A pandemic housing lifeline that pulled hundreds of Long Beach residents out of encampments and shelters and into apartments is now on a countdown clock. City officials and caseworkers say the federal money behind Long Beach's Emergency Housing Voucher program will likely run out by the start of August 2026, putting roughly 500 people at risk of losing their rent subsidies. Housing staff are already scrambling to stretch every remaining dollar and move the most vulnerable tenants onto longer-term assistance where they can.
According to the Long Beach Post, Long Beach was awarded 582 Emergency Housing Vouchers and had issued all of them by 2024. The city's Housing Authority EHV program page also lists that 582-voucher award, and officials report they are burning through about $800,000 each month from the federal pot as they try to preserve those hard-won housing outcomes. Some EHV holders are being shifted into the regular Section 8 program, while staff quietly map out who could be cut first if the money stops.
Why the federal pot is shrinking
In March 2025 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development notified public housing agencies that it would issue a final allocation of Emergency Housing Voucher Housing Assistance Payment funds and that no additional renewal funding should be expected. The agency has tied that decision to rising rents and higher per-unit costs that have eaten into the program.
HUD's Notice PIH 2025-19 urges local housing authorities to start transitioning families from EHVs into their regular Housing Choice Voucher programs so assistance does not suddenly drop off a cliff.
What Long Beach can do
HUD rules give agencies some tools, at least on paper. Public housing authorities can adopt new waiting-list preferences and request streamlined waivers to move EHV participants onto Housing Choice Voucher lists more quickly. In practice, that only works if there are available HCV unit-months and enough administrative capacity to process the moves, which takes time the city may not have.
The City of Long Beach has been pleading with federal leaders not to slash housing support. In a March 12, 2025 letter to lawmakers, posted by the City of Long Beach, officials warned that sudden cuts to HUD programs would threaten thousands of local households. City leaders say they will prioritize the most vulnerable EHV tenants while continuing to press Congress for a fix, even as staff juggle daily casework with contingency planning that could decide who keeps a roof and who does not.
Lives on the line
For people holding these vouchers, the uncertainty is not abstract. Recipients say the program has been life changing. "Really changed my life," said Clark Inglish, who moved off the riverbed into housing after receiving an EHV. Now, like many others, he faces the possibility that the security he finally found could vanish if the federal dollars do.
Housing Authority director Anna Topolewski told the Long Beach Post she sometimes wakes up at 3 a.m. worrying about what will happen to the program. She said staff are working on internal guidelines that would spell out who might be cut first if they are forced to start pulling vouchers.
What comes next
Long Beach is hardly alone. National reporting by AP News finds roughly 60,000 households across the country rely on Emergency Housing Vouchers, and advocates warn many of them could lose help unless Congress steps in.
Local officials in Long Beach say they will keep shifting eligible households into longer-term vouchers when possible. Without fresh federal money, though, hundreds of people who used EHVs to escape the streets or shelters are staring down a very uncertain summer.
