San Joaquin Homes Community Blog

STOCKTON - For the first time in more than three years, residents can add their names to the waiting list to receive rental assistance vouchers, beginning next Saturday.

And for the first time, county residents can apply online to enter the Housing Choice Voucher Program - formerly known as Section 8 - to subsidize rent for low-income families and seniors in private housing.

The list is opening just when people hit by the recession need the kind of housing help provided through the vouchers, said Barbara Kauss, executive director of the San Joaquin Housing Authority. "Having that available for people newly in crisis is very important," she said.

The list had been open for a little more than a year when it closed at the end of August 2006. Since then, foreclosures rose, the economy teetered and an increasing number of residents lost their jobs.

Getting on the waiting list doesn't necessarily mean help will come soon. But unless residents submit their applications by Oct. 24, they won't have any chance of receiving the rental vouchers. That's the day the list will close again.

"I imagine once the word gets out, they're going to get tons and tons of applications," said Bill Mendelson, executive director of the Central Valley Low Income Housing Corp. "There is nowhere near the level of (housing) help people need, whether from the Housing Authority or any other source."

In 2006, 26,000 names were on the list, but the number fell over time and the Housing Authority stepped up its regular purging process this year and winnowed the list down to 3,700.

But names this low on the list are more likely to belong to people who have moved out of the county, those no longer eligible or who have found alternatives, Kauss said.

In the county, 4,870 families receive the vouchers, which covers the balance for tenants paying roughly 30 percent of their monthly income on rent and utilities. Annually, roughly 300 households leave the program and are replaced with newcomers.

The number of households in the program can not increase without an increase in federal funding, though there have been efforts in Washington to increase funding to the department that pays for the vouchers, Kauss said.

Overall, the national vouchers program is illustrative of a successful program that doesn't have the funding to meet the demand, said John Quigley, director of the Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy at University of California, Berkeley. "It's good. Effective. But very small."

For those who qualify, it's a good deal, he said.

"It gives them a lot of resources left for the consumption of other things."

Contact reporter Zachary K. Johnson at (209) 546-8258 or zjohnson@recordnet.com.

Men From Mars, Women From Venus? Not So Much When Shopping for a Home

Women and men home buyers don’t differ too much when it comes to what they look for in a home, according to a new survey by Coldwell Banker Real Estate, which asked 1,000 women and men about their home buying preferences.

However, women do tend to make up their minds more quickly about a home than men. In fact, according to the survey, 70 percent of women had made up their mind the day they walked into the house compared to 62 percent of men—who often needed two or more visits to decide.

Men and women mostly agree on how they would use a spare 12 x 12 room, if they had their choice. Their top choices:

• Bedroom: 25 percent

• Office/study: 15 percent

• Family room/den: 11 percent

Men, however, did like the idea of a “man cave” for recreation and entertainment—four times as many men as women asked for such a room, according to the survey.

As for women’s preferences while shopping for a home, location and security were key. Fifty-five percent of the women surveyed said they wanted to live close to their extended family – more so than to their job. Also, 64 percent said that even if they found the house of their dreams, they would no longer want it if they had any security concerns about its location.