Subsidized housing in the United States

"The projects" redirects here. For other uses, see Project (disambiguation).

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Median gross rent by state from 2015 to 2019 American Community Survey estimates published by the U.S. Census Bureau.[1] States with median gross rents higher than the United States as a whole are in dark green.
The 20-story John F. Hylan Houses in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City.

In the United States, subsidized housing is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents. In most federally-funded rental assistance programs, the tenants' monthly rent is set at 30% of their household income.[2] Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2020, there were one million public housing units.[3] In 2022, about 5.2 million American households received some form of federal rental assistance.[4]

Subsidized apartment buildings, often referred to as housing projects (or simply "the projects"),[5] have a complicated and often notorious history in the United States. While the first decades of projects were built with higher construction standards and a broader range of incomes and same applicants, over time, public housing increasingly became the housing of last resort in many cities. Several reasons have been cited for this negative trend including the failure of Congress to provide sufficient funding, a lowering of standards for occupancy, and mismanagement at the local level. In the United States, the federal government provides funding for public housing from two different sources: the Capital Fund and the Operating Fund. According to the HUD, the Capital Fund subsidizes housing authorities to renovate and refurbish public housing developments; meanwhile, the Operating Fund provides funds to housing authorities in order to assist in maintenance and operating costs of public housing.[6] Furthermore, housing projects have also been seen to greatly increase concentrated poverty in a community, leading to several negative externalities. Crime, drug usage, and educational under-performance are all widely associated with housing projects, particularly in urban areas.[7]

As a result of their various problems and diminished political support, many of the traditional low-income public housing properties constructed in the earlier years of the program have been demolished. Beginning primarily in the 1970s the federal government turned to other approaches including the Project-Based Section 8 program, Section 8 certificates, and the Housing Choice Voucher Program. In the 1990s the federal government accelerated the transformation of traditional public housing through HUD's HOPE VI Program. Hope VI funds are used to tear down distressed public housing projects and replace them with mixed communities constructed in cooperation with private partners.[8] In 2012, Congress and HUD initiated a new program called the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.[9] Under the demonstration program, eligible public housing properties are redeveloped in conjunction with private developers and investors.

The federal government, through its Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program (which in 2012 paid for construction of 90% of all subsidized rental housing in the US), spends $6 billion per year to finance 50,000 low-income rental units annually, with median costs per unit for new construction (2011–2015) ranging from $126,000 in Texas to $326,000 in California.[10][11][12]

  1. ^ Median gross rent – American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Report). American Community Survey. United States Census Bureau. 2019. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  2. ^ "HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)". www.hud.gov. 20 September 2017.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Curbed_1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Federal Rental Assistance Fact Sheets". Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. January 19, 2022.
  5. ^ "Project Definition & Meaning". Merriam-Webster. 19 November 2023. usually public housing development consisting of houses or apartments built and arranged according to a single plan
  6. ^ "Public Housing Programs - HUD". HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Retrieved 2022-05-30.
  7. ^ Semuels, Alana (19 May 2015). "New York City's Public-Housing Crisis". theatlantic.com. Archived from the original on 31 May 2016. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  8. ^ Eckholm, Erik (March 21, 2008). "Washington's Grand Experiment to Rehouse the Poor". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 10, 2013. Retrieved 2012-11-29.
  9. ^ "Rental Assistance Demonstration - HUD Exchange". www.hudexchange.info. Archived from the original on 2016-08-09.
  10. ^ Garcia-Diaz, Daniel (2018-09-18). "Low-Income Housing Tax Credit: Improved Data and Oversight Would Strengthen Cost Assessment and Fraud Risk Management". GAO. Archived from the original on 2018-10-13. Retrieved 2019-06-06. GAO identified wide variation in development costs and several cost drivers for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects completed in 2011–2015. Across 12 selected allocating agencies, median per-unit costs for new construction projects ranged from about $126,000 (Texas) to about $326,000 (California). ... LIHTCs encourage private investment in low-income rental housing and have financed about 50,000 housing units annually since 2010.
  11. ^ Capps, Kriston (2018-09-21). "Why Affordable Housing Isn't More Affordable - Local regulations—and the NIMBY sentiments behind them—are a big driver of costs of low-income housing developers. Why don't we know exactly how much?". Citylab. Archived from the original on 2018-09-22. Retrieved 2019-06-06. These are a few of the not-exactly-earth-shattering conclusions of a long-awaited report on the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, the country's main engine for generating new affordable housing. Released this week by the Government Accountability Office, the report finds that these housing tax credits, or LIHTCs, have financed some 50,000 affordable units every year since 2010. On average, affordable rental units built with tax credits in Texas cost two-and-a-half times less ($126,000) than the average in California ($326,000).
  12. ^ President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board (2010-08-01). "The Report on Tax Reform Options: Simplification, Compliance, and Corporate Taxation" (PDF). whitehouse.gov. p. 77. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-01-26. Retrieved 2010-10-01 – via National Archives.