Project-based vouchers: how they differ from Section 8

A project-based voucher is a government payment that lowers the rent on one apartment in a particular building while you live there. You pay about 30% of your income, and the housing authority (the local housing office) pays the owner the rest. After a year, you can ask for a voucher to take with you when you move.

What is a project-based voucher?

A project-based voucher is one of the two kinds of Section 8 voucher, the government payments that cover part of a household's rent. Both kinds come from the federal Housing Choice Voucher program, and your local housing office runs both. With a regular voucher, you find an apartment yourself and the housing office pays part of the rent to your landlord. With a project-based voucher, the housing office has already picked the apartments.

The housing office signs a contract with a building owner to pay part of the rent on certain apartments. That contract can run up to 20 years, and the two sides can extend it. While it lasts, only households the housing office approves can rent those apartments.

HUD, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, explains it this way: the lower rent comes with the apartment, not with the person. So you pay the lower rent only while you live in that apartment. When you move out, the next household that moves in pays the lower rent instead.

Project-based vs regular voucher: what is different?

The biggest differences are where you can live and what happens when you move. With a regular voucher, what you pay also depends on your area's voucher limit, officially the payment standard: the most the rent and utilities together can cost while you still pay only about 30% of your income. It is not what the voucher pays.

With a project-based voucher, the housing office has already agreed on the rent with the owner, and you pay about 30% of your income.

Who can get in is the same for both kinds. Your household's yearly income usually has to be at or under the 50% income limit, the most a household of your size can earn in your area.

Most households that get in have the lowest incomes. Each year, at least 75% of the families a housing office newly takes from its waitlist must have extremely low incomes. Both kinds of voucher count toward that share. Extremely low income means at or under the higher of 30% of the area median income (the middle income in your area) or the federal poverty guideline.

How do you apply for a project-based voucher?

You apply through a waitlist, and each housing office decides how its project-based lists work. Some keep one list for all their project-based buildings. Some use the same list as their regular vouchers. Some let each building keep its own list.

1. Call or visit your housing office and ask: "Which buildings have project-based vouchers, and how do I get on their lists?" When buildings keep their own lists, the housing office must give you the name and contact details of each one you can apply to.
2. If a building keeps its own list, apply at the building's office, or ask the housing office to send your name to the building.
3. If you're already on the housing office's regular voucher waitlist, ask to be added to its project-based lists too. When the office keeps separate project-based lists, it must offer to add you.
4. Tell the office if anyone in your household needs an accessible apartment, such as one with wider doorways. Apartments with those features go first to households that need them.

Some buildings also offer services you can choose to use, such as support for people with disabilities, and may put households who qualify for those services first. You never have to accept the services to live there.

When your name comes up, the housing office checks that your household still qualifies. The building can't offer you an apartment until the housing office has done that check.

If you turn down a project-based apartment, or the building turns you down, your place on the regular voucher waitlist stays the same. It may affect your place on the project-based list, so ask the office how many offers you can turn down.

What happens if you move out?

If you move out in your first year, you lose the lower rent and get nothing to take with you. After a year, the housing office must offer you a voucher to take to your next home, or a similar rent payment that its written plan offers instead. To keep that right, do these steps in order:

1. Stay at least one year in the project-based apartment.
2. Contact the housing office and ask for a voucher before you give your landlord notice.
3. Give your landlord the written notice your lease requires, and send a copy to the housing office.

If no voucher is free when you ask, you get the next one that comes free. Once you have the voucher, you have a set time to find a new apartment, at least 60 days. If that time runs out, the housing office gives the voucher to the next household, so ask for more time before it ends if you need it.

If you need to move because of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking, you don't have to give your landlord notice or call the housing office first. If you had at least a year in the apartment, you still keep the right to a voucher. If you have to move in your first year, ask the housing office for its emergency transfer plan, which must say how it helps people in that situation move to a safe home.

A worked example

Household A has a regular voucher and rents from a private landlord. After 14 months, a new job takes them to another city. They tell the housing office, follow its moving rules and use the same voucher at their new apartment.

Household B has a project-based voucher. After 14 months, they also want to move. They ask the housing office for a voucher before they give their landlord notice. If they had left at month 10, they would have lost the lower rent and had no voucher to take with them.

What are your rights in a project-based apartment?

• Your rent can't go over what the housing office sets. The owner can charge you only the rent the housing office sets, and must give back anything you paid above it right away.
• You can't be evicted because the housing office paid late. The owner can't evict you because the housing office didn't pay its part of the rent.
• The owner needs a good reason to evict you. For project-based apartments, a good reason does not include wanting more money from the apartment or wanting to use it for the owner's family.
• You get a year's notice if the contract ends. The owner must tell you and the housing office at least a year before the contract ends. Unless an exception applies, the housing office must give you a regular voucher at least 60 days before the end. You can use it to stay in the same apartment, if it passes inspection and the rent is approved, or to move.
• Earning more can end the lower rent. If 30% of your income grows to cover the whole rent, the housing office stops paying, and you pay the full rent. If your income drops again within 180 days, the payments can start again. After 180 days with no payments, the apartment comes off the contract, and the housing office no longer pays any part of its rent.

Your lease and local law may give you more protection. A legal aid office can tell you what applies where you live.

Where can you find project-based waitlists?

Ask each housing office near you which project-based buildings are taking names, and get on every list you qualify for. Our area-wide waitlists page shows housing offices' waitlists for vouchers and for public housing, which is housing the housing office owns and rents out. Listings shows apartments and building waitlists you can apply for now. The qualify check shows which of them fit your household's size and income. Lists can fill up or close early, so apply as soon as you find one.

Our guide to the Housing Choice Voucher program covers the regular voucher from start to finish. Once you have either kind, how Section 8 rent is calculated shows what you'll pay each month.