Thousands apply for housing assistance, Section 8 vouchers

Shirley McKie is tired of living in a boarding house in downtown Columbia, struggling to make ends meet with income from two part-time security jobs.

“I work hard and try to put food on the table and pay rent. That’s all I can do,” said McKie, 49, who said she hasn’t had a place of her own since 2005. “I’m fed up with struggling. I’m fed up with it.”

McKie was among the more than 2,000 low-income residents who applied for public housing placement or Section 8 vouchers within an hour after the Columbia Housing Authority on Tuesday re-opened its waiting lists for those programs.

More than 3,750 had applied by 5 p.m. Tuesday, most seeking Section 8 vouchers to help reduce the cost of rental housing, Housing Authority planning director Nancy Stoundenmire said.

“The first hour was just unbelievable,” she said.

Those waiting lists had been frozen since September 2014, when more than 31,200 people applied for Section 8 vouchers over a five-day span.

Housing Authority officials expect smaller numbers this time because they are offering public housing at only two high-rise apartment buildings for the elderly and because the Section 8 vouchers will apply only to three specific apartment complexes in north Columbia.

The Housing Authority is accepting applications for the first-come, first-served help only online at www.chasc.org, but officials made four computers available at their Harden Street office so people could apply in person.

A few dozen residents early Tuesday morning lined up outside the Housing Authority’s office, hoping to jump to the top of the list.

Josey James, 47, was first in line. She said she got there at 4:30 a.m., hoping for a Section 8 voucher that would help her find a stable home for the first time in years.

“You never get used to being homeless,” James said.

Henry Boykin, 66, said he became homeless after a string of heart attacks and other medical issues following his wife’s death in 2010. When he returned from a months-long hospital stay, Boykin, who is illiterate, could no longer perform hard-labor jobs.

Nor could he cover rent payments that had backed up. So he bounced from shelter to shelter, and then lived under a downtown bridge. Now, Boykin said, he stays in an abandoned house off Two Notch Road.

He hopes the Housing Authority will place him in one of the public high-rise apartment buildings currently available. Maybe then, he said, the roughly $660 he draws monthly in social security benefits will stretch further.

“By the time I pay doctor bills and stuff like that, I’m broke,” Boykin said.

Residents also lined up to apply at Richland County library branches in downtown Columbia and Garners Ferry Road, which made computers and staff available to help with applications. Library officials said several dozen residents had applied by just after 9 a.m. at each location. Applicants have continued to trickle in since then, they said.

The Housing Authority will stop accepting applications at 5 p.m. May 31. Housing Authority officials expect future applications to come slowly.

“We think the bulk of people would have applied today,” Stoudenmire said. “If you needed housing, you were going to make sure to apply today.”

This story was originally published May 17, 2016 at 11:02 AM with the headline "Thousands apply for housing assistance, Section 8 vouchers."