The Housing Choice Voucher program (Section 8) "provides assistance to very low-income families to afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing.  Housing can include single-family homes, townhouses and apartments and is not limited to units located in subsidized housing projects.  Housing choice vouchers are administered locally by Public Housing Agencies (PHAs).   A family that is issued a housing voucher is responsible for finding a suitable housing unit of the family's choice where the owner agrees to rent under the program.  A housing subsidy is paid to the landlord directly by the PHA on behalf of the participating family.  The family then pays the difference between the actual rent charged by the landlord and the amount subsidized by the program."

​

According to the New York Times, a new program called the Housing Voucher Mobility Demonstration Act is "a housing program that will help determine the most effective ways of assisting low-income families move to neighborhoods with better housing, better schools, better jobs and better transportation.  At the moment, the Housing Choice Voucher program serves 2.2 million households, subsidizing rents so they typically do not exceed 30 percent of a recipient’s income.  The House Appropriations Committee has approved $50 million for the demonstration project, most of which would pay for a variety of services to help families find out about housing in better neighborhoods and to move to those areas...The legislation would allow public housing agencies to help low-income tenants with security deposits and services, including outreach to private landlords, housing search assistance and financial coaching."

​

A joint study by Harvard University and the National Bureau of Economic Research reveals:  "(Another program) the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment offered randomly selected families living in high-poverty housing projects housing vouchers to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods.  We find that moving to a lower-poverty neighborhood significantly improves college attendance rates and earnings for children who were young (below age 13) when their families moved.  These children also live in better neighborhoods themselves as adults and are less likely to become single parents.  The treatment effects are substantial: children whose families take up an experimental voucher to move to a lower-poverty area when they are less than 13 years old have an annual income that is $3,477 (31%) higher on average relative to a mean of $11,270 in the control group in their mid-twenties."  Read the entire report here.

​

This is really, really important to solve because, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "315,000 children in families using vouchers lived in extremely poor neighborhoods in 2017."  Read the entire report here.

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

Evidence:

​

United States.  "Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8)."  Benefits.gov.

"Tickets From Poverty to a Better Future."  New York Times.  12 Sept 2018

Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren and Lawrence F. Katz.  "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children:  New Evidence from the Moving to
   Opportunity Experiment."  Harvard University and NBER.  August 2015

Barbara Sard, Douglas Rice, Alison Bell, and Alicia Mazzara.  "Federal Policy Changes Can Help More Families with Housing Vouchers Live in Higher-
   Opportunity Areas."  Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.  4 Sept 2018