Overview
  • Overview
  • Increasing Housing Supply
  • Dedicated Funding Sources
  • Land Use Regulation and Approval Reforms
  • Inclusionary Zoning
  • Regional Housing Target Enforcement
  • Ending and Preventing Homelessness
  • Systems-Level Racial Equity Analysis
  • Emergency Response Resources
  • Housing First
  • Master Leasing
  • Household and Community Protections
  • “Just Cause” Eviction Laws
  • Anti-Gouging Rent Regulations
  • Strategic Code Enforcement
  • Community Benefit Agreements
  • Community Power-Building
  • Community Ownership
  • Alliance and Coalition Building
  • Community Organizing
  • Tenant Organizing
  • Opportunity and Wealth
  • Mobility Assistance Programs
  • Rent Reporting
  • Reparations
  • Fair and Equitable Appraisals
  • Acknowledgments
    • Mobility Assistance Programs

    Overview

    Mobility assistance programs are leading policy tools that can remedy disparities in access to opportunity. The most widely known example of these is the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. Under the HCV model, local public housing authorities receive federal funding to administer subsidies to low-income households for use in the private rental market. The subsidy is intended to capture the difference between roughly 30 percent of the voucher-holder’s income and remaining rent, after the renter locates a unit that meets “fair market rent” standards. The HCV program aims to support upward mobility and promote individual choice over housing type, location, and related opportunities in education, jobs, and more.

    While there is considerable room for improvement in the HCV program, the stated general goal of vouchers—to empower housing choice and increase access to opportunity—underpins key pillars of the housing justice movement. Certain lessons can be gleaned from policy demonstrations over recent decades, which have amended and reframed the traditional HCV program in various ways, and with powerful benefits to community well-being and individual agency.

    Examples of This Strategy in Action

    • Launched in 1993, the federally funded Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program operated across five major metropolitan areas: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. It differed from the traditional HCV model by providing tailored counseling services to low-income renters and working under the fixed objective of moving households from high-poverty neighborhoods to low-poverty ones. Beyond documenting improvements among youth to their mental health and sense of safety, early evidence was mixed regarding MTO outcomes. But more recent findings suggest longer-term returns for MTO households, with increased rates of college attendance and employment gains among children with continued exposure to high-opportunity neighborhoods.
    • Established in 2003, Baltimore’s Housing Mobility Program is equipped with a broad slate of support services, including resources like housing counselors and security deposit assistance. Early evaluation results show promise with respect to voucher uptake and residential stability in the program. The Baltimore program illustrates how empowerment of housing choice and agency does not reside exclusively with the individual renter, but extends to what scholar Xavier Briggs and colleagues call an “extraordinary chain of cooperation,” extending from “tenants through landlords, housing agencies, and, in some cases, support services and community institutions.” This thinking promotes a more integrated approach to voucher implementation and highlights the value of navigational support at every step of the program.

     

     

    Next intervention: Rent Reporting