Homeless Indy residents will lose access to emergency HUD and IHA vouchers

Changes to two housing programs spell the same thing for Indianapolis: Fewer resources to house people experiencing homelessness.

Officials for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development informed housing agencies this month that the agency would be sunsetting a pandemic-era program that provided emergency housing vouchers to tenants.

At the same time, the Indianapolis Housing Agency will no longer issue homeless preference vouchers, a small pool of Section 8 vouchers doled out monthly that allowed tenants in dire situations to quickly receive housing assistance.

In both cases, the vouchers were aimed at people currently or at-risk of becoming homeless, or who were fleeing domestic violence.

IHA had previously been distributing about 30 such vouchers every month. But that will stop in April, a temporary decision that IHA CEO Yvonda Bean said was necessary to ensure the agency had enough funding to continue the program in the future.

The decision to pause the program surprised service providers, who received a short letter this month noting the change, according to two people who work to connect people with vouchers.

They spoke to Mirror Indy on condition that they not be identified publicly because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

In a city like Indianapolis, where nearly 1,500 evictions have been filed in the past month, the small number of homeless preference vouchers did little to address the large number of residents searching for affordable housing.

But the service providers said it was one of the few tools at their disposal to quickly house individuals and families that may otherwise be left without housing at all.

“The vouchers were so important to us, they provided a pathway when everything else was impossible,” said one service provider, who said she was working with clients to get them vouchers in April. Those vouchers will no longer be given out.

Another provider said the announcement left her in despair.

“I cried for a while when I found out,” she said. “There is a housing crisis in the city.”

Long-term future uncertain

Meanwhile, the long-term future of the emergency housing voucher program is unclear. HUD officials sent a letter to housing authorities this month that said it was sunsetting the emergency housing voucher program because it is running out of money.

The federal program was initially created with a $5 billion pot of money that was available to be spent by 2030, according to Sonya Acosta, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But that funding is already running out, in no small part due to unexpected increases in rent after the program was created, she said.

Most agencies are set to run out of funding by the end of 2026, according to the HUD letter.

Although the program was always intended to be temporary, Acosta said there are lessons that can be applied to the traditional Section 8 housing choice voucher program. For example, the emergency voucher program provided additional resources such as landlord incentives and flexibility for families to move into a home before the housing authority inspects the unit.

That last bit has been a challenge in Indianapolis, according to service providers who have spoken to Mirror Indy. For example, Mirror Indy reported in November that in at least two recent cases, people who were staying in an Indianapolis homeless shelter had found landlords to take their vouchers but lost their housing because of IHA delays.

“We should absolutely take lessons about how this program was administered and apply them more broadly,” Acosta said, adding that HUD could continue issuing emergency vouchers if Congress decided to fund them.

A troubled agency

In Indianapolis, the decision to pause the homeless preference vouchers comes nearly a year after federal officials took over IHA in April 2024. An investigation by Mirror Indy published last year revealed decades of mismanagement of the housing choice voucher program, which pays private landlords to house low-income tenants.

Bean joined IHA in February with a mandate to repair the broken agency.

IHA will continue to fund vouchers that have already been issued, Bean said. But after March, no new homeless preference vouchers will be distributed. Bean said the agency anticipates it will resume issuing the vouchers, but not until after at least a couple of months.

This temporary pause “is in no way a demonstration of our lack of commitment to housing families,” Bean said. “We are committed, and we want to thank our homeless providers and our partners, who we value tremendously, for being patient with us.”

Bean said the review of the homeless preference vouchers is part of a larger effort by IHA to reconcile accounts following two cyberattacks.

At this time, she said the agency is also not issuing new housing choice vouchers, the primary housing program that pays landlords to house low-income tenants.

According to the HUD’s housing choice voucher dashboard, IHA has only issued a handful of new vouchers since January 2024.

While uncertainty grows at the federal level — from threats to slash HUD staff to the disruption of distributing HUD grants — Bean said IHA is operating normally until decisions are final.

“The goal, of course, is to maintain as much as we can, because we have thousands of families that are relying on the assistance that this organization provides,” she said.

Emily Hopkins is a Mirror Indy reporter focused on data and accountability. You can reach them on phone or Signal at 317-790-5268 or by email at emily.hopkins@mirrorindy.org. Follow them on most social media @indyemapolis or on Bluesky @emilyhopkins.bsky.social.