To: Contra Costa County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners
From: Joseph Villarreal, Executive Director
Report Title: REPORT ON THE SHORTFALL FUNDING STATUS OF THE HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHER PROGRAM AND PROPOSED CUTS TO VOUCHER SUBSIDIES
Recommendation: Recommendation of Board Committee
/
RECOMMENDATIONS:
CONSIDER accepting a report on the shortfall funding status of the Housing Authority of the County of Contra Costa’s (HACCC) Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program; and
APPROVE a reduction in HACCC’s annual Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) subsidy expenditures for the HCV program; and
APPROVE submission of a waiver request to HUD to apply payment standard decreases immediately in accordance with Notice PIH 2025-28 (as suggested by HUD).
BACKGROUND:
A shortfall in a Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program means that a housing authority does not receive enough annual funding to continue housing everyone currently on their HCV program. There are many reasons a housing authority could face shortfall, but it is generally due to Congressional funding not keeping up with rent inflation (which has been historically high over recent years). As a result, an increasing number of housing authorities across the country have fallen into shortfall and HUD is struggling to keep everyone housed nationally.
Nationally, the HCV program received $38.4 billion in funding for 2026, with $400 million set aside to fund housing authorities in shortall, a number that is double what had last been set aside for this purpose. However, HUD is currently projecting that national shortfall will fall between $600-$800 million this year and perhaps as much as $1 billion in 2027. To compound matters, it is impossible for HUD to truly gauge the expected scale of shortfall by year’s end since not every housing authority is good at projecting their costs. Last year, HUD had housing authorities who did not realize they would be in shortfall for 2025 until December, including one that did not deter...
Click here for full text