ATLANTA — Help is coming for local families who need assistance covering their rent.
For the first time since April 2021, the Housing Choice Voucher Program will open its applications to be on the waitlist and the move comes as housing costs skyrocket.
"I apply they say, 'Oh you’re not chosen for the waitlist.' You don’t get an explanation, they don’t tell you why you’re not chosen, you’re just simply thrown to the side,” single mother Jackie Stephenson said.
The metro Atlanta resident said for more than 10 years, she had been trying unsuccessfully to get on the waitlist for the Georgia Housing Choice Voucher Program. Stephenson's goal is to find a safer place for her children and herself to live.
“It’s exhausting here, my children are in an uncomfortable place right now. They don’t wanna come home from school, it’s always shootings, it’s always killing. We’re next door to house fires. It’s always something dramatic going on that can cost them their lives,” Stephenson added.
However, after a two-year hiatus of not adding anyone to the waitlist, Deputy Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Housing Development Philip Gilman said they will reopen the application process for three days in October.
“You can apply anytime from Oct. 17 to Oct. 20. The website will be available 24 hours a day. It does not matter when you apply everyone will have equal opportunity to enter the lottery,” Gillman said.
Gillman added once the application is submitted, they will use a lottery system to randomly select who will be added to the waitlist and those selected will be randomly placed on the list to get a housing voucher.
“Anyone who applies, any time in the window will have an equal shot to be selected through that lottery process… and so our time and work through the new waitlist," Gillman said.
Stephenson hopes this time around she and her children will be lucky enough to be selected because the place she can afford on her current salary isn’t safe.
“It would be helpful to have that assistance so it can back you up,” Stephenson said.
In addition to encouraging people to apply to be on the Georgia Housing Choice waitlist, the Department of Community Affairs said they are also looking for renters to join the program. You can do so online here.