West Virginia Section 8 Housing

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!

Where to find Section 8 Housing in West Virginia?

West Virginia, along with Mississippi and Oklahoma, is one of the poorest states in the United States and like the others its conservative social policies tend to deemphasize affordable housing or helping its poorer residents with decent housing. As such, West Virginia is probably not one of the first places that someone in need of subsidized housing should consider moving to. West Virginia has a severe shortage of affordable housing and what housing is available is older and just meets the minimum standards to qualify for the Section 8 program.

The state entity in charge of most affordable housing development in West Virginia is the West Virginia Housing Development Fund (WVHDF, www.wvhdf.com), but as is frequently the case in more socially conservative states, the primary emphasis is on helping land owners and property developers take advantage of various federal programs and tax breaks than with helping people in need of subsidized housing in the state. There is very little meant to help low income people to be found through this resource, so instead one should probably go directly to the local public housing authority (PHA) overseeing affordable housing in the area in question.

The local PHAs both administer the federal Section 8 program in West Virginia as well as play a larger coordinating role for people seeking affordable housing within their jurisdiction. To find a comprehensive list of PHAs in West Virginia, one can visit the website of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) at www.hud.gov. Each PHA oversees a local jurisdiction, usually a country or metropolitan area, and while in many states their efforts are assisted by state authorities, this does not appear to be the case in West Virginia. Instead the PHAs have largely banded together to look after their own interests and one can find most of them through the website of the West Virginia Association of Housing Agencies (www.wvaha.org).

Further, in many places, the PHA also maintains a friendly relationship with local housing advocacy organizations, non-profits, charities and other non-governmental resources active in their districts; but this is less common in West Virginia. Instead, a number of PHAs have a more adversarial role housing advocacy organizations, so it may be a good idea to contact the local non-governmental resources directly as opposed to hoping to contact them through the local PHA. To be clear, this is not the case with all West Virginia PHAs, but is not uncommon in the more rural - and hence conservative - areas where the idea is more to drive poor people away than to help them establish a sustainable residence in the area.

Affordable housing does exist in West Virginia, but there is a definite shortage and what is available is in high demand. Even once approved, the waiting periods to get into a unit can last for years. Further, there is no reason to see this changing in the foreseeable future. There is an active non-governmental advocacy network that tries to help, as do a number of charitable organizations, but it can still be challenging to work something out in West Virginia. Someone moving to Virginia might do better to look around in neighboring states as opposed to West Virginia if this is a viable option. Otherwise, people in need of subsidized housing should expect a challenging experience in West Virginia.