Opportunity Starts at Home (OSAH) campaign staff joined a congressional briefing hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center on July 25 to discuss how the “Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act” would expand the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program and help families with low incomes move to well-resourced neighborhoods of their choice.
During the briefing, OSAH Campaign Director Chantelle Wilkinson joined experts to share research on the potential impact of the bill for families and children nationwide, the positive impacts of housing counseling and wrap-around services for administering programs, and the bipartisan public support that exists for provisions in the bill. The briefing concluded with a call to action for elected officials to support the “Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act” and to cosponsor and support the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
Speakers at the briefing included:
- Chantelle Wilkinson, director of the OSAH campaign.
- Dr. Stefanie DeLuca, James Coleman professor of social policy and sociology at Johns Hopkins University.
- Pete Cimbolic, managing director for research and innovation at Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership.
- Andy Winkler, director of the housing and infrastructure project at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The “Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act” would provide housing vouchers to 250,000 families with young children, along with mobility counseling, to help families with low incomes access communities of their choice. Research shows that when children in families with low incomes grow up in well-resourced neighborhoods with low poverty and crime, quality schools, and other resources, they are significantly more likely to attend college and to earn more as adults over the course of their lifetimes.
In her remarks, Chantelle provided an overview of the housing affordability challenges faced by families nationwide, highlighting the shortage of affordable and available homes for families with the lowest incomes and the gap between incomes and housing costs. The HCV program addresses this gap by providing rental assistance to households, but currently only one out of every four households eligible for rental assistance receives it. Chantelle also discussed the intersections of housing affordability and health and education outcomes and economic mobility; support for the bill’s wraparound services by multi-sector members of the OSAH campaign Steering Committee; and the need for more policymakers to lend their support to the bill.
Dr. Stefanie Deluca discussed the research supporting the bill’s efficacy and its bipartisan appeal, explaining that “it’s not just that the programs work, they pay for themselves over time.” Research shows that alongside the benefits of mobility programs on health, cognitive development, incarceration rates, and educational outcomes, these programs also result in reductions in overall healthcare spending and often ensure that participants grow up in well-resourced neighborhoods, enabling them to earn more as adults and thus support affordable housing programs through tax revenue.
Pete Cimbolic discussed the barriers faced by families using a voucher and the impact of the wraparound services provided by the bill on the voucher success rate (i.e., the percentage of vouchers issued by a program that result in a lease and assistance contract with a landlord). Services like housing mobility counseling can assist voucher recipients in finding the right home for their families before their voucher expiration date. Cimbolic also highlighted how housing counseling services can expand a family’s geographic access to housing and support housing stability and long-term success. He also discussed the decrease in the number of families with children that receive an HCV and explained that the bill would provide additional vouchers to these households, resulting in a 10% increase in total voucher allocation nationally.
Expanding housing voucher access is critical to addressing our nation’s housing crisis, and the OSAH campaign supports the inclusion of the “Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act” in any bipartisan housing packages that move forward in the House and Senate. Together with its multi-sector partners, the OSAH campaign will continue to champion the bill and other legislation, like the “Eviction Crisis Act.”