Who is eligible for the the housing voucher?

You are at least 18 and you have not reached your 25th birthday. You have left foster care, or you will leave within 180 days under a transition plan. You were homeless or at risk of homelessness at age 16 or older. Your annual income is below 30 percent of the area median family income, as determined by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). If you are pregnant or parenting, you still qualify, as long as there is no open child welfare case on your child.

When does the the housing voucher close?

Your 25th birthday. Separately, if you are still in care, the referral window opens when you are within 180 days of leaving under a transition plan.

The housing voucher

A federal rental voucher that pays most of your rent for up to 36 months. You pay about 30 percent of what you earn. It closes at 25.

Formally, the Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) housing voucher.

What it is worth: Rental assistance for up to 36 months. You pay roughly 30 percent of your monthly income toward rent and the housing authority pays the rest.
Who decides: Your local public housing agency issues the voucher. The child welfare agency has to provide a written certification first, so both have to act.
The date that matters: Your 25th birthday. Separately, if you are still in care, the referral window opens when you are within 180 days of leaving under a transition plan.

Eligibility

Whether this is yours

You are at least 18 and you have not reached your 25th birthday.
You have left foster care, or you will leave within 180 days under a transition plan.
You were homeless or at risk of homelessness at age 16 or older.
Your annual income is below 30 percent of the area median family income, as determined by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
If you are pregnant or parenting, you still qualify, as long as there is no open child welfare case on your child.

Limits

What it will not cover

Stated plainly, because planning around a gap you know about is possible and planning around one you find out about in November is not.

More than 36 months of assistance.
Anything at all without the written certification from the child welfare agency.

How to claim it

What you actually do

1Ask your case manager to make the referral and to send the written certification. Nothing moves without it.
2Contact your local public housing agency directly to ask whether they hold Foster Youth to Independence vouchers.
3Reapply each year within the 36 months. It is not a single award.

Watch for

The things people get caught by

These are the misunderstandings that cost people money, not general advice.

This one has two gatekeepers, the child welfare agency and the housing authority. If it stalls, find out which of the two is holding it.
At risk of homelessness counts. You do not have to already be on the street to qualify.
Being a parent does not disqualify you.
It closes at 25, one year earlier than the Education and Training Voucher and two years after the tuition waiver. All three clocks run at different speeds.

Put this on a calendar

A deadline you know about and a deadline you remember are different things. The timing map takes one date and gives you the next twelve months, with nothing saved and no account required.

Build your timing map See the other four

Sources

Where this comes from

Not yet verified at the source

We have not checked this page against the current Foster Youth to Independence guidance from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and no one has called the public housing agencies serving Maricopa County to confirm which of them currently hold vouchers. Until we have, confirm anything time sensitive with the office named above before you rely on it.