Section 8 remains a ‘lifeline’ for low-income Bay Area families. Will the GOP gut it? (2025)

Section 8, a federal rental subsidy, is one of the few ways low-income families can live in the Bay Area. But while a Republican-led Congress increased its funding for the next several months, experts say it’s not enough.

Also known as the Housing Choice Voucher Program, Section 8 helps more than 2.3 million low-income households in the U.S. remain housed by paying a portion of their rent. Most of those households receive a voucher that caps the amount they spend on rent — usually 30% of their income — while the federal government covers the rest.

In Bay Area cities like San Francisco, only a small minority of eligible households have managed to get Section 8 help. But thanks to steady increases in funding, that share has actually crept up — for now.

The stopgap budget that passed the Senate earlier this month funds Section 8 through September, even increasing the amount available for voucher renewals by nearly $3.7 billion, a 13% increase from the previous fiscal year. But with rents climbing in many parts of the country — especially California — some housing experts say San Francisco and other jurisdictions may not be able to help as many families as they do now. And as budget negotiations for the next fiscal year continue, it’s unclear whether President Donald Trump will seek cuts to the program as he did during his first term.

“Having fewer vouchers means that the city isn’t able to respond in the way it needs to in getting people out of shelters, out of their cars, off the street and into a stable home,” said Sonya Acosta, a senior policy analyst at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Some housing agencies are already buckling down. The San Francisco Housing Authority said in a statement that “the current funding environment simply does not allow for new (Housing Choice Voucher) recipients,” and that its waiting list remained closed. Los Angeles’ housing authority paused Section 8 application processing for 3,300 families early this month, citing uncertainty with the federal budget.

Other housing advocates have also warned that large-scale cuts to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which administers Section 8 funding, would result in longer wait times for renters.

More than 87,000 Section 8-subsidized units were funded by Bay Area housing agencies in 2024, including about 16,000 from the San Francisco Housing Authority, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. Vouchers can be tenant-based, meaning the renter keeps their subsidy when they move, or project-based, meaning the subsidy stays with the unit.

The number of available unitsis just a small percentage of the roughly 230,000 renter households in San Francisco, but Section 8 vouchers remain highly sought-after. When the San Francisco Housing Authorityopened up its rental assistance waitlist in 2023, tens of thousands of people applied to compete for just 6,500 spots. It takes an average of nearly two years for waitlisted applicants in San Francisco to receive a voucher, and additional years just to get on the list, according to HUD data.

The number of voucher-supported homes in the Bay Area remained fairly stagnant until it started rising around 2016, likely due to a new program leading to more Section 8-based affordable homes, HUD data shows. Pandemic-era funding for an emergency housing voucher program led to a surge in subsidized units in 2022, but much of those funds have since expired.

Still, housing vouchers are helping nearly twice as many San Francisco families as it did two decades ago. But as rents have remained high, so has the amount of federal funding needed to subsidize Section 8 recipients. In 2014, HUD paid an average of about $1,400 per Section 8 household in San Francisco. By 2024, that had nearly doubled to $2,600 per household.

Federal funding for vouchers more than tripled over that time, HUD’s data indicates, but the San Francisco Housing Authority has committed most of it for spending. If future budget increases don’t keep up with rents, the agency — and others — may have to reach into their reserves, or start reducing the number of families they offer vouchers to, said Richard Larsen, a partner at professional services company Novogradac who works with housing agencies. That could especially impact parts of Bayview-Hunters Point and South of Market, where as many as 1 in 3 households rely on Section 8.

“Section 8 is this last support network for the most vulnerable subset,” said Ben Metcalf, managing director at the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation and a former official at HUD. “Even though it’s not a huge share of the total (number of renters) in San Francisco, it just matters a ton.”

Possible staff cuts at HUD could also hobble the department’s ability to process Section 8 funding, Larsen said. Information regarding those potential layoffs has been limited, but the Washington Post reported this week that the White House plans to halve HUD’s 8,300-person staff.

A White House official told the publication the plans are not final.

Reach Christian Leonard: Christian.Leonard@sfchronicle.com