Affordable Housing

Inability to afford housing is the key driver of increases in homelessness. The federal government’s most important program to help low-income people afford housing is the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program (including Section 8, HUD-VASH and other tenant-based vouchers that are all included in the Appropriations Committee’s Tenant-Based Rental Assistance, or TBRA, account).

Background

Leading housing advocates report that 11 million households spend more than one-half of their income on rent. And a recent Harvard study reports that 38.1 million households spend more than one-third of their income on housing. Too many families in both categories are an unexpected bill away from sliding into homelessness.

HCVs are designed to alleviate this situation. However, that same Harvard study reports that, “increases in federal rental assistance have lagged far behind growth in the number of renters with very low incomes… Between 1987 and 2015, the number of very low-income renters grew by 6 million while the number assisted rose only 950,000, reducing the share with assistance from 29 percent to 25 percent.”

Overview of Housing Choice Vouchers

Among voucher households:

• 75% are extremely low income (earning less than 30% of the area median income, AMI, or the federal poverty level, whichever is greater). The national average income of a voucher household is $14,454.
• 36% have a head of household who has a disability.
• 25% are elderly.

The HCV program is HUD’s largest rental assistance program, assisting approximately 2.2 million households. However, due to inadequate funding for HCVs and other public housing programs, only one in four eligible households receives federal rental assistance, and there is a rapidly growing backlog.