- 1). Contact the Howard County office of the Boone County Public Housing Agency at (660) 248-3503. The agency can help you determine your eligibility for Section 8 and public housing and assist in applying for one or both of the programs.
- 2). Compare your income against HUD's 2010 Income Limits for the Columbia, Missouri, metropolitan statistical area (MSA). These limits apply to applicants from Howard County. To qualify for the Section 8 program, you can earn no more than 50 percent of the area's median income, which equals $31,850 for a four-person family. HUD restricts public housing eligibility to at or below 80 percent of the area's median, which is $50,950 for a family of four in the Columbia MSA.
- 3). Provide the documentation your public housing agency office requests. As the Section 8 and public housing websites indicate, this generally includes documents that verify family composition, such as Social Security cards and birth certificates, and income verifiers, such as bank statements, tax returns and paycheck stubs. You can generally apply for Section 8 and public housing concurrently.