By David Wagner for LAist
Originally published Jan 6, 2026
Housing officials in the city of Los Angeles say a pandemic-era voucher program is set to run out of money later this year, putting thousands of renters at risk of homelessness.
The federal Emergency Housing Voucher program was launched in 2021 as a way to get vulnerable people off the streets and into housing during the COVID-19 crisis. The city of L.A. received more than 3,300 of the vouchers.
With federal funding now running out, the city is preparing to wind down the program. On Monday the city’s housing authority said it had told 2,760 tenant households and 1,700 landlords that unless new funding is found, vouchers will expire by November or December of this year.
“We are providing this notice nearly a year in advance because our families deserve the respect of time to prepare, but this is not a notice of resignation,” said L.A. Housing Authority President Lourdes Castro Ramírez said in a news release. “We are exhausting every avenue — at the local, state and federal levels — to bridge this funding gap.”
The Housing Authority said each household using a voucher had an average of 1.58 members. That puts more than 4,000 Angelenos at risk of losing their housing later this year.
Homelessness progress could be reversed
Congress originally intended the program to continue through 2030, but last year, the Trump administration announced funding would end sooner. The program’s demise risks reversing L.A.’s reported progress at stemming the rise of homelessness.
After years of steady increases, the city has registered slight reductions in the number of people experiencing homelessness for the past two years. In 2023, the region’s homeless services authority reported 46,260 people experiencing homelessness in the city of L.A. By 2025, that number had fallen to 43,695.
The accuracy of those official counts has been questioned by local researchers, but elected officials have cheered the numbers as a sign that the tide is turning in addressing one of L.A.’s most vexing problems.With thousands of renters now at risk of losing a key resource helping them afford the city’s high rents, sharp increases in homelessness could be on the horizon, said Mike Feuer, a senior policy advisor with the Inner City Law Center.
“They’re going to fall into homelessness, and they’re going to increase L.A.’s homeless population by almost 10%,” Feuer said. “Those are the implications of what the Trump administration is doing.”
Voucher holders have low incomes; many have kids
According to L.A.’s Housing Authority, about 1-in-4 voucher holders has children and 1-in-5 is elderly. And about 40% are disabled. These households have an average income of less than $14,000 per year, and they receive an average of $1,789 per month in rental subsidy while paying about $350 out of their own pockets.
The loss of federal funding for Emergency Housing Vouchers is distinct from the issues facing renters using Housing Choice Vouchers, another federally funded program often referred to as Section 8. Existing vouchers in the Section 8 program have continued to be funded, but federal funding reductions have caused city officials to cut the amount of rent new vouchers in that program can cover by 10%.
L.A. Housing Authority officials said they have dedicated staff reaching out to tenants to explore other housing resources that might keep them housed after the vouchers expire.
Manuel Villagomez, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles specializing in subsidized housing, said with city and state budgets strapped, tenant advocates are not counting on California to find alternative funding sources to continue the program.
“It seems like it’s a tragedy in the making,” Villagomez said. “We’re preparing for the worst.”
This report is reprinted with permission from Southern California Public Radio. © 2026 Southern California Public Radio. All rights reserved.