The impact of source of income laws on voucher utilization

Abstract

Vouchers are lauded both for being the most efficient way of delivering housing assistance to needy households and for the potential to allow poor households to access better neighborhoods. The success of vouchers is of course predicated on recipients being able to successfully use a voucher. For a number of reasons, including discrimination by landlords on the basis of source of income (i.e. a voucher), voucher recipients frequently cannot find apartments to lease. Using a difference-in-differences approach the research reported here examines how Source of Income anti-discrimination laws affect the utilization of housing vouchers.

The findings indicate that utilization rates are higher among Local Housing Authorities in jurisdictions with Source of Income anti-discrimination laws. These findings suggest such laws can be an effective tool for increasing the rate at which vouchers are successfully utilized. In a time of scarce resources for affordable housing this is an important policy tool that should not be over looked.

Keywords:

• vouchers
• discrimination
• fair housing

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank DaraEskridge for her assistance in conducting the research reported in this paper. This research was supported by a grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Poverty and Race Research Action Council provided assistance in identifying jurisdictions with Source of Income anti-discrimination laws.

Notes

1. Although correlated, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between voucher success and utilization rates. There are some steps a LHA can undertake that might affect the utilization rate but not the success rate. For example, LHAs can also influence their utilization rate by carefully managing the issuance their vouchers. By considering voucher turnover rates, success rates, and the likelihood that vouchers will be successfully used LHAs can get a better sense of how many vouchers they need to issue and are more likely to achieve a higher utilization rate (Finkel et al. 2003).

2. This claim was subsequently refuted (Briggs and Dreier 2008).

3. A number of other localities adopted SOI laws were excluded from the analysis because they either had no LHAs within their border or did not have any neighboring jurisdictions with LHAs.