Doorway Housing Portal: how to apply for Bay Area housing

On the Doorway Housing Portal, you search lower-rent apartments across the Bay Area, then apply to each building separately. Each listing shows its income limit, the most your household can earn and still qualify. It also says how it picks people: by lottery, a random drawing; from a waitlist, a line you join now for an apartment later; or first come, first served.

What is the Doorway Housing Portal?

Doorway is a free website run by the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, a regional government agency. It lists apartments with rents set for households under an income limit in eight counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma.

San Francisco listings are on DAHLIA, the city's own housing website; if you pick San Francisco in Doorway's county filter, Doorway links you there. On DAHLIA you apply one building at a time and get a lottery number.

Doorway lists homes you apply for and wait on, not beds for tonight. If you are homeless or about to be, call 2-1-1, or 3-1-1 in San Francisco, to find emergency housing.

How do you apply on Doorway?

You apply to one listing at a time, in four steps:

1. Open a listing and press "See details." Read who can live there, the income range for your household size, the rent and the deadline.
2. Read "How to Apply." It says whether the building takes online applications, paper ones, or both.
3. Press "Apply Online." What happens next depends on where the listing is hosted. Most ask you to make a Doorway account. Listings hosted on the Alameda County or San Jose housing portals open that portal in a new window, and you apply and check your status there. A few send you to the building's own website.
4. Answer every question and press Confirm. You don't need any documents yet, unless you claim a preference, a rule that puts certain applicants ahead of others (see below).

Write down which website you used for each listing. Your application and its status live wherever you applied.

Should you apply online or on paper?

Both count the same, but a paper form comes with extra rules. If a listing has no online form, or you would rather not use one, you can usually download a paper application from the listing, print it and send it in. Some listings also name a place to pick one up.

Three rules in Doorway's terms of use catch people out:

• Use the listing's own form. Doorway rejects any paper application except the one linked from that listing.
• It must arrive by the deadline. A form postmarked on the deadline day but delivered later is not accepted.
• Drop-offs close early. When a building takes paper forms at its office, staff accept them only until two days before the deadline, so they have time to send them on.

Some lottery listings also ask you to include a stamped envelope with your address on it, so your lottery number can be mailed back to you.

How does a listing pick people: lottery, waitlist or first come?

Each listing names one of three methods, and each one changes when you should apply:

• Lottery. After the deadline, the building's office, which Doorway calls the property manager, uses a computer to put every application in random order. Applying on the first day gives you no better chance than applying on the last.
• Waitlist. Some waitlists are filled by lottery: people who didn't get an apartment in the drawing go onto the list in their lottery order. Others go by the date and time you applied, so apply early.
• First come, first served. The building's office works through applications in the order they arrive, so apply as soon as you can.

On a lottery or waitlist, the building's office contacts people in order and stops once every apartment is rented. You may not hear back for weeks, months or years.

How do preferences change your place in line?

A preference puts certain applicants ahead of the rest. A common one on Doorway is the Live/Work Preference, for people who live or work in the same city as the building. Each listing says which preferences it has, and your answers on the application decide whether you claim one.

For example, say 300 people apply to a lottery and your random number, called a raw rank, is 250. Three applicants claim the Live/Work Preference: you and two others, with raw ranks of 40 and 120. The building's office looks at those three first, in number order, so your application is the third one reviewed even though 249 people drew a lower number.

Some apartments are also set aside for groups such as seniors, veterans, young adults aged about 18 to 24 who are on their own, and people with disabilities. The listing says who each one is for.

Which apartment size can your household apply for?

Your household's size decides which apartment sizes you can apply for. Your household is everyone who will live in the apartment, related or not; a friend or roommate counts. These are the usual guidelines, and each building can set its own, so check the listing:

For apartments with bedrooms, that means at least one person per bedroom and at most two per bedroom plus one. A studio takes one or two people. So a single person can't get a 2-bedroom, and a family of five fits a 2-bedroom.

Income works the same way. The limit is for your whole household's yearly income before taxes, and the listing shows the figure for your household size.

How does the San Jose housing portal fit in?

San Jose runs its own site, the City of San José Housing Portal. Some Doorway listings are hosted there: pressing "Apply Online" on one opens the San Jose portal, and you make an account on that site.

Not every San Jose listing shows up on Doorway, so search both sites if you want to live in San Jose. The San Jose application's rules match Doorway's: each person can be on only one application per listing. If the building can't confirm a preference you claimed, you lose that preference but are not otherwise penalized.

What happens after you apply?

If you are picked, the building's office contacts you by phone, email or letter and asks for proof of income for everyone in the household over 18. Proof can include:

• recent pay stubs from your job, or proof of self-employment income;
• benefit letters, such as welfare, veterans' benefits or Social Security;
• pension or retirement income, and alimony;
• recent checking and savings account statements.

You also need papers that show who you are. Most Doorway listings get no federal money: they don't require a government ID, but they ask for some document that proves who you are. If the listing has a "Required Documents" box in its "Additional Information" section, that box says which kinds it takes. A listing paid for with federal money asks for more:

• a government-issued photo ID for everyone 18 or older;
• a birth certificate, Social Security card or passport for each child under 18;
• proof of residency.

The listing says whether it gets federal money, or you can ask the building's office.

The same box may name more documents. Start gathering them while you wait, using a documents checklist. As the last step, the building's office meets with you, and everyone in your household may be asked to come. Keep every voicemail, email and letter you get from the buildings you applied to.

What should you do next?

Apply to every Doorway listing where your household fits the income range and the apartment size. Each application is a separate chance. If a listing is first come, apply the day you see it.

If you have a Section 8 voucher, which pays part of your rent, a California landlord can't turn you down for using it. Report a landlord who does to the California Civil Rights Department.

See what is open across the region on our Bay Area page or in all open listings. The qualify check shows which listings fit your household size and income.