Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers on Oʻahu: how they work and why the wait is long

Housing & policy · Published 2026-10-22

A row of mid-rise apartment buildings on the skyline above dark trees near Waikīkī at dusk — Apartment buildings south of Waikīkī. Photo: Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0.

A Housing Choice Voucher, still widely called Section 8, is the single most effective tool for making private rentals affordable to low-income households: the tenant pays a share of income and a public agency pays the rest. On Oʻahu, the problem is getting one. When the City reopened its waitlist for five days in July 2025, it received about 17,000 applications for 3,000 places on the list.

How a voucher works

The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and run locally by public housing agencies. On Oʻahu there are two: the City and County of Honolulu's Department of Community Services, and the State's Hawaiʻi Public Housing Authority (HPHA). Each keeps its own waitlist.

According to the City's program page, the basic deal works like this:

The voucher is tenant-based: the family finds a private rental, and the assistance moves with the family within Oʻahu.
The family generally pays about 30% to 40% of its adjusted monthly income toward rent and utilities, and the program pays the rest of the approved rent directly to the owner.
The unit must pass a housing inspection before the lease and the payment contract with the owner are approved.
The program does not cover security deposits.
Families may move with their voucher to another jurisdiction under federal "portability" rules, but must first lease in Honolulu for at least the initial 12-month term.

The amount the program will pay is limited by a "payment standard" based on HUD's Fair Market Rents for the area. The City publishes its payment standards and utility allowances each year; if a family chooses a unit that costs more than the standard, it pays the difference, within limits.

Who qualifies

Applicants must meet income limits, HUD's definition of a family, Social Security number and citizenship or eligible immigration status rules, and background screening requirements. The City's 2026 income limits are $53,900 for one person, $61,600 for two, $69,300 for three and $77,000 for a household of four. These correspond to HUD's "very low income" band for Honolulu; our guide to what "affordable" means in Honolulu explains how those bands are set.

The July 2025 City waitlist, in numbers

Pre-applications accepted online from July 14 to July 18, 2025.
About 17,000 applications received.
3,000 applicants selected at random for the waitlist.
The list is closed and, according to the City, not expected to reopen for about three years.
Being on the list does not guarantee a voucher.

Why the wait is so long

Vouchers are not an entitlement. Congress funds a fixed number, and local agencies can only issue new ones when existing holders leave the program or new funding arrives. In a high-cost market each voucher also costs more to support, because the gap between what a low-income family can pay and what rentals cost is wider. The City's own numbers give a sense of scale: roughly one in six applicants in 2025 even reached the waitlist.

The State's HPHA runs a separate list. Its notice for a 2026 opening, published in the State's legal notices, said it would accept applications from April 20 to April 27, 2026, take 1,000 applications for all voucher sizes and use a lottery to select applicants. Check the HPHA website for current status.

If you are on a list

Keep your contact details current. Agencies contact applicants by email and mail; missing a letter can mean losing your place.
Check your status where the agency tells you to. The City directs applicants to waitlistcheck.com, where "active" means selected for the list.
Never pay to apply. The City states there is no application fee and warns against sites asking for payment.
Prepare documents early. Identification, Social Security cards, birth certificates and income records are needed at intake. Outreach workers and case managers can help replace lost documents; see our guide to street outreach on Oʻahu.

Finding a landlord: the 2023 source-of-income law

Receiving a voucher is only half the battle; the family then has to find a landlord who will accept it, usually within a set search period. To make that easier, the Legislature passed Act 310 of 2022, which took effect on May 1, 2023. It makes it a discriminatory practice for a landlord to:

advertise that they will not rent to people in a housing assistance program;
discourage someone from applying because they participate in such a program;
refuse to rent because of that participation or its requirements; or
impose different rental conditions on program participants.

"Housing assistance program" in the law means a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program or any permanent supportive housing program. The law allows landlords to verify income and assess creditworthiness in a commercially reasonable way, and it exempts several situations, including owners of no more than four units in the State (unless they hold more than a 10% interest in more than four units), owner-occupied duplexes, owners renting rooms in their own home, and cases where the program has not approved the tenancy within 21 days of a good-faith request that includes the inspection. Courts may impose a civil penalty of up to $2,000 for a first violation and $2,500 for later violations.

For landlords

Owners who rent to voucher holders receive the program's share of rent directly each month. The City's page lists a landlord line for payment questions and links to HUD's landlord resources. Units must pass inspection, and leases follow normal Hawaiʻi landlord-tenant law, including the notice and mediation rules for unpaid rent described in our guide to eviction mediation in Hawaiʻi.

Other routes to subsidized housing

Tenant-based vouchers are one tool among several. People experiencing homelessness may be referred to permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing or special-purpose vouchers through Oʻahu's coordinated entry system, which prioritizes by need rather than by lottery. Veterans may qualify for HUD-VASH vouchers through the VA. Public housing, project-based Section 8 buildings and tax-credit apartments keep their own waitlists.