Abstract
This national study is an effort to measure transportation costs and affordability for the major Housing and Urban Development (HUD) housing assistance programs since the transportation costs are the second largest expense of American households. This study estimates transportation costs for 76,000 address level properties from seven major HUD-designated affordable housing programs. Our transportation cost models are tailored for low-income households and account for built environmental determinants of travel, known as D variables, at the disaggregated level. We found that more than 44% of these properties in 326 U.S. metropolitan areas are unaffordable in terms of transportation costs. That could result in a waste of over $37.9 billion HUD spends annually to run these programs and subsidize housing for low-income families while some of these families spend substantial amount of their income on transportation. Our findings suggest that the provision of subsidized housing in mixed use, and transit-served neighborhoods would help low-income households to reduce their transportation costs even in auto-oriented sprawling regions. This study concludes with policy recommendations to local and federal governments and transit agencies on ways to incorporate transportation parameters to ensure true affordability for low-income residents of subsidized housing.
Highlights
The U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) simple ratio of income-tohousing costs to define housing affordability disregards other costs of living such as transportation [1] while transportation is the second largest expenditure category for a typical American household.HUD’s rental assistance programs help more than 4.7 million low-income families pay their rent and HUD spent over $37.9 billion to run these programs and subsidize housing for these families
The national average ratio of transportation costs to income for properties in our sample is 15.20%, which is very close to the 15% threshold suggested by Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) and HUD in H + T and LAI indices
Before making decisions regarding the provision of affordable housing in a certain area, the local government, housing authorities, planners, practitioners, and policy-makers can use data, transportation cost estimates, and models of this study to determine location affordability
Summary
Consideration of housing costs only to measure affordability would result in low-income households living in subsidized housing to spend a substantial amount of their income on transportation, in some cases higher than their housing costs [2]. A recent national study by Hamidi et al [2] found that 44% of households supported by Multifamily Section 8 program spend more than 15% of their income on transportation, and those properties are unaffordable. While this study has shed a light on an overlooked but critical topic of transportation affordability for subsidized housing, the Multifamily Section 8 program is only one of several major HUD-subsidized housing programs and it is currently only limited to the renewal of existing contracts. There is still little evidence on transportation affordability and location efficiency of other major
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