The need for housing assistance has rapidly outpaced voucher supply in the Northeast, leaving tens of thousands of people on waitlists that often only open every few years, representatives from three states said Thursday.

Housing officials from Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts spoke at a housing forum in Hartford on Thursday. Partnership for Strong Communities organized the event, which focused on rental assistance and voucher programs. These programs aim to offset rent costs for people with low incomes. In most programs, having a voucher means the government pays a portion of the tenant’s rent.

All three officials painted a similar picture: people in need across the region who may have to wait years for help. In Connecticut, the Rental Assistance Program waitlist hasn’t been opened for 17 years, and the costs of offering the program have risen, said Steve DiLella, director of the Individual and Family Support Program Unit at the state’s Department of Housing.

“I think one of the biggest challenges we’ve seen is dramatic cost increase in the last few years,” DiLella said. “Just looking at our numbers, it was shocking to me when I actually looked back from two years ago.”

Rents have risen in Connecticut in recent years, and are up about 20% since 2021, according to data from the Partnership. Experts say rising rent costs are worsened by a shortage in the number of housing units available, particularly housing that’s affordable to Connecticut’s lowest-income renters.

DiLella said that no one would be removed from the program, but that rising costs added pressure to the department’s budget.

“The numbers have exploded, and in a way that I’ve never seen,” DiLella said Thursday. “So that’s added pressure on our overall budget, meaning, just the cost to maintain those same households is going to cost us millions of dollars more than it did in 2021. So that’s going to cause that pressure. And it certainly is difficult to solve.”

In voucher or rent assistance programs, participants typically pay about up to about 30% to 40% of their income to housing costs. Vouchers are dispersed locally or at a state level.

When families spend more than a third of their income on rent, it’s harder to build up a savings account or afford other necessities such as food or health care.

DiLella said the state is going to be looking at ways to improve efficiency within its rental assistance programs over the next couple of years. They sometimes see a five- or six-year waitlist, he said.

Officials said they close waitlists in part because it’s hard to keep up with everyone on the list, and so people are on the list for less time.

“The state has never removed anyone from our Rental Assistance Program,” DiLella said. “So I don’t envision that. So I’m pretty sure the administrator will be able to work with that in terms of expanding it.”

He said that it’s a conversation for lawmakers, who vote on a budget, including state agencies’ spending plans. The governor gives input and signs off on the final version.

Sean Ghio, policy director for the Partnership for Strong Communities, said in a previous interview that he’s more concerned that the state will eliminate vouchers when people move to another state, become ineligible because of income or when they die.

The Partnership has asked the state to allocate an additional $16 million to the state Rental Assistance Program — $8 million to maintain the number of vouchers in the face of rising costs and $8 million to add 650 more low-income families to the program.

Lawmakers and advocates have said that additional funding for programs may be difficult to obtain because of fiscal guardrails to limit state spending.

The Rental Assistance Program, also called RAP, has about 6,700 households on the rolls. It’s a state-funded program. Connecticut’s Department of Housing also operates a federal Housing Choice Voucher program for more than 8,000 people and a Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program that serves about 1,000 people, DiLella said.

The Department of Housing last opened waiting lists for the Rental Assistance Program and the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program for a few weeks in the summer of 2007, according to the DOH website. When they opened it up, the state received 48,000 applications.

They selected 5,000 of those for the Rental Assistance Program waitlist and 7,000 for the housing choice voucher list. Some of those are still on the waitlist, DiLella said Thursday.

“DOH does not anticipate opening the waiting list to accept applications for either program at this time,” the state’s website says.

Some vouchers are directed toward certain populations. For example, the state legislature can allocate additional money for a certain number of vouchers for families or people experiencing homelessness. Those don’t have the traditional waitlist system, DiLella said.

But for people on the regular waitlist, the state has used a lottery system for applicants. This means when the waitlist opens, applications are submitted just for the chance to get on the waitlist.

It’s not an uncommon system.

“We all feel it is a shame and a tragedy that we have to talk about having a literal lottery for housing. But that is, unfortunately, the situation that we’re in,” said Janel Winter, who leads the Division of Housing and Community Resources at the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs.

New Jersey has a lottery system for applicants. They’ve worked to have a centralized waiting list online. Last time they opened the waitlist, it was for 15,000 slots. They left it open for three weeks and got 150,000 applicants, Winter said.

“In a lot of ways, my job is managing scarcity,” Winter said. “ … You’ve got to do it [run programs] the best way you can. But I think it’s really important to always remember when we’re talking about this, that’s what we’re talking about. And we’ve got to get to where we can get to a place, I would think abundance, but you’ve been before abundance, I think of just enough.”

Massachusetts is working particularly to distribute vouchers to people experiencing homelessness. But the waitlist for the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program is over 100,000 applicants, said Cecilia Woodworth, the assistant director of the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development.

“Unfortunately, the demand far, far exceeds what we have to offer,” Woodworth said. “We do have a strict homeless priority, and that’s one way to prioritize those. We are actively looking at targeting the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, a lot of those folks on the waitlist are in dire situations.”

Officials said they’re encouraged by partnerships with other state agencies. Some have partnered with agencies that offer services to people with disabilities, so they can live independently and get additional support. Some have partnerships with child welfare agencies to help families who are experiencing housing insecurity.

New Jersey has pilot programs, Winter said, such as Keeping Families Together, for families involved in the child welfare system. Many child welfare cases are entangled with housing instability because it makes it hard for parents to provide children with basic needs if they don’t have a place to live. Other New Jersey pilots include a program for families with a pregnancy or a newborn and a program that bundles services and housing, Winter said.

Connecticut is working with the Department of Disability Services and seeing progress with other agencies seeing ties between the work they do and housing, DiLella said.

Massachusetts is working on ways to help people with low incomes move to higher opportunity areas, Woodworth said.

Attendees at the event Thursday also heard a presentation from researchers examining possible benefits of offering rental assistance to everyone who qualifies. As of now, many who qualify aren’t able to access vouchers.

ctmirror.org