For seniors living on a fixed-income, perhaps their most pressing concern is housing, and by this I mean finding reasonable sources of rent assistance.

There are a few resources and ideas that are available to help in this regard…and to this end I want to show you how to go about getting the rent assistance you need.

For the purposes of writing this article, I researched my local area and I want to pass along what I learned.

County Level

First thing you need to do is check at the county level.  And to that end what I personally did was did a Google search for “Suffolk County NY Section 8”…Section 8 being the name of the program that you are looking for.

What I found was the Community Development Corporation, which assists low-income residents with obtaining the housing voucher.  This is the good news.

The bad news is that I found that these programs, at the county level, are normally closed.

The reason, as you could imagine, is that this program doesn’t has an unlimited budget, yet at the same time once people are accepted to the program they don’t leave the program.

The result is that when you call your local CDC office you may encounter what I did…the program is currently closed.  Now, they will take your contact information and reach out to you when the program opens again, but that’s not going to help you now. 

So I tried something else.

Other Options

So my next step was to start with my local Office of the Aging.  They advised me that this type of program is also administered by many local charities and towns as well. 

I would have to call each individually but they were able to provide me with a list (your local Office of the Aging may or may not be able to do this).

However, each township offers its own programs…and also has the ability to put you into touch with local charities that can help with rental assistance, eviction assistance, emergency moving expenses and utility assistance.

Now, if you can’t get a list like I did, what I would recommend is for you to contact your local town hall housing authority and explain the situation.

They will be able to provide benefit counseling and also know the local charities that will be able to assist you.

 Need Help?

If you need help in any way finding the right contact information please contact me and I will do what I can in order to point you in the right direction.