Portability

Portability is the ability of a family that holds a Voucher to transfer their rental assistance to another housing authority and move to another location. You can potentially relocate to any jurisdiction in the United States which has a housing authority. What follows are some rules and procedures about the portability process.

• You may wish to “Port” because you feel another location has better career opportunities, more educational options, less poverty, lower crime rate, better schools, more favorable climate, etc.
• To apply for Portability speak with the Tuscarawas MHA staff and tell them of your intentions. In order to be eligible to port, you must be in good standing with TMHA’s Tenant Integrity Program. In other words,
  • you cannot owe money to TMHA,
  • be current on tenant-paid utilities,
  • your rent to your landlord must be current,
  • you do not owe your landlord for damages to the unit,
  • you must be free of lease violations and complying with TMHA regulations.
    
• In order to port while under TMHA assistance, the porting tenant must provide their landlord a thirty day notice in writing after the first year of your lease and provide a copy of it to TMHA. At this time TMHA staff will activate a Voucher for the tenant and request information from the porting tenant on where they wish to relocate.
  
• TMHA staff will then contact the receiving housing authority where the porting tenant plans to relocate. TMHA will send the tenant’s paperwork by mail to the receiving housing authority.
  
• After adequate time has passed for the paperwork to arrive at the receiving housing authority by mail, the porting tenant must then contact the receiving housing authority to start the lease-up process there.
  
• When you port, you fall under the rent limitations, bedroom size requirements and internal policies of the receiving housing authority.
  
• If you did not live in Tuscarawas County when you signed up on the TMHA waiting list, you must lease up here with our assistance for one year before you will be eligible to port.
  
• If you did live in Tuscarawas County when you signed up on the TMHA waiting list, you can port to another housing authority immediately without having to lease up a unit in Tuscarawas County upon receiving your voucher at the TMHA new tenant briefing.