After decades of inadequate funding and oversight, the public housing program faces urgent challenges that threaten the nation’s ability to continue to provide deeply subsidized housing to households with the lowest incomes. Most public housing stock is more than 50 years old, deteriorating, and in acute need of rehabilitation. Because of a combination of factors—including unit deterioration, HOPE IV demolitions, and project-based rental assistance programs—the number of public housing units and deeply subsidized units has declined in recent years. Even amid this decline, public housing still housed 1.6 million people in 2023, including families with children and, increasingly, older adults and people with disabilities. There is an urgent need for substantial federal investment to revitalize the remaining public housing stock, keep it operational for tenants with very low incomes, and increase the amount of housing assistance overall.

In this brief, public housing expert and disability equity leader Susan J. Popkin reviews the major policy changes over the past 40 years that have shaped the public housing program and the challenges it faces today. She examines where strategies intended to address ongoing challenges have worked and where they have been unsuccessful and ultimately proposes potential paths forward to preserve public and deeply subsidized housing in an increasingly uncertain future.