While other expensive cities have excelled at using a new federal program to get vulnerable families off the streets, San Francisco hasn't kept up.
About half of the landlords rejected her. The other half never responded at all.
But four months after receiving the voucher, De La Cruz and her family were still homeless. The hurdles to finding a home felt insurmountable: she spoke Spanish, not English; few units were available, and if they were, they were too expensive; and landlords didn’t want to accept a voucher, or house someone who was homeless.A year and a half after they were handed out, just 56% of the new vouchers have been used across the country.
To find a home, De La Cruz and other San Franciscans with emergency housing vouchers must navigate not only the city’s tight rental market, but also the thicket of organizations the city has enlisted to help them. Cynthia Scott of Catholic Charities, left, visits Tammie Haley, who lives in her van with her husband, to help guide her through the application process for the emergency housing voucher program in San Francisco.
The packet also included a new point of contact — a housing navigator at Providence Foundation, another local nonprofit, who would help her find a home. In San Francisco, the organizations that help voucher recipients find homes are separate from the nonprofits that refer people into the program. Catholic Charities SF fulfilled its role in signing De La Cruz up for a voucher, and now Providence Foundation would help her with the housing search.
If a landlord was willing to accept a voucher, she’d find out that the unit cost more than her voucher would cover. Most of the jurisdictions the federal government has required to use this system — including San Diego — have housed voucher recipients at rates above the national average. Housing agencies elsewhere are allowed to opt in, but many expensive cities, including San Francisco, have not.
Even success stories came with struggle. South of Bayview, a family of four with an emergency voucher moved into a home in San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley in September. The Torres family secured housing after months of denials — also pinned on bad credit — and little guidance through the program from housing support services, said Doria Torres. The family’s saving grace came from a property manager who was touched by their story. Torres was grateful, but nearly gave up on the process as well.
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