HLC Housing Agenda Blog

Section 8 Waiting List is Closed; Lottery Soon

The San Mateo County Housing Authority collected some 23,000 applications for the Section 8 waiting list. Reportedly, 95% were submitted online, which is a tribute both to the public libraries’ free computers and to the efforts of numerous service providers to assist clients with signing up online.

The Housing Authority will conduct a lottery soon to select approximately 3,600 names. They expect that list to last about three years. If the list were any longer, then it would get “stale,” as people often move and sometimes forget to notify the Housing Authority. It takes much longer to move through names the older a list gets, because they have to make several attempts to notify people. And it’s a more reasonable length of time to be on a list.

Please do not leave comments here about Section 8. Housing Leadership Council is an independent nonprofit group that is only reporting about the list. We do not have anything to do with managing the list. If you have questions or comments about Section 8, please call the Housing Authority directly at (650) 802-3300.