Rental Vouchers Research Articles

PolicySpace2: Modeling Markets and Endogenous Public Policies

Policymakers decide on alternative policies facing restricted budgets and uncertain, ever-changing future. Designing public policies is further difficult due to the need to decide on priorities and handle effects across policies. Housing policies, specifically, involve heterogeneous characteristics of properties themselves and the intricacy of housing markets and the spatial context of cities. We propose PolicySpace2 (PS2) as an adapted and extended version of the open source PolicySpace agent-based model. PS2 is a computer simulation that relies on empirically detailed spatial data to model real estate, along with labor, credit, and goods and services markets. Interaction among workers, firms, a bank, households and municipalities follow the literature benchmarks to integrate economic, spatial and transport scholarship. PS2 is applied to a comparison among three competing public policies aimed at reducing inequality and alleviating poverty: (a) house acquisition by the government and distribution to lower income households, (b) rental vouchers, and (c) monetary aid. Within the model context, the monetary aid, that is, smaller amounts of help for a larger number of households, makes the economy perform better in terms of production, consumption, reduction of inequality, and maintenance of financial duties. PS2 as such is also a framework that may be further adapted to a number of related research questions.

Housing Choice as a Function of Risks Confronting Low-income Households

The design of housing solutions for low-income populations has been one of the most pressing policy concerns in developing countries like India. In this work, we explore the effect of risks confronting low-income households—unemployment, health and mortality—on their choice of housing arrangements. We use simulations to study the evolution of long-term wealth of a stylised low-income household faced with these risks and find that, on average, rental housing significantly reduces the risk of undesirable wealth fluctuations over time. From a policy perspective, this means greater focus and incentives for the development of low-income rental markets using strategies such as provision of rental vouchers, rent-to-own models or long-term leases, in addition to the traditional ownership-based housing strategies. The development of housing solutions encompassing a range of rental and ownership models will be critical to ensuring the availability of safe and affordable housing for all urban residents. JEL Codes: C63, O18

Adolescence Is a Sensitive Period for Housing Mobility to Influence Risky Behaviors: An Experimental Design

PurposeTest whether neighborhood mobility effects on adolescent risky behaviors varies at different developmental ages and gender. MethodsThe Moving to Opportunity (MTO) study randomly assigned volunteer families (1994–1997) to receive a Section 8 voucher to move to lower poverty neighborhoods versus a public housing control group. We tested three-way treatment, gender, and age-at-randomization interactions using intent-to-treat linear regression predicting a risky behavior index (RBI; measured in 2002, N = 2,829), defined as the fraction of 10 behaviors the youth reported (six measuring risky substance use [RSU], four measuring risky sexual behavior), and the RSU and risky sexual behavior subscales. ResultsThe treatment main effect on RBI was nonsignificant for girls (B = −.01, 95% confidence interval −.024 to .014) and harmful for boys (B = .03, 95% confidence interval .009 to .059; treatment-gender interaction p = .01). The treatment, gender, and age interaction was significant for RBI (p = .02) and RSU (p ≤ .001). Treatment boys 10 years or older at randomization were more likely (p < .05) than controls to exhibit RBI and RSU, whereas there was no effect of treatment for boys <10 years. There were no treatment control differences by age for girls' RBI, but girls 9+ years were less likely than girls ≤8 years to exhibit RSU (p < .05). ConclusionsMoving families of boys aged 10 years or older with rental vouchers may have adverse consequences on risky behaviors but may be beneficial for girls' substance use. Developmental windows are different by gender for the effects of improving neighborhood contexts on adolescent risky behavior.

Housing Vouchers: A Case Study of the Partisan Policy Cycle

Federal housing policy reveals an unexpected political cycle of Republican innovation and Democratic appropriation. The political trajectory of rental housing vouchers since their inception reveals a partisan policy cycle. Vouchers were originally proposed as a Republican alternative to Democratic public housing construction and slowly emerged as a viable component of housing policy in the United States. In the mid-1990s, a shift occurred in which Democrats embraced vouchers and Republicans retreated from their innovation. This article suggests a partisanship model of policy making that both challenges and supplements conventional models of the policy process.

Does Mother Know Best? Treatment Adherence as a Function of Anticipated Treatment Benefit.

We describe bias resulting from individualized treatment selection, which occurs when treatment has heterogeneous effects and individuals selectively choose treatments of greatest benefit to themselves. This pernicious bias may confound estimates from observational studies and lead to important misinterpretation of intent-to-treat analyses of randomized trials. Despite the potentially serious threat to inferences, individualized treatment selection has rarely been formally described or assessed. The Moving To Opportunity trial randomly assigned subsidized rental vouchers to low-income families in high-poverty public housing. We assessed the Kessler-6 psychological distress and Behavior Problems Index outcomes for 2,829 adolescents 4-7 years after randomization. Among families randomly assigned to receive vouchers, we estimated probability of moving (treatment), predicted by prerandomization characteristics (c statistic = 0.63). We categorized families into tertiles of this estimated probability of moving, and compared instrumental variable effect estimates for moving on behavior problems index and Kessler-6 across tertiles. Instrumental variable estimated effects of moving on behavioral problems index were most adverse for boys least likely to move (b = 0.93; 95% confidence interval: 0.33, 1.53) compared with boys most likely to move (b = 0.14; 95% confidence interval: -0.15, 0.44; P = 0.02 for treatment × tertile interaction). Effects on Kessler-6 were more beneficial for girls least likely to move compared with girls most likely to move (-0.62 vs. 0.02; interaction; P = 0.03). Evidence of individualized treatment selection differed by child gender and outcome and should be evaluated in randomized trial reports, especially when heterogeneous treatment effects are likely and nonadherence is common.

Transportation Access, Rental Vouchers, and Neighborhood Satisfaction: Evidence From the Moving to Opportunity Experiment

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is designed in part to expand the neighborhood choices of assisted households, thereby enabling assisted households to find a living environment that simultaneously meets their housing and neighborhood preferences. While several studies have examined the impact of rental subsidies on neighborhood satisfaction, few have examined whether access to adequate transportation enables HCV recipients to locate housing in more desirable locations. This article relies on data from the Moving to Opportunity experiment to examine the impact of transportation access, rental housing vouchers, and geographic constraints on neighborhood satisfaction. We find that access to both vehicles and public transit positively influences neighborhood satisfaction, and the influence of vehicle access varies with transit proximity. These findings point to the importance of transportation in helping low-income assisted renter households locate housing in more desirable neighborhoods.

VA’s Expansion of Supportive Housing: Successes and Challenges on the Path Toward Housing First

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is transitioning to a Housing First approach to placement of veterans in permanent supportive housing through the use of rental vouchers, an ambitious organizational transformation. This qualitative study examined the experiences of eight VA facilities undertaking this endeavor in 2012. A multidisciplinary team interviewed facility leadership, midlevel managers, and frontline staff (N=95 individuals) at eight VA facilities representing four U.S. regions. The team used a semistructured interview protocol and the constant comparative method to explore how individuals throughout the organizations experienced and responded to the challenges of transitioning to a Housing First approach. Frontline staff faced challenges in rapidly housing homeless veterans because of difficult rental markets, the need to coordinate with local public housing authorities, and a lack of available funds for move-in costs. Staff sought to balance their time spent on housing activities with intensive case management of highly vulnerable veterans. Finding low-demand sheltering options (that is, no expectations regarding sobriety or treatment participation, as in the Housing First model) for veterans waiting for housing presented a significant challenge to implementation of Housing First. Facility leadership supported Housing First implementation through resource allocation, performance monitoring, and reliance on midlevel managers to understand and meet the challenges of implementation. The findings highlight the considerable practical challenges and innovative solutions arising from a large-scale effort to implement Housing First, with particular attention to the experiences of individuals at all levels within an organization.

Housing affordability and family well‐being: Results from the housing voucher evaluation

The Effects of Housing Vouchers on Welfare Families was an experimental evaluation that examined the effects of housing assistance on low‐income families eligible for or receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Household‐based rental vouchers were provided to participants under the Welfare to Work Voucher program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development from 2000 through 2004. Vouchers were randomly assigned to eligible program participants in six sites across the country, sample members were tracked over about five years, and the effects of vouchers on homelessness and crowding, household composition, housing mobility, neighborhood quality, employment and earnings, and other aspects of family well‐being were measured. Vouchers significantly reduced homelessness, crowding, household size, and the incidence of living with relatives or friends, but had no effect on marriage or cohabitation. Vouchers increased housing mobility, while reducing the number of subsequent moves, and resulted in small improvements in neighborhood quality.

Comment

Comment [Return to Article] Roger G. Noll: U.S. housing policy is a jumble of numerous programs, many of which appear to use similar means to accomplish the same objective. Professors Jaffee and Quigley do a comprehensive job of categorizing and assembling the financial costs of these programs. The only housing policy that is missing from the analysis is a group of programs that provide subsidies for housing the homeless, but collectively these programs are small compared to the programs analyzed in their essay.1 For other direct housing assistance programs and tax benefits, the authors provide estimates of the distribution of the financial gains from these policies by income class. For programs that promote homeownership through mortgage guarantees, the authors summarize other research that evaluates these programs and offer a policy reform proposal. The policy recommendation is that mortgage assistance programs be more targeted toward low-income households, that the government tax the debt of federal mortgage assistance agencies (to reflect the risk to the government of guaranteed mortgages), and that the government use the revenue to expand the housing voucher program. These comments address two issues that could affect an assessment of housing policy, including the authors' proposed reforms, but are not addressed by them. The first is whether there is a rational basis for the complexity of federal housing policy and the implications of the relationships among programs. The second is the appropriate method for estimating the benefits and costs of housing programs. Whether it makes sense to tax the mortgage programs to [End Page 131] expand the voucher program and to orient mortgage programs more toward low-income households assumes certain answers to these questions. The Mismatch between Policies and Instruments A major puzzle about U.S. housing policy is why the portfolio of programs is so large. As Jaffee and Quigley note, U.S. housing policy apparently has two goals: to increase housing consumption among low-income households and to promote homeownership generally. As do Jaffee and Quigley, this section assumes that these goals are valid and focuses solely on whether they could be achieved more efficiently. The mechanism for achieving housing goals is to lower the relative price of housing by offering subsidies, but the number of separate housing subsidy programs is over a dozen. Jaffee and Quigley document some of the complexity of housing programs. Whereas direct housing assistance to low-income households now focuses mostly on rental assistance vouchers, expenditures to support public housing remain almost as large as the voucher program. Other direct expenditure, tax expenditure, and mortgage guarantee programs seek to induce housing construction and renovation of rental housing for the poor, while other programs subsidize both supply and demand for homeownership among low-income households.2 In addition, most of the financial cost of tax expenditures and mortgage guarantee programs subsidizes families that are not poor. Why the government needs numerous programs for each goal is a mystery. Jaffee and Quigley do not address why the federal government has so many housing programs and only implicitly address whether the efficiency of housing assistance could be significantly improved by simplifying the array of housing policies and programs or by reallocating effort among them. Implicit in their proposal to tax mortgage guarantee programs in order to expand voucher programs are three beliefs: the government's efforts in housing should be reallocated from promoting ownership to providing direct assistance; subsidized mortgage guarantees are an inefficient mechanism for promoting ownership (compared to direct and tax expenditures that do the [End Page 132] same thing); and as a means of reaching the poor rental vouchers are more effective than other housing programs, such as subsidized construction and renovation of rental housing or subsidized homeownership through down-payment and mortgage assistance. In context, their proposal arises from a discussion about how to internalize the fiscal risk of mortgage guarantees to the government, rather than more generally about how to improve the performance of the portfolio of housing assistance programs; however, the proposal implies two...

Networks and nonprofits: Opportunities and challenges in an era of federal devolution

Abstract Community development corporations and other nonprofit organizations are increasingly responsible for producing and managing low‐income housing in urban America. This article examines the network of governmental, philanthropic, educational, and other institutions that channel financial, technical, and political support to nonprofit housing sponsors. We analyze the relationships among these institutions and propose an explanation for their success. We then consider challenges the network must confront if the reinvention of federal housing policy is to succeed. Block grants and rental vouchers, the dominant emphases of federal policy, present opportunities and constraints for nonprofit housing groups and their institutional networks. While states and municipalities are likely to continue to use block grants for nonprofit housing, the viability of this housing will be severely tested as project‐based operating subsidies are replaced by tenant‐based vouchers. We recommend ways that the federal, state...

Racial/ethnic differences in utilization of section 8 existing rental vouchers and certificates

Abstract This study examines racial and ethnic differences in the success of Section 8 Existing Housing Program enrollees in using rental vouchers and certificates. The study uses data from a sample of large urban public housing authorities (PHAs) collected by Abt Associates for the Housing Voucher Demonstration. The study finds that, excluding one site, average success rates for whites, blacks, and Hispanics are quite similar. However, minority success rates are significantly higher than nonminority success rates in some sites, and significantly lower in others. The racial and ethnic differences in success rates appear to be related to the proportion of enrollees in each program that were nonminority. Nonminority whites tend to be less successful than blacks or Hispanics in sites where most enrollees are minority, and more successful in sites where most enrollees are white. We believe this may reflect low enrollee success rates in searching for units outside the Section 8 submarket, as defined by existin...

More insights on rental vouchers and housing subisides

More insights on rental vouchers and housing subisides

More Insights on Rental Vouchers and Housing Subsidies

More Insights on Rental Vouchers and Housing Subsidies

Rental Vouchers and Homeownership Subsidies: A Dynamic Duo

Michael E. Gleeson Spotty but intriguing evidence suggests that proposals for rental vouchers may be missing an opportunity. Instead of combining vouchers with rental construction programs, why not combine vouchers with homeownership incentives? The lure of vouchers is that they cost so much less than construction programs.' But this is true only if low-rent units are available to voucher recipients; in those areas where such units are in short supply, proposals would combine vouchers with subsidies for selected construction. The question is: What kind of construction should be subsidized?

The Poison Prevention Packaging Act and Child-Resistant Containers

Test whether neighborhood mobility effects on adolescent risky behaviors varies at different developmental ages and gender.The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) study randomly assigned volunteer families (1994–1997) to receive a Section 8 voucher to move to lower poverty neighborhoods versus a public housing control group. We tested three-way treatment, gender, and age-at-randomization interactions using intent-to-treat linear regression predicting a risky behavior index (RBI; measured in 2002, N = 2,829), defined as the fraction of 10 behaviors the youth reported (six measuring risky substance use [RSU], four measuring risky sexual behavior), and the RSU and risky sexual behavior subscales.The treatment main effect on RBI was nonsignificant for girls (B = −.01, 95% confidence interval −.024 to .014) and harmful for boys (B = .03, 95% confidence interval .009 to .059; treatment-gender interaction p = .01). The treatment, gender, and age interaction was significant for RBI (p = .02) and RSU (p ≤ .001). Treatment boys 10 years or older at randomization were more likely (p < .05) than controls to exhibit RBI and RSU, whereas there was no effect of treatment for boys <10 years. There were no treatment control differences by age for girls' RBI, but girls 9+ years were less likely than girls ≤8 years to exhibit RSU (p < .05).Moving families of boys aged 10 years or older with rental vouchers may have adverse consequences on risky behaviors but may be beneficial for girls' substance use. Developmental windows are different by gender for the effects of improving neighborhood contexts on adolescent risky behavior.