A study published in Cityscape, “Participation, Transition, and Length of Stay in Federal Housing Assistance Programs,” explores household participation in HUD housing assistance programs from 2000 to 2022. The analysis provides a detailed understanding of how households interact with federal housing assistance programs, examining the length of stay, location choice, and transition between the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV), Section 8 Project-Based Housing, and public housing programs, among others. The study finds that programs have increasingly served households of color, senior households, and households without children. Households transitioning between programs have favored the HCV program, and the HCV program has relatively strong retention rates.
Utilizing HUD administrative data from 2000 to 2022, the authors found that the median length of stay was five years in the HCV program and four years in Section 8 Project-Based Housing. More than 80% of households participated in only a single episode of rental assistance. The programs also increasingly served households of color. Between 2002 and 2022, there was a 12 percentage point decrease in white households (41% to 29%), a nine percentage point increase in Black households (40% to 49%), and a three percentage point increase in Hispanic households (15% to 18%) participating in the programs. Meanwhile, HUD assistance increasingly reached senior households and served a smaller share of households with children: between 2002 and 2022, there was an 18 percentage point increase in senior households (16% to 34%) and a 23 percentage point decrease in households with children (61% to 38%) participating in the programs.
The study shows that the mobility of subsidized households decreased between 2002 and 2022. There was a 29% increase in the number of households that never moved (7% to 36%), a 9% decrease of in the number of households that moved once (23% to 14%), and a 38% decrease in the number of households that moved two or more times (79% to 41%). This decrease in mobility could be associated with more households aging in place or with less flexibility in residential choice resulting from decreasing vacancy rates.
Fourteen percent of subsidized households made a transition between programs during their participation, with evidence of a cumulative shift toward the HCV program. Among households shifting from public housing, 62% moved to the HCV program, as did 60% of transfers from Section 8 Project-Based Housing. The study suggests that this phenomenon may be explained by the fact that the HCV program is more flexible than Section 8 Project-Based assistance, public housing, and other programs and offers options. The study also notes that relocation vouchers are often offered to households when public housing faces rehabilitation or demolition.
The authors generally find that, despite some differences across programs and demographics, most households only have one episode of housing assistance and similar lengths of stay. They conclude that their analysis provides an overall picture of stability and uniformity, at least in the aggregate, in HUD rental assistance programs. The authors further conclude that, since most households only participated in one episode of housing assistance for a relatively short amount of time, future housing assistance programs could be developed with shorter term use of resources in mind.
Read the article at: https://bit.ly/3LWHLJ7