Archived News Release: November 21, 2019 - Due to the high need in the community for rent subsidies for low-income households, and especially households with a family member with a disability, the Ann Arbor Housing Commission (AAHC) has been awarded 90 new non-elderly disabled (NED) vouchers from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The AAHC had originally applied for a total of 200 NED vouchers. This is the second time AAHC has been awarded in two years. In 2017, the AAHC received 45 vouchers, which they quickly leased up.
Families who qualify for an NED voucher pay 30% of their income on rent, and the voucher pays the balance of the rent to a private landlord. To qualify, a family must have at least one member of the household who is living with a disability aged 18 to 61 years old, and the household income must be less than 50% of the area median income. The income cap is dependent on the household size and can range from $35,450 for a one-person household, $40,500 for a two-person household, $45,550 for a three-person household, $50,600 for a four-person household and so on.
In 2018, the AAHC opened up its waitlist for households who qualify for NED vouchers and received 1,901 applications from households who self-identified as qualified. The AAHC randomly selected 300 of these households to be on the NED waitlist. The AAHC will immediately begin pulling names from this existing NED waitlist so that households can start the qualification process and receive the benefit of this rental subsidy. The AAHC will not be opening its waitlist again until all of the existing families on the waitlist have been pulled to start the qualification process.
Although these vouchers do not include any funding for supportive services for these tenants, the AAHC has many community partners who collaborated on the application and will be providing various levels of support for these families: SOS Community Services, Shelter Association of Washtenaw County, Salvation Army, Avalon Housing, Catholic Social Services, Center for Independent Living, Washtenaw County Community Mental Health, Interfaith Hospitality Network, Michigan Ability Partners, the Ann Arbor Housing Development Corporation, Safe House, the Washtenaw Housing Alliance and Washtenaw County Office of Community and Economic Development.
To learn more, visit www.a2gov.org/departments/Housing.
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