Section 8 Housing in Pennsylvania

Low Income Housing Information

Low income housing can be a godsend, but if you don't know how to apply, or who to get your information to, how can you ever expect to be approved?

Since laws and procedure vary from state to state, you'll need to learn a few specifics before applying. We can help!

Places to Search for Section 8 Housing in Pennsylvania

Section 8 housing is a rental subsidy program operated by the federal government and is available, to one extent or another, in all fifty states. Pennsylvania, of course, is no exception and like many of the older states that have struggled with affordable housing issues for a long time, most of the Section 8 housing in Pennsylvania is project-based. That is, the rent subsidy is connected to the particular housing unit as opposed to the beneficiary. More recent trends have favored tenant-based Section 8 housing, also known as the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. This involved approving the beneficiary for Section 8 housing and then allowing them to find their own actual unit within the issuing public housing agency's (PHA's) jurisdiction. Some HCV housing is available in Pennsylvania, but project-based housing dominates the Section 8 option.

The Section 8 program is administrated at the federal level by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its website - www.hud.gov - provides most of the information that people moving to Pennsylvania would need to find out about Section 8 housing availability. On the beneficiary side, the Section 8 program is administrated by the locals PHAs, so this is who people looking for Section 8 housing should contact. The HUD website provides a comprehensive list of all HUD-approved PHAs - the ones that actually operate the Section 8 program in their area - in Pennsylvania as well as links to their websites and other contact information. So, people looking for Section 8 housing can probably find a direct line to the appropriate PHA via the HUD website.

It should also be understood that Section 8 housing - both project-based and tenant-based - is based on a means test, comparing the applicant's annual income with the local median income of the area in question. These median incomes are determined by HUD and regularly updated, so just because someone qualified for Section 8 housing in one place does not necessarily mean that they will qualify in another. There is a HUD website extension - www.huduser.org/portal/datasets/il.html - that provides comprehensive datasets, including the median income levels for every area in Pennsylvania. This will allow new people to determine whether or not they even qualify before starting the application procedure with a local PHA.

beyond these sources of information provided by the federal government, the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency also provides a comprehensive low income housing guide, the Pennsylvania Affordable Apartment Locator: http://pal.phfa.org/ This resource is specifically designed to help people find affordable rental units in Pennsylvania and is well designed to make it easy for people with limited Internet skills conduct their search easily and quickly. Of course simply finding a property is just the first step, but this resource provided by the state government of Pennsylvania can help people find what they are looking for.

While the resources provided above should cover all the basic Section 8 options available in any given area, it can not hurt to contact the local PHA for further information as well. In some cases - especially in major urban areas - there may be additional, non-Section 8, housing options available or the PHAs may have specialized priorities that may represent an even better deal than basic Section 8 housing depending on your circumstances. At the very least, the local PHA can give you a basic idea of how quickly you will be able to get a unit in the area and can give you a basic sense of how they prioritize their applications.