Fairfax County plans to indefinitely close the waiting list for a major subsidized housing program at the end of the month, hoping to buy time to cull unresponsive names from the backlog and reconsider how to manage the high volume of applications.

The federally sponsored Housing Choice Voucher, formerly known as the Section 8 program, provides residents with a rent subsidy for private housing. As of the beginning of the year, the county had accumulated 8,473 applications for the program, according to information provided by the Department of Housing and Community Development.