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ON THE STREETS - When my partner and I applied for the City of Los Angeles’ Section 8 housing voucher lottery in October 2022, we hoped to finally escape life on the streets. Instead, we found ourselves victims of a system that exposed our most private information — and left us more vulnerable than ever before.
Having been continuously unsheltered in Los Angeles since 2017, I document homelessness, corruption, and housing policy from the ground. I also host "Displacement X Spaces" discussions every Sunday on Twitter (@rooflesser). This story, however, is personal.
A Broken System Exposed
Section 8, officially known as the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, is supposed to be America’s primary defense against mass homelessness. But in Los Angeles, the lottery system designed to allocate these life-changing subsidies has repeatedly failed the people it was meant to help — and even endangered them.
After a 13-year closure, the Section 8 waitlist briefly reopened in 2017, celebrated by officials like then-Mayor Eric Garcetti and HACLA CEO Doug Guthrie. In 2022, history repeated itself: a major media campaign announced the reopening of the list. Hopeful applicants, including my partner and me, raced to submit applications online via HACLA.HCVList.org, often from precarious setups like car batteries powering phones.
What was less publicized was the extensive contracting out of data management. In 2017, CVP Associates, Inc. — a consulting firm tied to cloud giants like AWS and Google — was hired to manage hundreds of thousands of applications. By 2022, vulnerabilities in this system had become deadly clear.\
Hacked and Held Hostage
In March 2023, we received identical letters at our P.O. box: a "Notice of Data Breach." Hackers had accessed HACLA’s system, obtaining sensitive personal information we were forced to provide during the application process. We were offered free credit monitoring, but the offer felt suspect — originating from a distant P.O. box in Pennsylvania.
Bill collectors soon started calling, knowing our names. Though we couldn't definitively prove the connection, the fear was undeniable. We had trusted HACLA with our information in good faith. That trust was shattered.
Worse, this breach wasn't an isolated incident. It echoed a broader pattern of cyberattacks targeting vulnerable government systems, from the 2022 LAUSD hack to a separate 2024 breach at HACLA, where another 900GB of sensitive data was stolen.
The Decline of Housing Assistance
While security failed, so too did the core mission of housing provision.
HUD’s utilization standard for public housing authorities is 98%. Los Angeles’ HACLA has hovered around 82–85%, far below what is considered acceptable. And critical programs like HUD-VASH, intended to house homeless veterans, have been severely underutilized since 2019 — often because of bureaucratic failures, not lack of need.
Despite an influx of Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHVs) through the American Rescue Plan, leasing rates lagged, leading Los Angeles to lose future funding opportunities. With each lost voucher, more lives remain trapped in poverty, while seven people die on the streets of Los Angeles every day.\
A Lottery with No Winners
In the 2022 lottery, my partner and I were among over 500,000 applicants who received emails telling us we had lost. Only a fraction of applicants — perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 — were selected, and even those "winners" face up to a decade-long wait for actual assistance.
Instead of relief, the Section 8 lottery left many feeling even more abandoned. No balloons, no smiling recipients, no life-changing moments — just deepened despair.
To add insult to injury, the system designed to offer hope made us easier targets for cybercriminals.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The Section 8 system in Los Angeles is not just overwhelmed — it is broken. It exposes vulnerable people to exploitation, data theft, and bureaucratic cruelty.
We must demand:
- Better data protection for all applicants.
- Higher voucher utilization rates to match federal standards.
- Stronger advocacy from housing authorities on behalf of the low-income and unhoused.
- Real transparency about how lotteries are conducted and how waitlists are managed.
Homelessness is not what’s broken — the systems meant to end it are.
(Ruth Roofless writes about homelessness, housing policy, and corruption from the streets of Los Angeles. She is committed to telling the stories others leave out and shining a light on the failures of our re-housing systems.)
