Promoting Housing Mobility for Families in the Housing Choice Voucher Program

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel will bring together research about tools that public housing agencies can use to promote housing mobility for families in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. A key theme running through the presentations will be how the same policy intervention can have different effects in different settings.

Nationwide, about 2.4 million families participate in the HCV program, HUD’s largest rental assistance program. Approximately 910,000 of these families have children (HUD, 2023). Most families in the HCV program (HCV families) have tenant-based vouchers and can choose to live in any qualifying rental unit they find on the private market, as long as the owner is willing to participate in the HCV program. In light of evidence that the neighborhood in which a child grows up affects the child’s earnings and educational attainment as a young adult (Chetty and Hendren, 2018), significant policy attention has focused on whether families with children participating in the HCV program can be assisted to move to areas (often called “opportunity areas” or “high opportunity areas”) that will provide a strong foundation for children’s future economic and educational achievement.

Public housing agencies have been using different approaches to promote housing mobility for HCV families. Among these are (1) instituting small area fair market rent payment standards (SAFMRs) and (2) providing packages of mobility-related services.

The first paper in the panel will present research on 15 metropolitan areas that were mandated in 2018 to adopt SAFMRs. The SAFMRs facilitate access to high opportunity areas by allowing public housing agencies to provide more housing assistance to HCV families who reside in these areas than would be possible under the normal fair market rent payment standards. The paper finds that SAFMRs have some success in steering families to high opportunity areas but that effects differ for Black and White households.

The second and third papers provide impact results from two ongoing demonstrations that test the extent to which packages of services offered to families in the HCV program have been able to assist the families in moving to opportunity areas. These demonstrations are:
The Supporting Moves to Opportunity (SMTO) demonstration, a random assignment evaluation conducted in Milwaukee and St. Louis; and
The Community Choice Demonstration, a congressionally-mandated, random assignment evaluation conducted in 8 metropolitan areas (Cleveland, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Pittsburgh, and Rochester).

The two papers will present impact findings from the demonstrations, as well as implementation details to provide context for the impact estimates. Together, these two presentations be based on housing mobility programs in 10 U.S. metropolitan areas. We expect that the discussion will center on factors that may have caused the observed variation in the impacts of the programs. These factors may include local housing markets, historic patterns of racial discrimination, policies of public housing agencies, and variation of features and implementation of the programs.

We hope that these presentations will allow audience members to delve deeply into approaches to promote housing mobility within the HCV program.

Policy Area

• Housing, Community Development, and Urban Policy

Chair

• Nicholas Kelly, Northeastern University

Discussants

• Katherine O'Regan, New York University

• Sarah A. Cordes, Temple University

Organizer

• Daniel B Gubits, Abt Global

Individual Presentations

• Scaling of Small-Area Fair Market Rents: Evidence on Neighborhood Choices of Voucher Recipients - Presenting Author: Eunjee Kwon, University of Cincinnati

• Impact Findings from the Supporting Moves to Opportunity Housing Mobility Demonstration - Presenting Author: Jonathan Bigelow, MDRC

• Impacts on Moves to Opportunity Areas in HUD’s Community Choice Demonstration Through Year 3 - Presenting Author: Adam Silver Travis, Abt Global

• Housing Vouchers and School Discipline: Evidence from Houston - Presenting Author: Hojung Lee, Rice University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Anna Rhodes, Rice University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Jeremy E Fiel, Rice University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Jiaxin Li, Rice University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Rui Zeng, Rice University