There are many financial interventions that can reduce the cost for some in our community to be able to afford the place where they live. The ideal price for housing is that which takes about 30 percent of a household’s income.
On June 19, 2017, Charlottesville City Council accepted a series of recommendations from the city’s housing committee and directed staff to implement them. That included an annual payment of $900,000 to the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority to cover the cost of additional housing vouchers.
“The agency is authorized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to issue approximately 533 Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV) to low income households,” reads a portion of the staff report. “However, the high cost of housing in our area has led to a shortfall of program funding for approximately 130 of those vouchers.”
That payment has been made every year since with City Council adopting an extension of the original agreement. This year the program is supporting 68 households.
Last August, Deputy City Manager James Freas told Council at a work session that staff wanted to work with CRHA to study the effectiveness of the program.
Some of that work has been done, according to Madeline Metzler, the city’s newly appointed Housing Compliance Coordinator but the agreement is not ready to be updated to reflect changes to CSRAP, the acronym for the Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program.
“Over the past eight months, the City has conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the program as part of our commitment to transparency and effective administration, and this extension is needed because the evaluation produced substantial findings that require careful policy and operational development before they can be incorporated into the next annual grant agreement,” Metzler said.
The new agreement will be ready for Council to review in September. City Councilor Michael Payne said he looked forward to seeing the changes.
“I think there’s a number of changes that could be made to CSRAP that ultimately would mean more working class and poor families would be able to have housing,” Payne said.
Council adopted a resolution authorizing the extension as well as permission for CRHA to carry over $545,731.20 in funding that has not yet been spent.
The topic of CSRAP came up in a nine-page report that informed that work session which identified several points of conflict between the City of Charlottesville and CRHA.
“CSRAP exhibits several systemic challenges related to transparency, administration, coordination, and customer service, as identified through stakeholder engagement and internal review, including a review of the program agreement,” reads page 5 of that report.
The report noted that the city allocated $6.3 million to the program between FY18 and FY25 and some of the money has instead been used for property acquisition.
The CRHA only has one operating budget posted on its website under the “Key Documents” section and that is the one for FY2021. There does not appear to be any line item for the CSRAP program nor any acknowledgement of any supplemental revenue that comes from the city.
Resources:
- Staff report for the 8th extension
- Resolution for the 8th extension
- Text of the extension
- August 6, 2025 partnership report between City of Charlottesville and CRHA
Before you go: The goal of Town Crier Productions is to increase awareness about what is happening at the local, regional, state, and federal government levels. Please share the work with others if you want people to know things. Paid subscribers cover the cost of conducting research for this article which was originally published in the June 24, 2026 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. You can either subscribe through Substack or make a charitable contribution.
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