The evaluation of the first cohort of agencies participating in the MTW expansion, referred to as the Flexibility Cohort, focuses on how smaller PHAs use the flexibility offered by their new MTW designation to achieve the three statutory objectives of the MTW program: cost effectiveness, self-sufficiency, and housing choice. The report builds on the Baseline and Year 1 Reports, detailing the early implementation experience (process study) of the Flexibility Cohort PHAs and estimating program impacts (impact study) to date on outcome measures associated with the three statutory objectives. By the end of 2022, 26 of 31 PHAs in the Flexibility Cohort had an approved MTW Supplement to their PHA Annual Plan and were thus eligible to begin implementing MTW flexibilities. Among the 26 PHAs, 236 MTW Waivers were approved for implementation, with the median number of approved MTW Waivers per PHA at 8. The PHAs are making progress towards the three statutory objectives: 24 PHAs have approved waivers for cost-effectiveness activities, 20 PHAs for self-sufficiency activities, and 19 PHAs for housing choice activities. However, PHAs are only in the beginning stages of implementation with only 13 PHAs having approved MTW waivers for at least six months. The PHAs have taken a more conservative approach when implementing waiver activities, aiming to learn from initial implementation before moving forward with a full suite of waiver activities. Therefore, it is still too early to observe program impacts and statistically significant impacts estimated in this report are likely due to chance.

Moving to Work (MTW) Cohort #1 Page