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Abstract
Recipients of housing assistance under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Public Housing and Housing Choice Voucher programs can keep their benefits as long as they remain income eligible and abide by program requirements. Under HUD's MTW demonstration, however, a small number of housing agencies that administer these programs chose to impose time limits on various program benefits, including housing assistance. This report documents their rationale for doing so, companion policy and programmatic changes they made in conjunction with time limits, their design decisions and implementation experiences and, to the extent knowable, effects on recipients and housing agencies.
Executive Summary
In 1996 Congress enacted Moving to Work (MTW), a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) public housing deregulation demonstration. MTW permits a small number of local and state housing agencies to request, and HUD to grant, waivers of federal statutes or regulations pertaining to the Public Housing and Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) programs. The waivers let the agencies adopt policies or develop programs or procedures that differ from what is allowed and practiced at most housing agencies. Of the 27 active participants in MTW, 13 had imposed time limits on various program benefits, including housing assistance, prior to 2007. For agencies not participating in the MTW demonstration, time limits on housing assistance are not permissible. Normally, housing assistance recipients can keep their Public Housing and HCV benefits as long as they remain income-eligible and abide by program requirements.
Whether time limits should be imposed on housing assistance is a controversial and consequential policy question. Some observers maintain that non-time limited assistance ensures that low-income recipients are not deprived of affordable housing. Others, however, contend that having no time limits undermines housing assistance recipients’ progression toward self-sufficiency. Also, because demand for public housing units and vouchers exceeds supply, when households retain benefits for long periods of time the total number of eligible households served is smaller than would be the case if the assistance were time-limited; hence, the interests of those receiving assistance are juxtaposed with those of equally eligible households not receiving it.
This report documents the experiences of the MTW agencies that experimented with time limits on benefits related to housing assistance.
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