NJDCA To Open Wait List For Statewide Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program

By: Follow South Jersey Staff

SOUTH JERSEY– The NJ Department of Community Affairs (DCA) Division of Housing and Community Resources will be accepting pre-applications for the statewide Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program Waiting List, the department announced recently.

The application will be available online from 9:00 a.m. January 17 through February 3 at 5:00 p.m. at http://www.WaitlistCheck.com/NJ559.

All Section 8 HCV Program pre-applications will be selected through a random lottery process. Applicants who qualify for a preference will receive priority placement on the waiting list. Preferences include United States Armed Forces veterans and their spouses, people experiencing homelessness, domestic violence survivors, local residents, and people with disabilities. A total of 20,000 households will be selected in the random lottery, enabling those households to be added to the waiting list to be awarded vouchers as they become available.

The Section 8 HCV open enrollment period will coincide with this year’s NJCounts, which is the annual Point-in-Time Count of individuals and families experiencing homelessness in New Jersey. NJCounts will take place the night of January 24th and on January 25th. During the count, people experiencing homelessness will be encouraged to submit Section 8 HCV pre-applications and provided with assistance in completing the pre-application.

Applicants must be 18 years of age or older to apply or be an emancipated minor. An email address is required to apply. If an applicant does not have one, they can create an email address during the pre-application process.

The Section 8 HCV Program is a federally-funded program administered by DCA that provides housing subsidies to New Jersey residents so they can obtain decent, safe, and sanitary housing. Section 8, as well as DCA’s other rental assistance initiatives such as the State Rental Assistance Program (SRAP), Supportive Housing Connection, and Veterans Administration Supportive Housing (VASH) vouchers, keep more than 41,000 households safely housed each year and provide more than $33 million in financial assistance per month to landlords on behalf of New Jersey households.

The Section 8 HCV pre-application is available in 90 languages. If an applicant is disabled and needs assistance with submitting their pre-application during the open enrollment period, they can contact DCA at (609) 292-4080 and select Option 9 from the menu from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week to request a reasonable accommodation or send an email to customer.service@dca.nj.gov.


Follow South Jersey provides local journalism which highlights our diverse communities; fosters transparency through robust, localized, and vital reporting that holds leaders and institutions accountable; addresses critical information needs; supports people in navigating civic life; and equips people with the information necessary to partake in effective community engagement. If there is a story or event you think we should cover, please send your tips to news@followsouthjersey.com with “NEWS” in the subject line.