A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council examines where families with children use housing vouchers in the 50 largest metropolitan areas. This report is the first metropolitan-level analysis to explore the concentration of families using vouchers across multiple neighborhood characteristics. The researchers found:

  • Few metropolitan families with children using vouchers live in low-poverty neighborhoods (poverty rate below 10 percent), despite the presence of affordable units. 14 percent of metropolitan families using vouchers live in low-poverty neighborhoods, but 25 percent of metropolitan voucher-affordable rental units are located there.
  • Few metropolitan families with children using vouchers live in “high-opportunity neighborhoods” based on a comprehensive composite index of opportunity we developed using indices created by HUD. 5 percent of metropolitan families using vouchers, but 18 percent of all metropolitan voucher-affordable rentals, are in high-opportunity neighborhoods.
  • Most metropolitan families with children using vouchers live in what HUD terms “minority-concentrated” neighborhoods even though most voucher-affordable units are located elsewhere. 61 percent of metropolitan voucher-assisted families of color with children, but only 32 percent of metropolitan voucher-affordable units, are in “minority-concentrated” neighborhoods.

The report ends with several policy recommendations including:

  • Congress establishing and funding the Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration, which would allow selected public housing agencies to provide robust housing mobility services to help more families that wish to move to higher-opportunity neighborhoods;
  • HUD taking steps to encourage housing agencies to help more interested families move to high- opportunity, low-poverty neighborhoods by rewarding agencies that help families move to high-opportunity areas, by paying these agencies additional administrative fees and by giving added weight to location outcomes in measuring agency performance;
  • HUD encouraging more agencies to implement Small Area Fair Market Rents;
  • HUD enforcing requirements that agencies identify units in higher-opportunity, lower-poverty communities willing to rent to voucher holders;
  • HUD encouraging or requiring agencies to give families seeking to make such moves added time to search for housing;
  • HUD encouraging agencies in the same metropolitan area to unify their program operations;
  • HUD rescinding its 2018 announcement to reconsider its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule;
  • expanding the supply of voucher-affordable housing;
  • prohibiting beneficiaries of other federal programs, such as federally guaranteed mortgages, from discriminating against voucher holders;
  • preserving affordable housing in gentrifying communities; and
  • improve neighborhoods where families using vouchers already live.

The researchers chose to focus on the most populous 50 metropolitan areas because nearly 90 percent of families using vouchers reside in metropolitan areas, and roughly 60 percent of all families using vouchers live in the 50 largest metro areas. The authors concede that the data is not able to be limited to the number of voucher-affordable units to those with two or more bedrooms, the number needed for families. Therefore, the analysis likely slightly overstates the availability of affordable units in any given metro area by including studio and one-bedroom units.