoC staff to streamline referrals to the program and limit communication-related delays; and/or implementing innovative approaches to housing navigation, such as deploying staff to identify and hold units (using part of the supplementary fee) for the pool of EHV participants.

There are also several lessons from EHV program implementation that could be used to improve the effectiveness of the Housing Choice Voucher program, which also faces challenges serving people experiencing homelessness⁵¹ and encouraging landlord participation.⁵² These lessons include:

• Flexible service fees: Vulnerable populations, particularly those who are experiencing unsheltered or chronic homelessness, face additional burdens to securing and maintaining housing. HUD might consider providing flexible service funding, much like the EHV program, to meet the wide range of needs for this population. This funding could be used for housing navigation, landlord incentives, or supportive services for those who need ongoing support.
• Higher eligible rents: Additional flexibility for vouchers applied in low vacancy areas, for example by allowing for 120 percent of HUD’s Fair Market Rent, can provide voucher-holders more choice among limited housing options. Higher rent ceilings can also provide more opportunity for participants to live in higher-resource neighborhoods, and can allow the PHA to avoid further contributing to concentrated areas of poverty.
• Local system partnerships and capacity building: Strong partnerships between PHAs and local homelessness systems have been a crucial element in identifying and connecting people experiencing homelessness to housing. Investing in the capacity of Coordinated Entry Systems and encouraging PHAs to work within these systems to identify people experiencing homelessness can expand the potential for vouchers to reach this population.

Long-term housing subsidies, including housing vouchers, help people exit homelessness and stay housed.⁵³ The EHV program has the potential to meaningfully reduce homelessness across the country, particularly if PHAs and other stakeholders can overcome challenges to program implementation. Equally important, lessons from the EHV program can be applied to future allocations of emergency vouchers as well as the ongoing Housing Choice Voucher program, a vital source of long-term housing assistance for people exiting homelessness.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the staff at housing authorities, Continuums of Care, and homelessness service providers who generously shared their experiences and insights with us. Thanks also to Quinn Underriner for assistance retrieving data from HUD’s Emergency Housing Voucher dashboard, and to our research partners at Abt Associates and the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at UC San Francisco who supported the qualitative interviews. This commentary benefited from reviews by Terner Center colleagues Carolina Reid, Ben Metcalf, and Ophelia Basgal, as well as Mary Cunningham at the Urban Institute and Jim Armstrong at the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association.

This commentary was supported by funding from the Housing Crisis Research Collaborative, which is supported by the Wells Fargo Foundation and JPMorgan Chase & Co. and managed by the Urban Institute. We are grateful to them for allowing the Collaborative to advance its goals.

This research does not represent the institutional views of UC Berkeley or of the Terner Center’s funders. Funders do not determine research findings or recommendations in Terner Center’s research and policy reports.

Endnotes

1.   Henry, M., et al. (2021). The 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress, Part 1: Point-in-time Estimates of Homelessness. US Department of Housing and Urban Development. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2020-AHAR-Part-1.pdf.
2.   Corey, J., et al. (2022). A scoping review of the health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on persons experiencing homelessness in North America and Europe. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(6), 3219. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063219.
3.  Batko, S., Moraras, P., & Rogin, A. (2022). Using COVID-19 Relief Resources to End Homelessness. Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/Using%20COVID-19%20Relief%20Resources%20to%20End%20Homelessness.pdf.
4.  Moses, J. & Pagaduan, J. (2022). Using EHVs to Get People Housed: Focus Group Discussions on Challenges and Current Strategies. National Alliance to End Homelessness. https://endhomelessness.org/resource/using-ehvs-to-get-people-housed-focus-group-discussions-on-challenges-and-current-strategies/.
5.  Moses, J. (2021). What Happened After Congress Invested in Emergency Housing Vouchers: A Survey of Homeless Services Providers. National Alliance to End Homelessness. https://endhomelessness.org/resource/what-happened-after-congress-invested-in-emergency-housing-vouchers-a-survey-of-homeless-services-providers/.
6.  Gubits, D., et al. (2018). What Interventions Work Best for Families Who Experience Homelessness? Impact Estimates from the Family Options Study. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 37 (4), 835-866. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22071
7.  U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2023). Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) Data Dashboard. Office of Public & Indian Housing. Retrieved February 21, 2023. https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/ehv/dashboard.
8.  Participants typically contribute 30 percent of their adjusted income to rent and utilities, and the voucher program covers the remainder. ‘Adjusted’ income accounts for factors like the number of people in the family, age of family members, and medical and child care expenses. Rental amounts are limited by local caps set by HUD’s fair market rent estimates.
9.  U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2022). Emergency Housing Vouchers: A How-To Guide for Public Housing Agencies. https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/Emergency-Housing-Vouchers-How-To-Guide-For-Public-Housing-Agencies.pdf.
10.  The supplemental funding for EHVs is pooled for housing authorities to use collectively, not allocated for each voucher recipient to use separately.
11.  U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2022). Emergency Housing Vouchers: A How-To Guide for Public Housing Agencies. https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/Emergency-Housing-Vouchers-How-To-Guide-For-Public-Housing-Agencies.pdf.
12.  U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2022). Revoke and Reallocation of Emergency Housing Voucher Awards (Notice PIH 2022-22). Office of Public and Indian Housing. https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/OCHCO/documents/2022-22pihn.pdf.
13.  These numbers are limited to the 50 states and Washington, D.C. The total population eligible for EHVs is greater than reflected in the PIT Counts. PIT Counts estimate people currently experiencing homelessness on a single night, but these estimates are often undercounts. EHVs can also serve people who are not currently experiencing homelessness. However, surveys of local EHV programs early in the pandemic showed that most communities prioritized people currently experiencing homelessness.
14.  HUD’s allocation method for EHVs took several factors into account. Places with greater need, based on homelessness counts and numbers of very low-income renters, received more EHVs. HUD also prioritized higher-capacity PHAs for more EHVs, signaled by their number and lease-up rates for Housing Choice Vouchers. Finally, HUD’s allocation method also ensured that EHVs would be awarded to PHAs in rural areas with high relative levels of need.
15.  These numbers do not reflect “churn” with EHVs, which is the term used to describe vouchers that are issued to people who are ultimately unable to use the voucher, leading to the voucher being reissued. This churn can be demoralizing for people and resource-intensive for PHAs and CoCs who must find another recipient.
16.  For lease-up rates for each PHA, see the HUD EHV Data Dashboard here: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/ehv/dashboard.
17.  Coordinated Entry Systems are operated by local CoCs to match people experiencing homelessness with housing assistance like permanent supportive housing (subsidized housing paired with long-term supportive services) and rapid re-housing (short-term housing subsidies to help people quickly re-enter housing on the private market). Coordinated Entry Systems typically do not include the Housing Choice Voucher program, which is administered separately by PHAs.
18.  Interview, Southern California, April 20, 2022.
19.  Interview, Greater Sacramento, May 12, 2022.
20.  Interview, Bay Area, June 28, 2022.
21.  Khadduri, J., et al. (2022). Using Tenant-based Housing Vouchers to Help End Homelessness in Los Angeles, 2016-2020. Abt Associates. https://www.abtassociates.com/files/insights/reports/2022/Abt_Voucher%20Report_FINAL_7.8.22.pdf.
22.  Interview, Central Coast, May 20, 2022.
23.  Interview, Southern California, September 6, 2022.
24.  Interview, Bay Area, April 11, 2022.
25.  Interview, Southern California, July 14, 2022.
26.  Interview, Southern California, April 25, 2022.
27.  Interview, Southern California, August 26, 2022.
28.  Interview, Bay Area, May 3, 2022.
29.  Interview, Bay Area, May 3, 2022.
30.  Interview, San Joaquin Valley, May 11, 2022.
31.  Interview, San Joaquin Valley, May 11, 2022.
32.  Interview, Central Coast, May 20, 2022.
33.  Batko, S., Moraras, P., & Rogin, A. (2022). Using COVID-19 Relief Resources to End Homelessness. Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/Using%20COVID-19%20Relief%20Resources%20to%20End%20Homelessness.pdf ; Moses, J. & Pagaduan, J. (2022, April 26). Using EHVs to Get People Housed: Focus Group Discussions on Challenges and Current Strategies. National Alliance to End Homelessness. https://endhomelessness.org/resource/using-ehvs-to-get-people-housed-focus-group-discussions-on-challenges-and-current-strategies/.
34.  Interview, Southern California, April 20, 2022.
35.  Interview, Bay Area, May 3, 2022.
36.  Interview, Bay Area, May 3, 2022.
37.  Interview, San Joaquin Valley, May 11, 2022.
38.  Interview, Bay Area, May 3, 2022.
39.  Interview, Southern California, August 26, 2022.
40.  Interview, Southern California, June 7, 2022.
41.  Cunningham, M., Galvez, M., Aranda, C., Santos, R., Wissoker, D., Oneto, A., Pitingolo, R., Crawford, J. (2018). A Pilot Study of Landlord Acceptance of Housing Choice Vouchers. Urban Institute. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/Landlord-Acceptance-of-Housing-Choice-Vouchers.pdf.
42.  Interview, Southern California, June 8, 2022.
43.  Olivet, J., et al. (2021). Racial Inequity and Homelessness: Findings from the SPARC Study. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 693(1), 82–100, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716221991040; California Interagency Council on Homelessness. (n.d.).  A Snapshot of Homelessness in CA. State of California Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency. Retrieved February 21, 2023, from https://bcsh.ca.gov/calich/hdis.html.
44.  Moses, J. (2022). Race, Ethnicity, and EHVs: The Elephant in the Room. National Alliance to End Homelessness. https://endhomelessness.org/blog/race-ethnicity-and-ehvs-the-elephant-in-the-room/.
45.  Interview, Greater Sacramento, May 12, 2022.
46.  Interview, Central Coast, May 18, 2022.
47.  Interview, Greater Sacramento, May 12, 2022.
48.  Interview, Bay Area, May 3, 2022.
49.  Interview, Greater Sacramento, May 12, 2022.
50.  Kneebone, E. (2022). Building Local Institutional Capacity: Lessons Learned from the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. The Terner Center for Housing Innovation. https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Emergency-Rental-Assistance-Lessons-Learned-October-2022-Final.pdf.
51.  Khadduri, J., Fiore, N., et. al. (2022, July). Using Tenant-based Housing Vouchers to Help End Homelessness in Los Angeles, 2016-2020. Abt Associates. https://www.abtassociates.com/files/insights/reports/2022/Abt_Voucher%20Report_FINAL_7.8.22.pdf.
52.  Goodman, L., Kaul, K., & Stegman, M. (2022). Leveraging Financing to Encourage Landlords to Accept Housing Choice Vouchers. Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/leveraging-financing-encourage-landlords-accept-housing-choice-vouchers.
53.  Gubits, D., et al. (2018). What Interventions Work Best for Families Who Experience Homelessness? Impact Estimates from the Family Options Study. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 37(4), 835-866. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22071.