How Well Do Housing Vouchers Work for Black Families Experiencing Homelessness? Evidence from the Family Options Study

We investigate whether racial disparities exist among homeless families with priority access to the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. The families we studied moved from emergency shelter into subsidized housing and sometimes left the HCV program, and our results suggest that the HCV program works as well for Black families as it does for White families. The rates at which families used the vouchers to lease a housing unit are similarly high for each group. The rate at which families exit from the HCV program does not differ between White and Black families, but the factors that predict exit do differ by race. For all families, access to a voucher reduces returns to homelessness, doubling up, and moving. These results confirm that in the United States—a country with a history of racial disparities in housing—the HCV program can help alleviate the effects of severe poverty and provide housing opportunities that advantage both White and Black families.

Neighborhood effects and housing vouchers

Researchers and policy makers have explored the possibility of restricting the use of housing vouchers to neighborhoods that may positively affect the outcomes of children. Using the framework of a dynamic model of optimal location choice, we estimate preferences over neighborhoods of likely recipients of housing vouchers in Los Angeles. We combine simulations of the model with estimates of how locations affect adult earnings of children to understand how a voucher policy that restricts neighborhoods in which voucher‐recipients may live affects both the location decisions of households and the adult earnings of children. We show the model can nearly replicate the impact of the Moving to Opportunity experiment on the adult wages of children. Simulations suggest a policy that restricts housing vouchers to the top 20% of neighborhoods maximizes expected aggregate adult earnings of children of households offered these vouchers.