PHA Extends Landlord Incentive Program As Voucher Holders Wait Months To Find Housing

Even with a series of financial incentive programs implemented last summer, the Philadelphia Housing Authority still can't find enough landlords to accept tenants with vouchers.

PHA is offering a $300 signing bonus for any landlord who takes on a tenant with a Housing Choice Voucher, popularly known as Section 8, and $500 for landlords who rent to a tenant with an Emergency Housing Voucher, a homelessness diversion program. The agency extended the deadline for participation from March 31 to April 30, it announced on Thursday.

To date, the incentive program has been utilized by 1,000 landlords, 400 of which were renting to voucher holders for the first time, a PHA spokesperson told Bisnow. In its most recent financial disclosure last April, PHA reported that 500 voucher recipients were still looking for housing, with over 13,000 on the HCV waiting list. The situation has not improved much since then, and vouchers have been increasingly used across the country to house more than one family as a result of the deepening housing affordability crisis.

“Almost half of our voucher holders are taking more than four months to find a suitable home," PHA President and CEO Kelvin Jeremiah said in a statement. "PHA recognizes the difficulty these clients are facing, and with the steps we are announcing, we feel confident we can expand the number of available units.”

For landlords who rent to voucher holders at properties within neighborhoods designated as qualified areas of opportunity by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, PHA is offering a signing bonus of $1K. There is no cap on the number of landlords that can receive such incentives, the PHA representative said.

A separate program, dubbed the Owner Assurance Fund, offers landlords up to $2,500 to address damage caused by a departed tenant that qualifies as more than usual wear and tear — provided the landlord continues to rent that unit to voucher holders.

“These incentives were created as a direct result of feedback from landlords,” Jeremiah said. “These signing bonuses represent the largest incentives PHA has offered. We knew we had to act because without homes to rent, the housing vouchers really have no value.” 

The repair fund, the $300 bonus and the $1K bonus are paid for out of PHA's budget for the voucher program from HUD, while the money for 863 emergency vouchers is coming from a specific allocation within the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to reduce homelessness.