Searching for Affordability and Opportunity: A Framework for the Housing Choice Voucher Program

Abstract

Affordability, a key factor in the housing search process, becomes critical when locating rental housing in opportunity-rich areas. The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program accommodates low-income households searching for housing and encourages recipients to reside in low-poverty areas. Affordable neighborhoods that are accessible to public transportation are often found in distressed areas, and not all HCV recipients succeed in locating qualified housing. To address these challenges, a housing search framework is developed to assist HCV households in the housing search process. This framework builds on the methodology of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the Location Affordability Index and Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing assessment tool by creating multivariate indices that incorporate housing supply, accessibility to opportunity, and neighborhood conditions. The framework serves as a foundation for an online housing search application for public housing authorities to further fair housing goals, HCV recipients to locate qualified housing units, and local governments to assess affordability and opportunity.

Keywords:

• Location affordability
• geography of opportunity
• rental housing
• Housing Choice Voucher Program

Notes

1. The MTO demonstration is a HUD-sponsored project that occurred in five urban U.S. cities between 1994 and 1998. The purpose of the demonstration was to help public housing residents move to opportunity neighborhoods.

2. The modifiable areal unit problem occurs when different geographic scales of spatial aggregation cause correlation coefficients to change over a range of values. Simply stated, when different boundaries are drawn for an area of analysis, the data tabulated may provide contrasting results.

3. This methodology of proximity calculation is adopted from the EJSCREEN Technical Documentation (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2015). For a detailed description of the methodology used to determine the proximity, refer to proximity to National Priorities List sites and Appendix C of this documentation.

4. When calculating the school proficiency index, special attention should be considered if any anomalies appear in any of the cohorts.