Cedar Rapids takes step to help homeless people quickly access housing vouchers

CEDAR RAPIDS — Individuals experiencing homelessness in the Cedar Rapids area may more quickly receive vouchers to help them pay for housing costs under a rule change implemented this week by the city, allowing low-income families to better access support by reducing lengthy waits for assistance.

The Cedar Rapids City Council approved a rule change Tuesday enabling the city — which serves as the public housing authority for Linn and Benton counties — to allocate 55 vouchers per year to individuals experiencing homelessness, youths who have aged out of foster care and to refugee households based on referrals from social service agencies. That rule change took effect immediately upon adoption.

Under the changes, the city will earmark 30 vouchers per year for individuals experiencing homelessness who are referred through the coordinated entry system.

Waypoint Services oversees that system, where its staff removes the administrative burden of navigating housing services by completing intakes and making referrals to other local agencies with the goal of helping people secure stable housing. In fiscal 2023 — the budget year that ended June 30, 2023 — Waypoint reported serving 13,790 people through that system.

Another 15 vouchers per year would be dedicated to youths who have aged out of the foster care system based on referrals from Foundation 2 Crisis Services and the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. There would be 10 vouchers per year set aside for refugee households who have fully used their resettlement assistance based on a referral through the state.

Instead of people waiting sometimes for years to get on a waiting list for a voucher, Housing Services Manager Sara Buck said the change allows the city to take applications as the budget allows and push people with the highest needs to the top of the list.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocated the city 1,265 Housing Choice vouchers for fiscal 2024. The vouchers cover 70 percent of the rent.

Buck said per year in Cedar Rapids:

For the first time in about 50 years, Buck said HUD is updating how household income is calculated as part of regulatory changes made through the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act. It was signed into law in 2016 and makes changes to rules governing HUD’s rental assistance programs, including Section 8, as well as public housing.

In that process of making administrative plan changes, the city made these discretionary changes to update waiting list preferences for voucher program participants. While the waiting list preferences took effect immediately, other regulatory changes will take effect July 1, at the start of the 2025 state fiscal year.

This change emerged from discussions with Washington, D.C.-based National Alliance to End Homelessness, which the city enlisted last year to guide efforts to improve systems supporting the unhoused population and streamline social service efforts.

Currently, to get on the waiting list for a voucher, the city takes applications and closes the list sometimes for three or more years, Buck said, so individuals couldn’t get on the list during that time. The city generally receives 1,300 applications for housing assistance. These preferences adopted Tuesday allow people to get on the waiting list and take priority.

“As people become homeless, they’re not able to submit an application to the waiting list,” Buck said.

Council member Ashley Vanorny said getting to live in Cedar Rapids with dignified housing options is part of being a welcoming city. Steps like this help move people through the system into permanent nonsubsidized housing, she said.

“People don’t anticipate becoming unhoused, so the changes that you’re doing to adapt and anticipate those events … allows for better accommodations to respond in real time to the realities of how homelessness presents,” Vanorny said.

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