MANSFIELD — On Jan. 1, the Mansfield Metropolitan Housing Authority will close its Housing Choice Voucher waiting list until further notice.
At an MMHA board meeting on Dec. 21, deputy director Stephanie Hartzler said there are more than 2,000 people on the waiting list.
Executive director Steve Andrews said due to the volume of people on the list, a new applicant could wait between 40 and 50 months to become eligible for a voucher.
Leaving the list open may also cause logistical problems.
“If we leave the waiting list open, we have lots of people from out of state applying even though they have no intention of ever moving here,” he said. “So that list just get longer and longer and creates a lot of paperwork for our staff.”
Andrews said the waiting list will reopen once it drops to a certain number, but did not specify that number.
“The board can certainly have lots of say in that,” he said.
The MMHA will announce when the wait list reopens on its webpage, a notice posted on the front door and through local media.
Andrews said the agency can close its waiting list under the Code of Federal Regulations section 982.206, which allows housing authorities to close tenant-based assistance waiting lists when “the existing waiting list contains an adequate pool for use of available program funding.”
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