The city of Tucson has finished its first round of a program reopened last year to allow residents to join a waitlist for public housing.
This week, city officials said they received more than 15,000 pre-applications during the three-week window that opened Jan. 3.
Those pre-applications will now be entered into a lottery to be placed on the waitlist itself. Applications from the list will be selected in February and go through a process to determine whether they meet income thresholds and other eligibility requirements for public housing. That process will happen once a month going forward.
The program was restarted as a way to stem a worsening affordable housing shortage in Tucson last year. Back then, city officials said they expected thousands would apply to get on the list.
Data compiled by the data news outlet Stacker in 2022 found three Arizona cities, Tucson, Mesa and Phoenix, were among 10 cities around the country where rent prices had increased the most year over year.