Santa Cruz Housing Voucher Program helping hundreds stay of the streets
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KION-TV): The Emergency Housing Voucher program is being used in the County of Santa Cruz to help provide hundreds of people with housing. Robert Ratner, Director of Housing for the Health Division for the County of Santa Cruz, Human Services Department, was asked why they did this and what's next.
"The emergency housing voucher program, and the federal government, housing urban and development department, created the program during the pandemic to try to expand affordable housing," said Ratner. "For struggling folks with housing issues during the pandemic, the program was specifically created to help families and individuals who are homeless or struggling to pay rent," added Ratner. "And in Santa Cruz Country, our housing authority partnered with our division to explore how we can use those vouchers to help people."
According to the Housing Authority of Santa Cruz County, 295 emergency housing vouchers are used by children under 18 and adults over 60 and are being provided by 188 property owners.
One of the property owners, Kamal Naran, who has tenants at three Santa Cruz locations, was asked why he decided to do this.
"I've been finding tenants who are good quality tenants, they are reliable, and the program takes care of the financial concerns," said Naran.
According to the July 2022 report from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, the Watsonville-Santa Cruz area is the most expensive rental market in the U.S. per average renter in the region. So, what are Santa Cruz officials doing to build more affordable housing moving forward?
"At the local level, we're going to develop plans about where housing can get developed and then make some assumptions about funding opportunities," said Ratner. "In the end, if we're really going to achieve those goals, we are going to need something like these emergency housing vouchers again from the federal government and from the state government to make those goals for those with the lowest incomes."
Santa Cruz County officials said the project's price tag is $32,000 per household every year. Federal, state, and local governments fund it. There are 10,000 people on the waiting list to get housing vouchers, the county is waiting on approval from the federal government.
