Who should run the housing voucher program? A reform proposal

Abstract

Section 8, the federal government's primary program for addressing the housing needs of low‐income renters, is administered by thousands of local public housing agencies, most of which serve individual cities, towns, and counties. This article contends that the current balkanized system undermines the potential of the program to promote mixed‐income communities and the deconcentration of poverty and that the voucher program should be administered regionally rather than locally in urban areas.

One strategy for achieving metropolitan administration would be to contract out responsibility for operating the voucher program to competitively selected regional organizations. In addition to describing how such a program could work, we suggest a series of incremental reforms for moving the Section 8 program in the direction of metropolitan administration. Moreover, other reforms—including an expansion of affordable rental housing in suburban communities—are also needed for housing vouchers to achieve their full potential.

Keywords:

• Low‐income housing
• Mobility
• Neighborhood