Comic

The Housing Lottery

How Scarcity Drives America's Rental Assistance Policies

"We are living in an acute housing crisis. While the cost of rental housing has soared since 2000, the median household income has barely changed. Ideally, government housing assistance would step in to fill the gap. It is among the most effective interventions for eliminating child poverty. It promotes residential stability, reduces cost burdens, and guarantees a minimum standard of housing quality. The Housing Choice Voucher program supports a range of secondary benefits, including improved health outcomes, better educational attainment, and higher earnings. And yet, these resources are scarce. So scarce, in fact, that eligible people have to enter a lottery to even get a spot on a waiting list. This project from sociologist Brian J. McCabe elucidates the overwhelming scarcity of public housing assistance in the face of enormous need and potential benefit. About 18 million households qualify for assistance through the Housing Choice Voucher program, but Congress only funds enough vouchers to assist 2.3 million households, leaving affordable housing out of reach for most poor renters. Scarcity places the agencies charged with allocating rental assistance in an impossible position. Without the resources to address all renters in need, agencies expend most of their efforts trying to manage scarcity fairly and expeditiously. Scarcity shapes housing outcomes for the millions of renters awaiting government assistance, too. It makes luck (and sometimes persistence) the most important asset in gaining access to the program. Following the bureaucrats charged with making these decisions about allocating housing resources and the people struggling to get a foothold, McCabe shows how decisions and regulations resulting from scarcity have enormous consequences. He presents extensive evidence about the importance of rental assistance for lifting households out of poverty and makes a convincing and reasonable case for our country's commitment to funding housing for all in need"--