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   ection 8 housing assistance is one of
America's most successful programs, providing housing aid to low-income residents. The Section 8 tenant-based
assistance program provides vouchers for low-income residents to ensure that participants pay no more than 30 percent
of their income towards housing, provided that their rent does not exceed the fair market rent (FMR) for their area.
By utilizing a voucher system, rather than a publicly funded and government-operated housing unit, Section 8 increases the options for low-income Americans. This leads to increased flexibility and less clustering of low-income residents in one neighborhood. Section 8 has grown from 30,000 families participating in the original experimental program in 1974 to 1.4 million current families. Sixty four percent of these participants are families with children, 15 percent are elderly families or individuals, and 13 percent are persons with disabilities. Similar to most government assistance programs, Section 8 provides its assistance to those residents who lack the skills and abilities to sustain themselves. In addition to promoting flexibility for residents, Section 8 creates a significant cost savings as compared to public housing. Ignoring the cost of construction, often assumed to be the most expensive aspect of public housing, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, found that "the marginal cost of public housing was more expensive [than Section 8] by as much as $41 per occupied unit per month (i.e. public housing is more expensive even if construction costs are ignored)." The only area where traditional public housing remains a superior alternative to Section 8 vouchers is to meet the needs of special populations such as the elderly or the disabled. One of the largest problems confronting the current Section 8 program is the availability of vouchers. Unlike other assistance programs such as Food Stamps or Temporary Aid for Needy Families, which grant aid to all residents who meet the various income qualifications, Section 8 operates with a limited number of available vouchers. Applicants for assistance are placed on a waiting list and vouchers only become available if the federal government appropriates them or a current recipient forfeit their voucher. According to HUD, "there is a national average waiting list of 11 months for public housing and 28 months for Section 8 vouchers, but in large cities the wait is much, much longer … In New York City or Washington, the wait for Section 8 is eight years, in Los Angeles it is 10 years. The combined waiting lists in Chicago alone would consume all 60,000 vouchers appropriated in FY2000." The presence of large waiting lists creates a significant disincentive for application to the Section 8 program. Therefore, it can be assumed that the size of the waiting list does not fully reflect the demand for this assistance. Research from the University of Virginia, however, suggests that this problem of large waiting lists could be addressed by more accurately assessing the cost of housing for low-income families. This research finds that the fair market rent utilized in the Section 8 program is inflated by approximately 60%. If this rate were lowered, more vouchers could be offered to the millions of Americans on waiting lists. |
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