National and State Housing Data Fact Sheets

Updated December 19, 2012

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Federal Rental Assistance

About 35 percent of all U.S. households – or 41 million households – are renters. Federal rental assistance programs enable more than 4.9 million low-income households in U.S. to rent modest housing at an affordable cost. About 56 percent of these households are headed by people who are elderly or have disabilities; approximately 34 percent are families with children that are headed by people younger than 62 and do not have disabilities. Nationally, 14 percent of HUD­assisted units, and a large share of USDA-assisted units, are located outside of metropolitan areas.

Federal rental assistance programs reach only a small share of the low-income U.S. households that pay unaffordable rental housing costs.

  • In the United States, 10,250,500 low-income renter households pay more than half their monthly cash income for housing costs. The median income of these households is $1,150 and the median housing costs are $1,010, leaving only $140 to pay for other necessities. About 37 percent of these severely cost-burdened renter households are headed by people who are elderly or have disabilities, while 31 percent are other families with children.
  • When housing costs consume more than half of household income, low-income families are at greater risk of becoming homeless. Point-in-time surveys suggest that at least 636,000 people are homeless in the U.S.

Voucher Utilization Data, 2004 - 2010

  • 2,083,187 families in the United States used Housing Choice Vouchers last year.
  • Only 91% of the National authorized vouchers were in use in 2010, a lower percentage than in 2004.  This decline represents the loss of assistance for 113,181 low-income families at a time when 9,354,142 low-income renter households in the United States had severe housing cost burdens.  
  • Housing agencies in United States have sufficient voucher funds in 2011 to serve up to 95,772 more families than they did in 2010.  While it is prudent for agencies to hold some of these funds in reserve, Congress could enable and encourage agencies to use more of these funds to assist additional families by enacting the important funding policy improvements contained in the Section 8 Voucher Reform Act (SEVRA).
  • Methodology is the explanatory guide to using these data as well as an overview of the recent history of voucher renewal funding policies.

Click on the state abbreviation (above) or name (below) to jump to its fact sheets.

Voucher Utilization and Federal Rental Assistance Fact Sheets
National Illinois Nebraska South Dakota
Alabama Indiana Nevada Tennessee
Alaska Iowa New Hampshire Texas
Arizona Kansas New Jersey Utah
Arkansas Kentucky New Mexico Vermont
California Louisiana New York Virginia
Colorado Maine North Carolina Washington
Connecticut Maryland North Dakota West Virginia
Delaware Massachusetts Ohio Wisconsin
District of Columbia Michigan Oklahoma Wyoming
Florida Minnesota Oregon Guam
Georgia Mississippi Pennsylvania Mariana Islands
Hawaii Missouri Rhode Island Puerto Rico
Idaho Montana South Carolina Virgin Islands

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