America's Affordable Housing Crisis

america's affordable housing crisis

Twenty-five years ago, the Federal Government created what would become the largest rental housing subsidy in the Nation’s history: Section 8.

Section 8 includes two forms of subsidy: tenant-based and project-based, each assisting roughly one-half the total Section 8 units. The tenant-based program provides vouchers that give residents the freedom to use their subsidies in a wide range of private market housing, while the project-based program provides subsidies tied to specific properties so that the properties themselves remain subsidized. Between the two types of subsidy, Section 8 provides assistance to thousands of families in each and every State around the country-in urban centers and rural farmland, in high rise apartments and single family homes. The Section 8 program now helps 3 million families around the country afford decent housing, more than double the number of families assisted by the next largest housing program, public housing.

Buildings

The Section 8 program stands at a crossroad, facing a challenge that threatens its viability for the next 25 years and beyond.

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Last Updated: June 29, 1999