Report Examines Needs of Intergenerational Families

HUD and the Bureau of the Census recently released a report to Congress titled “Intergenerational Housing Needs and HUD Program Options.” This study was produced in compliance with the congressional requirement in the Living Equitably: Grandparents Aiding Children and Youth (LEGACY) Act. The purpose of the report is to estimate the number of families in which a grandparent or other relative is raising an absent parent’s child or children, what the affordable housing needs of those families are and how current HUD programs can serve these households.

This report finds that there are 1.6 million grandparent-headed households and 1.1 million other-relative headed households who qualify for assistance under the LEGACY Act. Fifty-five percent of grandparent-headed households are eligible for public housing assistance and of these, approximately 30% receive assistance. For other-relative headed households, 41% are eligible while about 29% receive some type of assistance. One-fourth of the grandparent-headed households pay more than 50% of their income for housing, and almost half of the very low income grandparent-headed renters had rent burdens of more than 50%.

This study also reports that covered households have similar housing cost burdens to other income groups and that they receive a similar amount of public rental housing assistance as all other types of income-eligible renter households. The authors conclude that Section 202 and Section 811 projects may not be suitable for covered families because the units usually have fewer than two bedrooms. If these programs were used to assist intergenerational families, larger units would have to be constructed. The report also suggests additional Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers that target covered families should be provided and local governments should be encouraged to use their HOME and CDBG funds to develop new housing units for these types of families.

The full report as well as all of the Appendices can be found here: www.huduser.org/publications/affhsg/int_genrtnl.html