GREENVILLE — Cedric Arnold lived in his van for about a year before he enrolled in a housing voucher program, a federal initiative administered through the Greenville Housing Authority.
He struggles with physical and mental disabilities, and finding a place he could afford seemed out of reach. When he was approved for a voucher in October 2021, he was able to find a place to stay almost immediately at an apartment complex just north of Greenville.
But the unit he was to move into failed an inspection. Then another. He couldn't move in until January.
Then the complex was sold to an out of state company. All of the tenants were given notice they would have to move out for renovations. Rent would be higher when apartments became available again and the new owners would not accept vouchers.
Arnold was homeless again.
In the months since, he has encountered one roadblock after another. It's been difficult to find a place that will accept his voucher. Communication challenges and a steady flow of paperwork have further complicated the situation.
The 52-year-old has been sleeping of his mother’s couch in a small Greenville apartment since March.
“I'm tired,” Arnold said. "I would like to be able to live in one spot and not have to worry about moving no more."
As housing advocates continue to work to convince more landlords to accept vouchers, many like Arnold remain desperate for housing.
Difficulties
Arnold is one of 225 people with housing vouchers in Greenville County who are struggling to find a place to live.
Just north of 7 percent of participants in the program can’t secure housing despite qualifying for federal assistance. While the Housing Authority has about 2,800 people placed, it also has a waiting list of roughly 3,500.
Housing Authority CEO Shawn Williams said the issue is largely driven by two factors: a lack of units that meet the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) price requirements, and a shortage of landlords willing to accept the vouchers.
HUD sets parameters for what it considers to be fair market rental costs in a region, and local agencies can only subsidize apartments that fall within a narrow range of those costs. In Greenville County, HUD's fair market rate for a one-bedroom home is $958. For a two-bedroom its $1,075, and so on. Williams said working within those restrictions is a challenge.
Bill Clark, a real estate investor and former board member of the Upstate Carolina Real Estate Investors Association, said the recent housing market boom and consistently rising rental rates have only made it more difficult for landlords to justify accepting vouchers from a profitability standpoint.
“Profit is the name of the game,” he said. "With those government vouchers, if there's more money elsewhere, they're gone. If you come in and offer me $150,000 for a house I was getting $700 or $800 for a month with a voucher, I'd be insane to keep that house."
Greenville Housing Fund Landlord Recruitment Specialist Hilary Lamishaw said the added layers of red tape that comes with a voucher can be an added barrier.
Before a voucher holder can move into an apartment or house, the property has to pass inspection. At times, the process can be drawn out and opaque, she said, creating an obstacle for tenants and landlords. Lamishaw said there needs to be a balance between making the process more efficient while still ensuring homes are suitable.
“What I'm hearing from landlords is that sometimes the inspections can be subjective and you don't know exactly what the landlord is looking for,” she said. "I've heard at least one story where a landlord tried to make the repair three different times and the inspector said, 'no, that's not right, that's not right.'... So some of it is a lack of communication."
Williams said a stigma against low-income tenants, particularly voucher holders, can also dissuade landlords from accepting the public subsidies.
While the program sometimes does have issues with problem tenants, Williams said, most follow the program's guidelines and the Housing Authority is cracking down on those who don't.
"There are voucher holders who get up and go to work every day and work hard, and there are some participants who no matter what we do, how we try to counsel them, provide support services, just are not going to adhere to the rules and regulations of the program, so they're terminated," she said. "We're working on terminating them more, because no participant should be allowed to destroy a landlord's unit and then be issued another voucher and go and destroy another landlord's unit."
If there are issues, she said, the tenant's participation in the program provides an added layer of oversight and another avenue to resolve disputes.
While voucher holders sometimes go out of bounds, Williams said some landlords abuse the system or provide inadequate housing in violation of the Housing Authority's standards.
Changes
Williams said an effort is underway to make the program easier to navigate and more appealing for both landlords and voucher holders.
In 2021, the Housing Authority was accepted into HUD’s Moving to Work initiative, a program designed to help local agencies tailor services to better meet the needs of their communities.
The coming changes will create more incentives for landlords and property owners to participate.
Those changes will be partly modeled on the emergency voucher program the Housing Authority implemented in response to the pandemic, when the Housing Authority provided more money for enhanced security deposits, application fees and damage claims. All 54 families who enrolled in the emergency voucher program were able to find housing, she said.
“That shows that landlords are willing to participate if they have that incentive,” she said.
The new designation will also give the Housing Authority more flexibility when it comes to the acceptable rental rates set by HUD. Currently, the agency can only accept units that are 90 to 110 percent of HUD's fair market rates. It will soon be able to place voucher holders in units priced at 80 to 150 percent of those rates.
It will be several months before those changes are implemented. A landlord roundtable to gather input is scheduled for Aug. 28. Williams said she is hopeful the open dialogue will help.
"We can't build our way out of this," she said. "We need to have good partnerships with our landlords."
Meanwhile, hundreds wait for a home. Arnold said the changes can't come soon enough.
