Abstract
In recent years, interest has grown at the federal level in strategies to combine subsidized housing with programs promoting household self‐sufficiency. This article explores how nonprofit housing organizations conceptualize their self‐sufficiency programs for their residents. A broad definition of self‐sufficiency is presented—one that is not exclusively focused on the individual and, instead, also includes program strategies that are focused on changing the context in which individuals live and work.
The paper then analyzes the relationship between the self‐sufficiency strategies being implemented in the nonprofit housing world and how these organizations will be affected by welfare reform, the shrinking and restructuring of federally subsidized housing, the emergence of block grant job training and workforce development programs, and the general devolution of government programs into ever more fungible pots at state and local levels. These transformations in the domestic policy agenda will present challenges to nonprofit housing organizations and to the goal of promoting self‐sufficiency.