Low Income Housing in Kentucky

Low Income Housing Information

Low income housing can be a godsend, but if you don't know how to apply, or who to get your information to, how can you ever expect to be approved?

Since laws and procedure vary from state to state, you'll need to learn a few specifics before applying. We can help!

How to Qualify for Low Income Housing in Kentucky

Since Kentucky's "Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness" was unveiled and initiated in 2006, the state has been radically expanding its entire infrastructure for low income housing. While the state offers a number of housing assistance programs meant to help people find affordable homes, the emphasis is on home ownership programs as opposed to rental assistance. However, the federal Section 8 program is widely used, helping people find both project-based and tenant-based subsidies for housing, with most of the funds coming from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Services (HUD).

In Kentucky, the administering body for Section 8 housing is the Kentucky Housing Corporation (KHC, www.kyhousing.org), which is a self-supporting public company directly linked to the state government. The KHC website provides most of the exact details regarding the various affordable housing programs available in Kentucky as well as the basic requirements that have to be met in order to qualify for assistance. However, as is always the case with Section 8 housing, it is the local public housing agency (PHA) that directly administrates the Section 8 program at the consumer level. The KHC also operates the Kentucky Rents website - www.kyrents.org - which is a free directory of Section 8 housing available throughout the state. The KHC website also has a very helpful frequently asked questions (FAQ) section under the heading "Info Center" that may be of interest.

Beyond housing programs directly administered - and subsidized - by the government, non-profits also play a significant role in the low income housing options in Kentucky. The Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky (HHCK, www.hhck.org) does not offer direct assistance programs to people in need, but instead serves as a coordinating body for local non-profits that deal with affordable housing issues. As such, the HHCK website's membership directory lists more than seventy-five local non-profit housing organizations around the state that do provide direct services to people in need. People looking for low cost housing assistance in Kentucky should visit their page and locate the non-profit(s) active in the area where they intend to reside.

The websites cited above provide most of the general information needed to qualify for low income housing in Kentucky. The rental assistance and many of the low income homebuyer programs are actually federal programs administrated by the KHC, which means the basic qualifying conditions should be the same as they are elsewhere in the country. For low income people looking to purchase a home, the KHC offers a number of federal and state programs that are described in detail on their website. As is always the case with government sponsored programs, the guidelines tend to be strict so people looking for assistance can save themselves a lot of time and energy by deciding which programs they qualify for before actually applying.

Reviewing the resources available from the KHC as well as contacting the local nonprofits available in the target areas via the HHCK membership directory should give most people a good understanding the specific programs available in Kentucky as well as what conditions have to be met in order to qualify for them.