Section 8

Northwest Indiana Community Action (NWICA) on behalf of the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is opening its Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program waiting list for Newton, Lake, Porter, Jasper, Pulaski, and Starke County.

The Section 8 housing choice voucher program is available to income-eligible individuals and families. The program assists these families with rent payments to provide decent, affordable, and safe housing to people with low incomes. Numerous people and families mistake it for emergency housing assistance but this is not emergency housing assistance. By this, we mean that the people on the waiting list will not be given housing immediately and may have to wait for housing assistance for more than 24 months.

Interested applicants can access the portal from April 1, 2024. The applicants will be asked to create a waitlist check account and have a valid email address in place to submit a housing application. For the applicant’s convenience, the website will have a link to free email providers.

Persons having disabilities looking to have equal access to the application process for reasonable accommodation can reach out to the Northwest Indiana Community Action at 219-794-1829 to seek an accommodation no later than March 17, 2024. If you need assistance in any other language, then please call IHCDA at 317-232-7788 to schedule a phone call with our interpreter. Make sure to reach out for such a request latest by March 17, 2024.

The applicants will be placed on the waiting list in order of preference points, date, and time of application. The preference points IHCDA has includes:

Residency- The applicant should be a legal resident of or has been hired to work in, or must be working in the country where they have applied for housing assistance.

Person residing in an institutional setting or runs the risk of being placed in an institutional setting- An institutional setting includes but is not limited to congregate settings heavily populated or have only people with disabilities, settings characterized by regimentation of daily activities, lack of privacy, limiting visitors policy, or limits imposed on individual’s ability to engage freely in community activities, managing own daily living activities or a person at risk of being placed in one of the settings described above.

Working families- This includes persons attending a school or training program or working for at least 20 hours per week, elderly aged 62 or above, non-elderly disability status aged 61 or below, and having a disabled family member irrespective of age.

Elderly- Whether the applicant is head, spouse, co-head, or sole member aged 62 years or above.

Non-elderly family member with a disability- Nonelderly family member aged 61 or below or a family member fulfilling HUD’s definition of disability.

Child Welfare Involved Families- A family certified by the Indiana Department of Child Services as a family lacking adequate housing is a primary factor that determines the placement of the family’s child, children, in out-of-home care, or delay in the discharge of child to family from out of home care.

Youth Exiting Foster Care- Youth aged 18 years of age and not more than 24 years of age who has left foster care or is about to leave foster care within 90 days and is homeless or at risk of getting homeless.

Family member with disability- An individual who falls into HUD’s definition of disability.

There’s no guarantee that the applicant on the waiting list will be given housing assistance. The preferences claimed during the application process will be verified while selecting the applicants from the waiting list.