During a short meeting Thursday, the Tulsa Housing Authority approved a resolution to amend its administrative plan for its housing voucher program to include steps that would terminate vouchers if an ongoing funding crisis does not get resolved at the federal level. Despite the vote, agency officials emphasized that there currently are no plans to revoke existing vouchers that support low-income residents by paying landlords a portion of rent.
Last month, the board was notified of a potential funding shortfall in the city’s housing voucher program that could necessitate terminating vouchers. While the the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development normally addresses such shortfalls with additional funding, THA employees said then that the department had been unresponsive to their requests.
This month, agency officials told their governing board that they had received new directions from HUD and that program attrition should cover the funding gap for the housing choice voucher program, known colloquially as Section 8.
“Previously, we thought there was a potential to have to remove subsidy from people who have existing housing choice vouchers. That is what was discussed at last month’s board meeting,” Ginny Hensley, THA vice president of communications and public affairs, said after the meeting. “We have since [received] updated information from a contact at HUD, and now it appears as if we will be managing our program through attrition. So what that means is any voucher that would naturally fall off of the program because someone no longer needs that subsidy for whatever reason — that attrition would not be replaced. And so for Tulsa Housing Authority, that looks like around 800 vouchers that would be lost from the program as a result of that attrition that is no longer replaced.”
Federal funding is currently set for the program through September, she said. Absent congressional intervention, Tulsa’s voucher program is now set to accept no new applicants and issue no new vouchers during that time.
“Our wait list for the housing choice voucher program is closed,” Hensley said. “So, no new vouchers.”
Hensley said the 800 vouchers expected to expire equates to more than 2,000 Tulsans. She also said that, without funding increases, the voucher program will need to eliminate vouchers every year moving forward to keep the program solvent.
“It’s a compounding issue,” Hensley said. “Year over year, it is truly going to get worse unless there is an influx of funds into the program.”
Hensley emphasized that THA’s housing voucher program is funded by the federal government, and she expressed concern that President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget proposal would exacerbate the funding shortage.
“The proposed 2026 budget, which the president released last week, would be even more devastating, cutting housing programs by more than 40 percent,” Hensley said. “You can look at President Trump’s proposed budget that he — this quote unquote skinny budget — that was released last week. It includes cuts of over 40 percent to housing programs. He is also looking to block grant those funds, so send that 40 percent less amount to states to administer. So (there are) lots of changes that he has proposed.”
Termination rules, South Haven Manor resolutions approved
The Tulsa Housing Authority Board convened its meeting Thursday with members Rick Neal, Debra Morrow Ingram and Kim Holland present. Board members Lisa Abers and Sheila Brown were absent.
Resolution 3783, approved by a 3-0 vote of the attending board members, created new administrative procedures for terminating vouchers in the event of a funding shortfall.
The resolution authorizes “termination of assistance as a last resort” and requires THA to “explore all potential actions to reduce program costs before considering terminations of assistance.” But, if canceling vouchers owing to a funding shortfall becomes necessary, it also sets a last in, first out procedure for employees to determine which vouchers to cancel.
“THA will terminate assistance for families based on their admission date to the [voucher] program,” the new rule reads. “Termination will begin with the most recently admitted participants, prioritizing non-elderly and non-disabled families.”
The resolution outlines four groups that are exempt from termination: “elderly families,” “disabled families,” recipients of project-based vouchers and “special program participants.” If a family has its voucher terminated, then they are placed back onto the programs waitlist, even if it is closed.
The board also approved Resolution 3782 by a 3-0 vote to “submit a Section 18 disposition application to dispose of its South Haven Manor Public Housing Units,” setting the stage for the property’s eventual sale. South Haven Manor consists of 90 units of public housing on the westside of the Arkansas River partially within a FEMA designated flood area. Section 18 of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 is used to sell or demolish public housing units.
“This resolution allows us to move forward with submitting the application for HUD to review and approve and allow us to prepare to list the property for sale this fall after fully relocating the existing tenants,” explained Kent Keith, THA’s vice president of construction services. “We will sell the property through a broker, move through the RFP process, and list it on the open market and take offers for consideration.”
During the discussion of the resolution, Holland asked whether there was housing for the 90 families living at South Haven Manor. Keith responded that the process of finding those residents housing will come after the application is approved. Morrow Ingram asked what would happen with the property, which could see a new owner make the units eligible for Section 8 housing vouchers or could be removed from public housing eligibility altogether.
Aaron Darden, THA’s president and CEO, responded that preference would be given to a local owner and to maintain affordability.
“We’re going to look for offers that are going to meet those two things,” Darden said. “And we think that we’ll have that just based off of what we’ve done previously with some of our other properties.”
Review the THA administrative plan resolution
Review the THA South Haven Manor resolutionÂ
