At least 3,000 and likely more than 5,000 Montgomery County residents are now on the waiting list for public housing, officials said Friday.
And it’s all for perhaps two dozen residence.
Such is the precarious situation faced nearly every time Montgomery County authorities open up housing lotteries for underprivileged citizens. In the case of the federally funded public housing program, it’s seeming to hold true again, according to Tedi Osias, the Housing Opportunity Commission’s director of legal and public affairs.
The two-week application period for the government project closed last Friday, and at this point officials know that 3,000 online applications have been turned in. The number of mailed-in applications is still being calculated.
“Our conservative estimate — and this is very conservative — is that 1,500 people have mailed in applications, and that’s in addition to the online applications,” Osias said. “As long as it’s postmarked by [Oct.] 6th, it counts.”
The federal government allots 1,550 public housing units for Montgomery county, and at this point a whopping 99 percent of these have been filled, HOC officers have told The Examiner.
Because public housing applications are still coming in, housing staff members will keep counting, filing and checking for duplicates — an issue that’s been a small problem in the past.
Osias said while some residents understand the rules of the lottery system, others don’t get it and try to up their chances by applying several times.
“I see it as really a reflection of the desperation we’re dealing with,” she said.
Those eligible for public housing, like with the Housing and Urban Development’s housing-choice voucher program, must show financial need based on low income levels. The income ceilings in the county, for example, are $31,600 for a single resident, $36,100 for a family of two and $40,650 for a family of three.
Housing-choice voucher recipients receive a stipend and then pick their own housing locales using agreed-upon standards, but public housing recipients get placed in a set unit.
Last month, when HOC officials opened up the application process for housing-choice vouchers, they, too, got an overwhelming response — a record-breaking 17,800.
It’s unknown at this point how soon a lottery pull will be held to filter through these applications.
