Honolulu will begin awarding 312 emergency housing vouchers early next year to provide rental assistance to low-income residents, according to Anton Krucky, interim director of the city’s Department of Community Services.
The vouchers are part of the American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress earlier this year to offset the effects of the pandemic.
Krucky told members of the Honolulu City Council that his department is laying the groundwork to begin awarding the vouchers in March.
"So we’ve been hiring people to be prepared to do this, and these have to be issued by Sept. 30, 2023, and they’re all low-barrier, easy to apply, easy to access, but we needed to get trained up on that, so we’ve hired and are training on that now," Krucky said.
The emergency housing vouchers are separate from the city’s Section 8 program which currently provides rental assistance to nearly 4,000 eligible low-income residents.
Section 8 funds come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Krucky said the city’s voucher program still has a waiting list of 2,000 families.
