A federal promise of housing through 2030 is ending years early for 650 San Diego families

More than 650 San Diego households that were promised rental assistance through 2030 during the COVID-19 pandemic have to look for a new place to live because their federal funding has run out years ahead of schedule. 

The Emergency Housing Voucher program – which has helped tens of thousands of households nationwide escape or avoid homelessness – pays out $1.4 million in federal funding locally for monthly housing assistance across four housing authorities, the San Diego Housing Commission and agencies representing National City, Oceanside and San Diego County. The majority of the funds – nearly $1 million – are funneled through the city. 

The end of the program is the latest in a string of challenges that have pushed local housing authorities to make difficult cuts, including more than 30 layoffs at the city housing commission.

Housing authority officials told inewsource that as of late February less than 20% of the 650-plus affected households had an alternative affordable housing option lined up. That means 500-plus did not.

The shortfall has left housing authorities and those receiving the rental assistance scrambling to find alternative housing before the funds dry up starting in the fall of this year.

Natalie Raschke, who was homeless for two and a half years before getting a home with emergency housing vouchers in 2022, was furious about the funds running out. She declined another kind of voucher in San Ysidro because she didn’t want to move her family there. She was offered a project-based voucher that provides rental assistance for specific units, unlike emergency housing vouchers or housing choice vouchers, known as Section 8 assistance.

“We get into this housing and you live a year with this anxiety because you’re waiting for that ball to drop,” she said. “Now look. Here we are. My kids don’t even really know or understand this is happening. 

“They want me to tell my f—— kids we’re about to be homeless?” she said. “It’s touchy. I’m in a touchy place.”

The program used up its fixed budget years earlier than expected due to increasing rental costs and income stagnation, which meant the vouchers had to cover more of the rent.

That created a cliff for tens of thousands of families nationwide who used vouchers for stability. 

“Stopping support could have a real detrimental impact on the overall rates of homelessness,” said Christi Economy, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation who studied the program nationally.  “I think, unfortunately, the risk of returning to homelessness is quite real for a lot of these households.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suggested housing authorities move people from emergency housing vouchers to housing choice vouchers, but that hasn’t been an easy fix. 

“They made this suggestion and guidance without providing any funding to actually accomplish those transitions,” Gilberto Vera, director of the housing justice collaborative at the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, said. “Independent of that, housing authorities like the city of San Diego were already projecting budget deficits.”

Closed Section 8 waitlists

Those financial pressures forced housing officials to stop adding people to ballooning Section 8 voucher waitlists early this year. Still, San Diego County moved emergency housing voucher holders to the top of the waitlists.

County officials gave 50 new housing choice vouchers to emergency housing voucher holders, the first time they have pulled from the waitlist since July 2022. That waitlist has grown to include 124,000 people.

“Unfortunately, San Diego’s position is not a unique one,” Economy said. “Most of the EHVs are in public housing authorities that have maxed out their budgets,” adding that many have years-long and closed waitlists. 

“The wind-down of the EHV program poses a set of impossible trade-offs for public housing agencies,” she said.

People who were formerly unhoused for years are coming to Interfaith Family Services CEO Greg Anglea’s team “totally distraught” that the vouchers that have given them stable housing are ending. The funds are set to expire for the city of San Diego, Oceanside and National City in the fall while the county housing authority has said its funding will last until February 2027.

In order to transition 50 households, the county will exhaust its reserve funds for section 8 housing choice vouchers this year. Reserves dropped from $9.6 million in 2024 to $2.5 million in 2025. The 50 selected out of the county’s 188 emergency housing voucher households were those who had been on the program the longest. That leaves 138 households searching for options.

The county is also leaning on project-based vouchers, one of the only affordable housing options that is currently expanding, with the recent opening of two affordable housing communities in Fallbrook at Mirasol Meadows and San Marcos at Villa Serena, Nine of the newly available units were given priority for emergency housing voucher holders. 

HUD allocations haven’t been released for 2026. If they come in lower than expected, the authority could end up in a budget shortfall without the cushion of reserve funds. In the case of a shortfall, HUD will usually cover additional funds needed but restrict program operations.

The uncertainty has led county officials to be cautious with its leases and expenditures.

“We want to make sure that we’re living within the means,” said Nick Martinez, assistant director at the County of San Diego Housing and Community Development Services.

The city of San Diego’s housing authority is also feeling the strain. The housing commission laid off 32 staff members and cut 26 vacant positions in February, citing funding challenges at the federal and state levels, and it has indicated substantial rent increases are likely for those on section 8. 

The San Diego Housing Commission has asked HUD to approve rent increases for those on vouchers to avoid having to kick 1,700 families – about 10% of the beneficiaries – off the program entirely. They closed the waitlist for section 8 vouchers on Feb.1 because the waitlist swelled to 76,000 people and no one has been pulled off for over three years.

The city housing commission is one of only 39 public housing authorities nationally with federal Moving to Work designation, which allows it to deviate from standard HUD regulations with approval. That flexibility is what enabled the commission to request rent increases for voucher holders — an option unavailable to the county and other local housing authorities, which must operate under standard federal rules.

City housing commission officials told inewsource that they had been able to relocate 70 households to project based vouchers as of late February and that their project based voucher waitlist was giving preference to emergency housing voucher households. They also said the number of vouchers available would not be able to serve all families. The commission had 309 project based voucher units available, with 456 households that will lose rental assistance. 

Losing assistance

The households losing assistance are among the region’s most vulnerable renters.

According to the San Diego Housing Commission, the average annual income for emergency housing voucher families in the city is about $15,000 — roughly 30% of the area median income and below the federal poverty line. More than half of the recipients include elderly or disabled members on fixed incomes who have little ability to earn more.

More than 260 people like Natalie Raschke’s family had declined at least one project based housing voucher offer. The requirement to move to a specific unit is a challenge for many families. 

Gilberto Vera with the Legal Aid Society said that he is recommending clients put themselves on project based voucher waitlists and consider transitioning to project based units even if there are short-term inconveniences, because they offer more long-term stability.

“I’m not optimistic that we’re going to get much more funding,” Vera said. 

National City has 24 households using emergency housing vouchers and said in a statement that none of them are in the process of being relocated as of March. 

An Oceanside spokesperson said in March that most emergency housing voucher holders would remain on the program until funding ends.

At the county, Martinez said households losing support could work with county social workers to find housing they might be able to afford on their own, move in with family members, or look for additional options for rental assistance.

Greg Anglea, CEO of Interfaith Family Services, said that the emergency housing program was an “absolute game changer” for his homeless outreach teams when it came out in 2021. during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Now, he fears its end will set San Diego back in the fight against homelessness.

“We’ve really made tremendous progress, but we’re still only treading water,” he said.

Correction, 7:20 a.m. Friday, April 3: This story has been updated to correct a misstatement about the county’s number of emergency housing voucher households.