Lack of Section 8 housing can lead to homelessness
ZANESVILLE — Eviction wasn’t in the plan for Jessica and Michaelangelo Slaughter.
After the apartment they rented changed hands last year, their rent went up by $300. They couldn’t afford their place any longer, so the unthinkable happened: They ended up on the streets, living out of their car for more than two years.
They faced multiple challenges in finding a place not only with an eviction on Michaelangelo’s record, but also with Jessica’s previous felony.
“But the overall, major problem is there isn’t enough housing,” Jessica said.
Now, they have their own place in Putnam, with a landlord willing to work with an imperfect rental history. It’s Section 8-approved, but they’re still waiting to get cleared for another voucher before they can start getting rental assistance.
The wait has been hard. Seven-hundred fifty dollars each month, a hefty electric bill and paying for school to get her master’s degree is a lot, Jessica said, but it’ll be worth it if it helps them regain custody of their 11-year-old daughter who they lost due to being homeless.
The Slaughters aren’t alone in their quest for subsidized housing.
There is a persistent need in the community for rental assistance, according to data obtained by the TR through a public records request. Only around 10% of the people who applied for a voucher in 2021 were actually housed, largely due to a lack of inventory.
The Zanesville Metropolitan Housing Authority received 710 applications for Section 8 vouchers last year. Of those, 691 met the requirements for the vouchers, but only 71 of them got housing.
That means around 90% of the people who currently need subsidized housing in Muskingum County aren’t able to get it. There simply aren’t enough landlords accepting vouchers and available units approved by federally set standards, according to ZMHA.
That’s something advocates say needs to change to protect the livelihoods of low-income individuals in the Zanesville area.
A subsidized housing crisis
The Housing Choice Voucher Program is a federally-funded program that works as a way to help very low-income, elderly and disabled people pay their rent.
In order to qualify, someone must make below a certain threshold of income. That’ll prove what percentage of the rent they’re able to pay. Generally,
around 30% of someone’s income goes toward housing, so the formula is adjusted to meet those needs.
Once that request is approved, the voucher will be set up so that the government pays a certain percentage, and the tenant pays the rest.
So why is there such a shortage in Zanesville?
It’s hard to get landlords to sign up for a number of reasons, according to Zanesville Metropolitan Housing Authority Director Steve Randles
They can make more money on market rate rents than on the maximum amount allowed under fair housing rules. In addition to that, they may have to alter units to meet health and safety standards required after inspection.
However, there are many upsides to taking vouchers, including stability in rent payments.
“The interesting thing we find is landlords that do participate see the virtue and benefit of participating, because they know that certainly that voucher payment money is consistent, regular — it’s going to be paid on time,” he said. “If there’s any issues, it’ll get identified through an inspection.”
ZMHA is authorized to issue up to 939 vouchers, but by the end of last year only 745 were in use due to a lack of available publicly-owned units and participating private landlords.
Many people seeking subsidized housing are put on wait lists.
The city of Zanesville conducted a housing needs assessment in 2019 that found there was only a 1.6% vacancy rate in housing across all types. The shortage persists.
Lives uprooted without housing
Individuals have 90 days to find a place before the voucher expires. But when there’s nowhere to live, more often than not, there’s no place to go.
What happens from there? The reality is they often end up homeless.
Evictions are also contributing to the problem.
One local group, the Zanesville Citizen Housing Connection, received a grant that allowed them to help people find resources after they were evicted.
The group tracked 212 evictions from January through September of 2021, the months when the group was active. Most evictions were concentrated within the city.
“People aren’t trained to live on the streets,” said Steve Stewart, who worked for ZCHC last year. “It takes an awful lot out of a person to reach out and say, ‘help me,’ even to a good friend or a relative, because they feel like a failure.”
Homelessness comes by many definitions; it’s not just the people living in tents and shelters. Oftentimes people will sleep in their cars, stay in motels or couch-surf with friends or family until they can find a place.
Although one major barrier to come out of homelessness is finding affordable housing. When there aren’t enough places to go around, let alone having a deterrent eviction on someone’s record, Stewart said what are supposed to be temporary living situations can become a long-lasting reality.
That the case for the Slaughters. What was supposed to be temporary — living out of their car — seemed like it would never end.
Deven Kosal gained kinship care of his two young brothers.
He qualified for a Section 8 voucher, but it was nearly impossible to find an apartment that would accommodate the needs of one of his brothers, who has a disability.
Even removing that variable, if only his other brother lived with him, he was still wait-listed. Bouncing around from family members’ homes no longer became a viable option for them, and his brothers, now 7 and 8 years old, had to enter foster care.
“It was kind of a situation where it benefited them to not be stuck in the situation,” he said. “The agency just pulling them back away from me was the best solution.”
Not an easy fix
While housing authorities do rely on private landlords to offer Section 8-approved places, in Zanesville, ZMHA has seven neighborhoods of public housing. Many who apply for those lately are put on a wait list.
There are also some public projects working to contribute to the seven neighborhoods that offer public housing in the Zanesville area.
There have been some initiatives to convert old buildings into new housing, like the old Munson Elementary School on Brighton Boulevard. Those plans have stalled though due to rising costs, but the hope is to demolish the school and build new housing. Ideally it’d be a mix of market-rate and subsidized housing.
In Stewart’s experience, he found that once a tenant had an eviction on their record, it became next to impossible to find a landlord that would be willing to accept what they may consider to be a liability.
The city is working with developers to get more housing into the city. The problem is, there’s not a lot of interest because they can make more money in big cities with higher housing market rates.
“There’s a lot of reasons we struggle, but really right now it’s not as profitable here as it is in other communities,” Zanesville Community Development Director Matt Schley said. “It’s all about what the market can bare.”
Additionally, Randles said ZMHA goes to realtor group meetings to try to promote the benefits of accepting Section 8. There is some stigma surrounding the conditions of the apartment when people leave and leave it in poor condition.
That stigma is what the Slaughters hope can change.
“Those who aren’t homeless, when they see one of us who are homeless, they automatically assume and think the worst about us,” Jessica said. “They don’t sit down and take the time and learn how we got here.”
ecouch@gannett.com