MANSFIELD — The Mansfield Metropolitan Housing Voucher has hit pause on upcoming Section 8 vouchers due to rising housing costs, according to executive director Steve Andrews.
Andrews said the authority has “suspended” vouchers for several residents who had been approved or were actively looking for housing, but hadn’t found it yet. Those applicants were placed back on the agency’s waitlist.
The reason? Housing costs are rising faster than federal funding for vouchers.
“We had over 200 people with a voucher in their hand looking for apartments and we had to tell them, ‘Your voucher is suspended. You have to stop looking for housing right now,'” Andrews said during last week’s board meeting.
“It’ll still be there for (voucher holders) when we reopen it. But because of where our funding is, until HUD approves any extra funding, we can’t guarantee it.”
What’s Section 8?
The MMHA is responsible for administering Richland County’s housing choice voucher program (also known as Section 8), which is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The program provides financial assistance to help low-income families, elderly persons, veterans and disabled individuals afford housing in the private market.
Under the program, voucher holders typically pay no more than 30 percent of their income for rent and utilities.
HUD reduced MMHA’s federal funding for 2025
The amount of vouchers a local housing authority can issue, how much it can pay in assistance and the amount of federal funding it receives are all determined at the federal level by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
For 2025, the federal government allocated up to 1,833 vouchers for the Mansfield MHA and $929,724 monthly to cover those vouchers. After adding in its own carryover from last year, the authority budgeted around $1,020,811 monthly for its Section 8 program.
The MMHA administered 1,685 Section 8 vouchers in January. That number has increased each month and is estimated to be 1,731 for the month of June.
But even with100 vouchers unused, the MMHA is set to spend more than $36,000 beyond that budgeted amount for the month of June.
“The cost of living is going up. People’s utility allowances have gone up and people’s rents have gone up,” Andrews said. “Our cost per unit is going up through the roof.”
Andrews said he doesn’t expect costs to level off anytime soon — in fact, he estimated the agency’s average per unit cost will increase by $10 in July (for a total of $621.)
That may not seem like much, Andrews said, but for an agency overseeing more than 1,700 vouchers, that extra $10 adds up quickly.
“I just looked at our July numbers, because I’m watching this really, really closely,” Andrews said. “In July, we’re going to spend $1,000,078, which is $58,000 above what we’re allowed to spend.”
The authority is also working with less federal funding than last year.
Andrews said HUD announced its final allocation amounts last month. According to records from past meetings, the authority was assuming HUD funding would be about $18,000 more per month than it ended up receiving.
“HUD allocated us less this year than we were allocated last year, because we didn’t spend it all last year,” Andrews said.
“Had they allocated us the same amount they allocated last year, plus our prior year reserves, we would still have some room.”
Those figures don’t include people who are approved for a voucher but aren’t yet receiving assistance.
Before the MMHA can help cover the cost of housing, a landlord has to agree to receive payment from the agency and their property has to meet certain health and safety standards.
What happens now?
Andrews said the agency will be applying for shortfall funding from HUD.
“HUD has approved $200 million for the whole nation for what’s called set aside funding, and it’s designed to cover these issues,” he said. “The problem is, over 50% of the housing authorities in the United States are all in shortfall right now. They have all overspent.”
Andrews said the application will likely include more oversight and meetings with HUD’s shortfall prevention team, where the MMHA will need to demonstrate it has taken steps to avoid overspending.
Some of those steps include the cessation of new vouchers and suspending vouchers for people who are approved but haven’t found housing yet — steps the MMHA has already taken.
If HUD doesn’t approve carryover funding, Andrews said the agency may have to dip into its own reserves or even remove Section 8 voucher holders from the program.
Andrews said the latter would be a last resort.
“We’re going to do everything we can where we’re not knocking people off the program,” he said.
“Our voucher holders are generally going to be people who are at 60% of the area median income or less. So whatever the average family is making, they’re making six tenths of that,” Andrews added.
“It’s the people who are struggling with housing insecurity. It’s people who are living paycheck to paycheck. It is those who are making determinations on, do I pay for my housing, or do I stop in at the doctor’s when I need to, or am I going to have enough to pay for groceries? These are the issues that many of our clients are facing.”
The agency has around $813,000 in cash reserves and $1.7 million in its development fund. Andrews said the agency’s goal is to use its development fund to create more quality, affordable housing in the area.