The Northwest Oregon Housing Authority will pay for one more month’s rent for the more than 200 families in Clatsop, Columbia and Tillamook counties whose Section 8 rent assistance dried up July 1.

At a Thursday meeting, the housing authority’s 11 member board of commissioners voted to buy another month of time to try and find a way to keep the families participating in the federally-funded Housing Choice voucher program off the street – if accountant Walter Beck could find the funds to spare within the housing authority’s budget.

On Friday, Beck authorized the spending.

Leaders from several local social service agencies attended a three-hour Thursday meeting, and the group debated whether the housing authority could afford to extract the $79,000 needed to pay the rent from its reserves. On June 25, the board voted to use $145,000 to pay for July rent – initially scheduled to be terminated July 1 – and some of that money was left over.

Carol Snell, NOHA’s executive director, said she’s happy her agency can pay for the August rent, freeing up time for other agencies to try to put together funds to help the voucher recipients in September.

“It will give the Community Action Teams time to get emergency funds and explore additional money available in grants,” Snell said.

George Sabol, executive director of Clatsop Community Action, said last week he was hopeful he could put funds together to help about 24 of the 60 households whose vouchers had been cut. Sabol said the money would come from his own agency’s operating funds as well as federal stimulus funds intended for other purposes.

Rocky Johnson, executive director of the Columbia County Community Action Team, said he was similarly scouring resources to help the 73 voucher holders in his county.

Snell said this morning that she wouldn’t make the call about whether the housing authority could afford to pay September’s rent, dipping even deeper into its reserves.

“That is totally up to the board,” she said.