Photo courtesy seniorassistance.club

MIAMI – Miami-Dade has put a freeze on Section vouchers after the President Trump administration ordered the county to stop accepting new applications for the program.

The freeze comes two weeks after the county opened up the application process to people on the waiting list, impacting over 5,000 people seeking affordable housing through Section 8.

The federal government cut roughly $330 million in funding for the Section program, causing a budget shortfall for Miami-Dade.

County administrators said that rising rents and funding decisions by the U.S. the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) caused the shortfall in a county-administered program for roughly 20,000 vouchers in Miami-Dade.

They say Miami-Dade is impacted by a nationwide crisis in which the increasing costs of housing for low-income residents is causing funding problems.