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May 6, 2007Bipartisan Legislation Would Build On Housing Voucher Program's Success |
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Center on Budget and Policy Priorities On March 29, 2007, bipartisan leaders of the House Financial Services Committee introduced H.R. 1851, the Section 8 Voucher Reform Act (SEVRA). SEVRA would make significant changes to the housing voucher program and also institute related changes in laws governing other housing assistance programs. Studies have shown that vouchers reduce homelessness, overcrowding, and frequent moves from apartment to apartment. Vouchers have also been found to help families move to lower-poverty neighborhoods with better schools and less exposure to crime. SEVRA's most important provisions would establish a comprehensive policy for distributing funds to the more than 2,400 state and local agencies that administer vouchers. From 2004 to 2006, voucher funds were allocated using a series of inefficient formulas that gave some agencies less funding than they needed to cover the costs of their vouchers --- forcing them to cut back on assistance to needy families --- while providing other agencies with more funds than they could use. Care will be required, however, to ensure that any amendments to SEVRA build upon these improvements rather than undercut them, as, for example, a poorly designed or excessively large MTW expansion could do. The bipartisan sponsors of SEVRA deserve considerable credit for introducing a balanced, carefully-crafted piece of legislation that, if enacted, would significantly strengthen the nation's housing policies for low-income Americans. For additional discussion of the need to better evaluate MTW, see Jeffrey Lubell and Jon Baron, The Importance of Integrating Rigorous Research Objectives into any Reauthorization of the "Moving to Work" Demonstration, Center for Housing Policy, March 2, 2007.
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