Rent Burden in the Housing Choice Voucher Program

The Housing Choice Voucher Program is designed to help low-income households consume housing at an acceptable burden on their income. The incidence of high housing cost in the program has been reduced over the past few years. About 38 percent of all households in the program spend more than 31 percent of their income on housing, down from 47 percent only 2 years earlier. A high housing cost burden appears to stem from very low income rather than from market conditions or decisions by program administrators. Despite program rules, a small percentage of households in the program pay a very high level of income toward housing. It appears that this problem results from some households having very little or no income at the time their housing consumption was recorded

Length of Stay in Assisted Housing

This research addresses the length of time that households remain in the various assisted housing programs administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The research finds that the typical household in assisted housing now stays for about 6 years, and this figure is increasing for all groups of assisted households. The elderly stay for about 9 years, while nonelderly families with children stay for about 4 years. Racial and ethnic minorities seem to stay for longer in the Housing Choice Voucher program, but the influence of race and ethnicity is less within the public housing and the Section 8 projectbased housing programs. Market conditions influence length of stay in assisted housing in a manner suggesting substitution effects. Where the rents on housing in the private marketplace are comparatively high or the availability of rental housing is comparatively low, households in assisted housing tend to stay longer

The Prospects for Guiding Housing Choice Voucher Households to High-Opportunity Neighborhoods

The Housing Choice Voucher Program seeks to do more than help poor households lease good-quality rental housing. One of the program’s goals is to help poor households break out of the cycle of poverty by locating in neighborhoods with numerous opportunities for gainful employment, good schools, and racial and ethnic integration. The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) for Fair Housing program showed that, with constrained choice, households will locate in low-poverty neighborhoods. If the MTO model were to be used on a larger scale, would enough neighborhoods be available to offer good housing, employment, and educational opportunities? Examination of census block groups across the nation suggests that the supply of highopportunity neighborhoods may not be as large as desired; there are simply too few ideal neighborhoods and affordable units. By relaxing the objectives, however, and focusing on poverty deconcentration and perhaps expanding the use of HUD’s procedure that grants exception rents above the Fair Market Rent limits, a more ample supply of target neighborhoods and rental units could become available

Which Metropolitan Areas Work Best for Poverty Deconcentration with Housing Choice Vouchers?

The Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP) offers choice to poor renter households, but only a fraction of the households in the program use that choice to locate in lowpoverty neighborhoods. Analysis of metropolitan areas across the United States finds that the typical metropolitan area locates 19 percent of its HCVP households in census tracts where less than 10 percent of the population is impoverished. This rate is less than the share of units with rents low enough for the program found in these low-poverty tracts. Race and ethnicity matter. Non-Hispanic White HCVP households are able to enter lowpoverty neighborhoods at a rate greater than the availability of affordable units, whereas minorities are not. The metropolitan areas differ markedly in the per centage of HCVP households who locate in low-poverty tracts. Greater entry into low-poverty tracts is found in soft markets and markets with a high percentage of total tracts that are lowpoverty tracts. The level of the Fair Market Rents (FMRs), which govern the HCVP, also proves to influence the level of voucher entry into low-poverty neighborhoods, suggesting that gains could be realized by localized changes to the FMRs

Reducing Worst Case Housing Needs with Assisted Housing

This research note seeks to answer this question: When units of assisted housing are added to a metropolitan market, is there a commensurate reduction in the number of households with worst case housing needs (WCN)? WCN are defined as unassisted renter households with very low incomes (VLIs) that pay more than 50 percent of income on housing or live in severely inadequate housing conditions or experience both. Previous work estimated the relationship among extremely low-income renter families with children, finding a reduction in WCN of 76 households for each 100 additional assisted units in the market. This work was replicated with more recent data drawn from the larger population of VLI renter households. It found a reduction in WCN of 68 households per 100 units of assistance. There appears to be a threshold in the relationship. In markets in which less than 45 percent of the VLI renter households are assisted, the count of WCN households is reduced by an estimated 92 households per 100 assisted units added. If the percentage of assisted households is greater than 45 percent, no reduction in WCN is found with the introduction of additional assisted units

The Twin Mandates Given to the GSEs: Which Works Best, Helping Low-Income Homebuyers or Helping Underserved Areas?

This research examines the twin mandates of the GSE Act of 1992: to direct mortgage credit to neighborhoods that have been underserved by mortgage lenders and to direct mortgage credit to low-income and minority households. Using the Kansas City metropolitan area as a test site, data from the GSEs have been compared with non-GSE mortgage lenders to determine the performance of the GSEs in meeting these two objectives. This research finds that the GSEs have not performed as well as the conventional lenders. Independent of the use of the secondary mortgage market, borrowers are better served if credit is directed to them independent of location. The alternative approach of directing credit to underserved areas is helpful only insofar as it helps to direct credit to neighborhoods that are marginally less desirable than the neighborhoods deemed to be well served

An evaluation of the rent control policy of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Thesis. 1978. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.Bibliography: leaves 119-120.M.C.P

Vouchers and Neighborhood Distress: The Unrealized Potential for Families with Housing Choice Vouchers to Reside in Neighborhoods with Low Levels of Distress

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program seeks to help poor households locate in high-opportunity neighborhoods, but experts have reached little agreement on how to define high opportunity. Using low poverty as the sole criterion has proven ineffective. We offer an alternative metric to assess the level of distress in neighborhoods using multiple measures of neighborhood condition. With this new metric, we examine the extent to which female-headed families with children who have housing choice vouchers reside in census tracts with varying levels of distress by comparison with the availability of affordable rental housing. We find that HCV families are underrepresented in the least-distressed neighborhoods. The problem is especially acute among Black and Hispanic households

Estimating Occupied Office Space: Comparing Alternative Forecast Methodologies

This study compares alternative methodologies that can be used to forecast growth in a market's occupied office space. Trend line analysis methods are compared to econometric methods. Using 1978 through 1987 data from the Boston market, these models have been used to predict the known performance of the market in 1988 and 1989 permitting comparison of these models in terms of their overall performance and their ability to predict the recent downturn in that market. The results suggest that real estate practitioners and planners should employ economic techniques in their efforts to forecast the incremental changes in occupied office space.

The LIHTC Program, Racially/Ethically Concentrated Areas of Poverty, and High-Opportunity Neighborhoods

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit ( LIHTC ) program remains the nation\u27s largest affordable housing production program. LIHTC units are under-represented in the neighborhood that both promote movement to high opportunity neighborhoods and affirmatively further fair housing. State and local officials should play an active role in guiding site selection decisions and ensuring that LIHTC developments are located in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing. Planners can use newly available data discussed herein to identify high-opportunity tracts