Incorrect ad prompts delay in subsidized housing lottery

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, Jan. 10, 2005 | 11:05 a.m.

The North Las Vegas Housing Authority recently decided to hold its first lottery in two years for its sought-after federally-subsidized Section 8 housing -- but some advertisements about the lottery listed the wrong day, and the agency's Web site on Friday said there is no lottery scheduled.

In addition, a phone number listed in the ads as a way to get further details merely leads a caller to a recording repeating the same information in the ads.

Don England, chief executive officer of the approximately $14 million agency, said this morning he would allow people who show up Wednesday to fill out paperwork for the lottery drawing due to the confusion.

Otherwise, forms to enter the lottery will be available at the agency's office at 1632 Yale St. on Thursday from 8 a.m. to noon and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The lottery is to select about 200 applicants who will then be eligible to fill an unknown number of anticipated openings in the federal program during the next six months, England said. Paperwork will be collected Thursday and the actual drawing will be held Jan. 19.

There are currently about 1,400 vouchers for the federally-subsidized housing in use, he said.

The last time a lottery was held, about 1,800 people showed up to enter a drawing for about 150 spots, said Thelma Catro, Section 8 manager for the North Las Vegas Housing Authority since September.

The program is the agency's largest, with a budget last year of about $11.5 million, Catro said.

The confusion with the ads occurred because agency officials made a last-minute change, setting the lottery for Thursday instead of Wednesday, England said.

At least one ad -- published in last week's edition of the free Spanish-language newspaper El Mundo, with a circulation of about 30,000 -- listed the day of the lottery as "Wednesday, January 13."

It is unclear if other local weekly newspapers such as the Las Vegas Sentinel-Voice ran an ad with the correct dates.

The Sunday, Jan. 2 combined edition of the Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Review-Journal published an ad with the correct day and date.

Jean McComesky, who handles the housing authority's ad account for the newspapers, said she recalled receiving a call from the agency "at the last minute" on Dec. 31, to correct the mistake.

When notified of the problem Friday, Catro said she had not looked at any of the ads that ran in the valley's different publications.

As for the Web site, a link called "Section 8 Lottery Information" on Friday noted: "If you are interested in applying for Section 8 please check back with us periodically for a new lottery date."

That link was corrected this morning, with information about the upcoming lottery.

Catro said it was her responsibility to monitor all information about the Section 8 program, including the scheduled lottery.

She said the incorrect and confusing information was "a concern."

As for the phone number listed on the ads, she said that "people may find this a little misleading."

"We've always done the ad this way," she said, adding that the agency didn't have funds for hiring personnel to answer the public's questions about the program, including the lottery.

She said it might be better not to list the phone number.

"We don't want to mislead the public," she said.