IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v686y2019i1p250-285.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reforming Housing Assistance

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Collinson
  • Ingrid Gould Ellen
  • Jens Ludwig

Abstract

This article reviews current federal housing assistance policies and briefly summarizes research evidence about the efficacy of the different programs. We identify three key challenges that these programs face in meeting their stated objectives and suggest strategies for addressing them. The first challenge is the large variation in market conditions across the country, which makes it difficult to design assistance programs that are universally appropriate. We call for adjusting the type of assistance across markets, allowing for a greater match between subsidies and needs. The second set of challenges concerns subsidy generosity, structure, and targeting. The current system provides large subsidies to a small number of low-income households while providing nothing to most. Assuming limited government resources, we call for exploring the impact of more modest or time-limited subsidies to serve more people with more attention to targeting. The third challenge is the relatively poor location of housing in current assistance programs. We suggest strategies to help more assisted families reach high-opportunity areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Collinson & Ingrid Gould Ellen & Jens Ludwig, 2019. "Reforming Housing Assistance," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 686(1), pages 250-285, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:686:y:2019:i:1:p:250-285
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716219877801
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716219877801
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716219877801?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:686:y:2019:i:1:p:250-285. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.