Dark halls. Broken kiosks. Unanswered phones. Nearly half a million in unspent federal dollars.
The Vallejo Housing Authority, which funds Section 8 housing and homeless services in the city, locked its doors almost a year ago after announcing a switch to an appointment-only system, citing personnel issues and dwindling reserves. Appointments are available from 8 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
On Tuesday night, the Vallejo City Council voted to allocate an emergency $300,000 payment to the Housing Authority out of a sales tax fund to onboard more staffers as soon as possible.
The funds mean that two positions are set to be filled by early October, according to the city. For some, it’s a drop in the bucket.
“Saying ‘I don’t have enough staff’ — that’s not good enough for the public,” said City Councilmember Tonia Lediju at a meeting earlier this month.
“We’re not answering the phones timely, we’re not answering emails timely — that’s problematic when we are serving the most vulnerable populations in our community,” said Lediju.
Vallejo’s Housing Authority supports some 300 housing-insecure people in the city each year, and helps pay rent for 1,500 low-income, elderly and disabled Vallejo residents through funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD funds have been drying up since the 1980s and face steeper cuts in the coming years.
Section 8 of the country’s Housing Act of 1937 earmarks support for low-income, elderly and disabled individuals to get vouchers that partially subsidize rent for privately owned apartments. Federal monies pass from HUD to local housing authorities and on to the landlord.
Unlike other cities, Vallejo doesn’t have any publicly funded housing, so much of the Housing Authority budget goes to housing and homelessness nonprofits, the Vallejo Navigation Center and Section 8 rents.
Last summer, Vallejo Housing Authority Director Alicia Jones happily told the City Council the agency was headed in the right direction. At an annual report to the Housing Authority commission meeting in September 2025, Jones said they’d been able to offer more support for Section 8 renters and resumed regular housing inspections — a HUD requirement that the agency hadn’t done in years.
But, since partially shuttering in October, the Housing Authority has been running on empty. There are currently only eight people on staff, though 17 full-time positions are budgeted, according to a city spokesperson.
Recently, City Council members said they’re fielding more and more reports from Section 8 voucher holders who are outraged they can’t get ahold of staff. Multiple people have even said they’ve had their vouchers abruptly terminated and face possible homelessness.
Now, even the City Council’s mad.
Budget documents show that from 2025-2026, the agency spent less than $300,000 of a roughly $1 million grant that supports staff costs, among other housing issues.
But, according to Jones, without the staffing levels, and with steep cuts to federal funds, there isn’t anyone to spend the money. And she said the infrastructure is barely there — existing staff still uses Microsoft Excel to manually log phone calls, she said.
In response, City Manager Harry Black committed to a six-month “recovery plan” for the Housing Authority, with defined milestones and regular reports to City Council.
“Some of these pressures extend beyond the city’s direct control,” a spokesperson for Vallejo wrote in an email, noting that the agency is facing “significant operational and financial challenges.”
“We recognize our responsibility to manage the program effectively and address these issues proactively,” read the statement.
In the meantime, some Section 8 voucher holders’ lives hang in the balance.
Rosezetta
Rosezetta Johnson, 63, grew up in Vallejo. She’s lived in her HUD-subsidized unit since around 2019.
“I never thought I would be on Section 8,” said Johnson, speaking slowly through the intense pain of fibromyalgia and sickle cell trait.
Johnson was forced to retire early due to her condition. With disability and retirement income, she takes in $2,400 a month, putting just under $700 toward rent.
“I’ve always had two jobs,” she said. “Even when I graduated high school, I would go to work on Mare Island. And I stayed there ’til they closed.”
Earlier this year, Johnson’s daughter, who goes to school in Las Vegas, put her mother’s address on paperwork. When the Housing Authority found out, it informed Johnson’s landlord that the rent subsidies would end, and her voucher would be terminated.
Johnson’s only recourse, according to the letter, was a termination hearing. But every time she tried to schedule a hearing, she was met with silence, she said.
Johnson’s friend, Lillie Hurd — a known Housing Authority critic at City Council meetings — was able to get agency heads to respond to Johnson’s requests, eventually helping secure a hearing date after weeks of failed attempts.
They treated me like I did a major crime. They didn’t look up and talk to me. They don’t care.
Rosezetta Johnson, Vallejo resident and Section 8 voucher holder
“I sent all the information and evidence that my daughter was not living with me,” she said. “I even showed them that she still lived in Vegas. It seemed like it should’ve stopped there.”
But the voucher termination hearing went ahead anyway on Sept. 16.
“They treated me like I did a major crime,” said Johnson, recalling her hours-long visit to the empty Housing Authority building downtown. At the meeting, Johnson was confronted with a mountain of paperwork that she wasn’t sure what to make of.
“They didn’t look up and talk to me,” said Johnson. “They don’t care. They’d put me out on the street.”
Johnson hasn’t heard anything since the meeting, and the stress of losing her home has left her more exhausted and disoriented in recent months, she said. She spent part of the summer in a hospital bed.
The housing agency is set to rule on the termination of her voucher by next week.
“I check my email every morning,” Johnson said.
Regina
Regina Stoyanovsky, 44, has lived alone in an apartment partially paid for by the Vallejo Housing Authority since 2018. Regina and her mother, Lina Stoyanovsky, immigrated to Vallejo from Ukraine about 40 years ago.
Regina suffers from schizoaffective disorder and is unable to work. With a small income from disability, Section 8 is her only housing option. Her mom and younger sister, Rachel “Chop” Stoyanovsky, are still her full-time caretakers. Knowing Regina had a safe place to sleep eased some of their worries.
Then, on Nov. 13, 2025, Regina got a letter from the Vallejo Housing Authority stating that she had violated HUD rules around occupancy. Her voucher would be terminated Nov. 30.
Housing Authority officials have been aware of Regina’s condition but continued to correspond exclusively with Regina, said her mother — despite Regina’s frequent manic episodes and inability to represent herself.
A second letter sent in December stated that the property owner owed the Housing Authority over $66,000 in recouped rent subsidies within 30 days. Almost immediately, Section 8 rent subsidies stopped.
Vallejo Housing Authority officials told Regina she had a week to set up a hearing to present a case against termination.
Citing a HUD policy, the letter stated that “the Public Housing Authority must not approve a tenancy if the owner is a parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, Step parent, sister, or brother of any member of the assisted family.”
The unit Regina lives in is owned by her stepfather. But according to a legal expert on HUD rules, that shouldn’t be an issue.
In a federal listing of the same Section 8 law cited in the letters, there is no mention of a stepparent — a fact confirmed by Hilda Chan, an Oakland attorney with the Western Center on Law and Poverty.
“It seems like they’re summarizing federal regulations and going off their own summary,” said Chan after reading the letters sent to Regina. “That’s not how law works. The literal language is the literal language.”
Chan has litigated HUD-related evictions all over the Bay Area.
“This is the worst I’ve seen of a housing authority in a long time,” said Chan in an interview Wednesday. “I’m very concerned about the Vallejo Housing Authority’s year-long office closure and their absurdly — and probably illegal — long wait times. I’m very concerned about their apparent ability to operate Section 8 in a competent and legal matter.”
Since receiving the letters, Lina and Chop Stoyanovsky have spent hundreds of hours working to fight the termination.
“I went straight to a lawyer,” said Lina. “We did all the paperwork, Regina signed the paperwork, I signed the paperwork, I provided the attorney with all the paperwork that my daughter had a mental illness. Everything was filed. An attorney did this. But she never heard back.”
In September, 10 months after receiving a termination notice and after dozens of calls went unanswered, Lina got word from the Housing Authority that Regina’s voucher termination hearing was set for October.
Regina’s rent has continued to go unpaid and the threat of losing her home remains, said Lina.
Chan said she was shocked that the agency took such drastic measures and has never seen an instance where a housing authority has terminated vouchers over a stepparent. She also said that, according to HUD laws, the Housing Authority can’t stop subsidizing a voucher until it is formally terminated.
“The harm shouldn’t happen before the due process is respected,” said Chan.