Applying is free
A Housing Choice Voucher application is free. A housing authority does not charge you to join a waitlist, to check your place in line, or to receive a voucher.
This is not legal advice and not a decision by a housing authority. Applying for a voucher is free.
What a real authority will not do
- It will not ask you to pay with a gift card, a wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or a payment app.
- It will not text you a voucher, a inspection appointment, or a unit you must claim in the next hour.
- It will not ask you to send a photo of your ID or your Social Security card to a person who contacted you first.
- It will not tell you that paying a fee moves you up the list.
How to check a page
Start from the housing authority’s own website. This directory links to the HUD record and, when a person has checked it, to the authority’s waitlist page. If a message uses a look-alike address, close it and open the authority’s site yourself.
A landlord can charge a normal application fee for an apartment. That fee is not a voucher fee. The housing authority’s own waitlist is still free.
If someone already asked you for money
Stop sending money or photos. Tell the housing authority, and report it to the HUD Office of Inspector General hotline at hudoig.gov/hotline. If you sent money, also tell your bank or the payment app.
Where this comes from
- HUD Office of Inspector General hotline: https://www.hudoig.gov/hotline
- HUD’s rental-scam warnings, rewritten here in plain language.