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Temporary funding has brought temporary relief to the Independent Life Center's Section 8 housing voucher program, Life Center officials said.

About three months after obtaining $8,000 in additional funding from the city of Craig and Moffat County, the Section 8 program continues to be a valuable community service, said Evelyn Tileston, Life Center executive director.

Section 8 vouchers pay the majority of a person's rent on a scale dependent on income and number of children. Eligibility for a voucher is based on the same factors.

"Without this program, there is no low-income housing in Moffat County except for Columbine (Apartments) and Sunset Meadows," she said.

The extra funding has allowed the Life Center to continue the program after a period during which officials thought there wasn't enough money in the Life Center budget to keep up with program costs.

The city and county's money is not planned to be a long-term solution, however.

Government officials do not plan to continue funding the Section 8 program after December.

Tileston said she doesn't plan to ask them for more, either.

"I told them that I would not do that, and I am a woman of my word," she said.

The Life Center is negotiating with a separate agency to see whether it has unappropriated funds it could allocate for Section 8 programming, Tileston said. She declined to name the agency because no agreement is final.

Life Center officials are not only banking on more funding. At least one policy change was an effort to streamline the program.

Since early July, the Life Center has not accepted new voucher applications. Tileston said her office was flooded with applications before.

"We had over 100 unprocessed applications and people on the waiting list," she said. "I decided that was ridiculous. That wasn't helping us or anybody else."

To cut down on the traffic and reduce the amount of time Marlena O'Leary, Life Center housing coordinator, spent processing new applications, the Life Center plans to only accept new applications during certain times.

Monday marked the first day new applications were accepted since July. The Life Center will accept new applications through Friday, but officials do not expect to take them after that.

Applications can be found at the Life Center office at 483 Yampa Ave. or Social Services offices in Meeker and Rangely.

Tileston said the Life Center also is using the funding to enhance the Section 8 program.

O'Leary plans to attend training seminars so the Life Center can better serve its Section 8 clients and the community, Tileston said.

"One of these programs is about how to use the (Section 8) voucher to make house payments and buy a home," she said. "For the people who can benefit from that program, it's a really good way for a family to buy a home."

If the Life Center cannot find a permanent source for more funding, Tileston said the organization will have to evaluate whether it can keep the Section 8 program in any capacity.

One possible solution would be to limit O'Leary's hours to three days a week and let her complete as much work as possible.

"I doubt if it would work very well, but it would be preferable to not having a program at all," Tileston said. "In my mind, to do that, though, that would be providing substandard services."

If the Life Center gives up the program, then the Colorado Division of Housing could contract with another program provider, or it could effectively end the Section 8 program in Moffat and Rio Blanco counties.

In that event, current voucher holders would be able to keep their vouchers, but the state would not issue new vouchers in the area. As residents with vouchers left the Section 8 program through ineligibility or death, their vouchers would be allocated to other areas across the state.

It seems Moffat County has plenty of demand for the program, however. As of 3 p.m. Monday, the Life Center had received 16 new Section 8 applications.

"If it keeps going like today," O'Leary said, "I think we can expect another 100 voucher applications to process."

Collin Smith can be reached at 875-1794 or cesmith@craigdailypress.com