Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Housing

The House Financial Services Committee markup of the Affordable Housing and Self-Sufficiency Improvement Act (AHSSIA) scheduled for April 18, 2012 has been postponed. For more on this bill, click here http://www.cbpp.org/ahssia

Senate Bill Improves on President’s Budget Request for Rental Assistance, Rejects Harmful Minimum Rent Proposal

The HUD funding bill adopts a number of important policy changes that will reduce rental assistance program costs without harming vulnerable low-income families. Moreover, it makes these improvements while largely meeting the President’s request in other areas of the HUD budget.

The Senate bill falls short, however, in meeting other important goals. Most conspicuously, it includes only $6.6 billion for public housing operations and capital needs, slightly less than the President’s request and well below the amount required by state and local housing authorities to maintain existing housing in good condition and prevent the further loss of developments due to deterioration. Read More

President's Proposal to Raise Rents on some of the Nation's Poorest Households Would Cause Serious Hardship

The President's budget proposes to raise the rents charged to more than 500,000 of the nation's poorest families. It would do this by raising to $75/month the "minimum rent" charged to the poorest families in the rental assistance programs that the HUD administers and eliminating state and local housing agencies’ discretion to set the minimum rent below that level.

Half a million families with incomes below $250/month, or $3,000/year, would face rent increases that many would have difficulty affording. For the vast majority of these households — about 400,000 of them — rents would increase by 50% or more.

A substantial number of families in every state would face rent increases (see Appendix I), although the severity of the impact would vary due to differences across the states in such factors as joblessness and the strength of other safety-net programs (see Appendix II). The affected families include 725,000 children, and are disproportionately minority. Read More

Related:

Topics

Basics

Policy Basics: The Housing Voucher Choice Program:
The Housing Choice Voucher Program, (“Section 8”), the nation’s largest federal low-income housing program, provides roughly 2 million low-income families with vouchers they can use to rent housing of their choice in the private market.

Policy Basics: Introduction to Public Housing:
The nation’s 14,000 public housing developments, generally owned and operated by local agencies, provide homes to more than 2 million low-income Americans, most of whom are elderly or have a disability.

Featured Experts

Will Fischer

Reports | Bio
Douglas Rice

Reports | Bio
Barbara Sard

Reports | Bio

The Center works with state and local housing agencies and advocates to improve the effectiveness of federal low-income housing programs — particularly the Housing Choice Voucher Program. We also examine the role that well-designed housing assistance programs can play in advancing goals such as reducing the concentration of poverty.