Participation, Transition, and Length of Stay in Federal Housing Assistance Programs

Andrew J. Greenlee
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Kirk McClure
University of Kansas

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) suite of federal housing assistance programs—including public housing, the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, the Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance program, and other HUD-administered multifamily housing programs—form an important national and local ecosystem of support for eligible low-income households. Research and program evaluation have tended to focus on the performance or outcomes associated with participation spells in one program, although the potential exists for multiple participation spells across multiple programs and administrative transfers between programs. Drawing from program administrative data covering more than 18.4 million low-income households receiving federal housing assistance from 2000 to 2022, this article describes household-level participation in federal housing assistance programs and the prevalence of transitions between programs.

The authors find that more than 80 percent of households participated only for a single episode of rental assistance between 2000 and 2022, and the median length of stay was around 4 or 5 years. About one in five subsidized households made a transition between programs during their participation, with evidence of a cumulative shift toward the HCV program. Although this analysis portrays a picture of relative stability, the demographic composition of HUD’s assisted households is changing. The programs increasingly serve racial and ethnic minority populations and older adults, and the share of households with children is declining.