Rental Housing Support Program

The Illinois Rental Housing Support program is the nation’s largest state rental assistance program. The RHS program will provide rent subsidies for an estimated 4,000 “rent burdened” households making ends meet on extremely low incomes.

The need for rental assistance is growing daily: nation-wide, the amount of affordable housing available to rent is shrinking at an alarming rate. A combination of low wages and limited availability of affordable rental housing units require many families and households throughout the state to pay a disproportionate share of their income for basic housing. There are many households in the state that face additional difficulty in finding affordable housing due to disabilities or special needs of family members.

The program is designed to utilize Local Administering Agencies (LAAs) that will manage the program locally in their area. Potential LAAs will apply for funding , and will contract directly with landlords to provide units for the program.  LAAs will also work with the landlords in providing outreach to potential tenants.  These potential tenants wanting to rent the program units will need to apply with the landlord.

The RHS Progam is unit based, so the subsidy stays with the unit, not the tenant.

If you would like to receive e-mail updates regarding the program please send a message to the Manager of the RHS Program, April Lasker at rhsp@ihda.org.

If you would like to find out about rental assistance from the program, please click "If You are Looking for Assistance with RHS" below.

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      Last update to web: August 21, 2009

     Changes (with date of change):

    - Round Three Training Sessions and webinar schedule published (8/21/09)

    - Round Three 2009 RFP available on web under "RHS Local Adminstering Agency Application FORM"  (7/29/09)

    - 2009 Maximum Income and Maximum Rent schedules are posted under "Document Downloads" (4/1/09)

    - Round One and Two listing of the agencies awarded funding from the first and second round of funding, with service areas, listed under "If you are Looking . . ."  and "RHS Program Funded Agencies (3/30/09)

    - a RHS Program Questions and Answers FAQ has been posted on the "Document Downloads" page. (9/4/08) 

     - more information added for potential tenants under "If you are Looking for . . ." (4/14/08 & 4/25/08)