Tacoma’s Got Housing Vouchers Just for College Students

Typically, the studios start at around $800 a month. But through the College Housing Assistance Program at the Tacoma Housing Authority, some students are eligible for subsidized housing units, in the range of $400 to $800 a month, based on income.

The CHAP program was launched as a pilot in 2014, with 47 homeless or “near homeless” students at Tacoma Community College (TCC) receiving housing vouchers to use on the private market, providing a flat subsidy based on their household size. Over the next two years, the Authority tracked those students’ performance, along with the performance of 154 students in similar positions who didn’t receive housing assistance. At the end of that period, according to the Authority, 60 percent of the participants had graduated or remained enrolled, as opposed to 16 percent of the students who didn’t receive assistance. And the GPA for the pilot group was 3.05, as opposed to 2.75 for the larger group. The pilot was later expanded at TCC, and it was made available to UWT students, many of whom transfer from the community college, in 2018.

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