Link to the full report from PRRAC, the NYU Furman Center and the Urban Institute.
This memo summarizes the discussion and research questions that emerged from a spring 2023 convening to explore future directions for research related to discrimination against Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) holders. Approximately fifty experts participated in the one-day event, representing diverse fields that intersect with housing voucher discrimination, including researchers, fair housing advocates, policymakers, and practitioners who work with voucher holders.
Overview and Goals
The HCV program, with over 2 million low-income participating households annually, is among the nation’s most important housing assistance tools. The ongoing problem of discrimination against families with housing vouchers has received increased attention in the past few years because of concerns about lagging voucher utilization rates, declining numbers of landlords participating in the program, low success rates for voucher holders in many markets, and slow progress on expanding voucher families’ access to higher opportunity areas.
Tenant organizations and housing practitioners across the country have prioritized ending voucher discrimination as a local policy goal, which has helped to fuel a significant increase in the number of new source of income discrimination (SOID) laws – to the point where almost 60 percent of voucher families in the U.S. are living in jurisdictions where discrimination is prohibited (Knudsen, 2022). With this context in mind, it is important that we understand how well SOID laws work, how voucher families experience discrimination in the housing market, and how practitioners and policymakers can make the HCV program more effective.
The goals of the convening were to:
- Reflect on the state of research related to discrimination against HCV holders, including research documenting the frequency and nature of discrimination; the effectiveness of state and local SOID laws; and the current role and effectiveness of SOID enforcement.
- Identify research and knowledge gaps needed to improve practice and to support enforcement agencies, federal policymakers, voucher program administrators, and organizations that support voucher holders to improve outcomes for HCV participants.
- Recommend research priorities for HUD and philanthropic investment.
