This report describes the minimum housing standard used in the Housing Allowance Demand Experiment. Each component of the physical and occupancy requirements 1.8 described in detail. The report then indicates how often the various elements of the standards caused households to fail the requirements. Special emphasis is placed on those items that accounted for a large proportion of the failures.

More than two-thirds of the units at enrollment failed the physical standard. One component--the light and ventilation requirement--was responsible for a substantial proportion of the failures. This component may have been overly stringent. The failure rate in Phoenix, for example, would have been somewhat lower if local code requirements had been used (as is sometimes done in the Section 8 Existing Housing program). Other alternative light and ventilation requirements would have reduced the failure rate by about a fifth.

For more information on the Experimental Housing Allowance Program (EHAP) and to find related reports, please visit the EHAP landing page.

This report is part of the collection of scanned historical documents available to the public.