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ABSTRACT
A lawsuit that argued that the method used to calculate rent limits in the Housing Choice Voucher Program promoted racial segregation in Dallas, Texas, resulted in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development developing zip code-based voucher rent limits in Dallas in 2011. This rent calculation approach was then expanded to five other demonstration sites in 2012. This article analyzes whether adjusting voucher rent limits reduces a minority household’s likelihood of living in a high-minority neighborhood, improves their likelihood of living in a higher opportunity neighborhood, and reduces the disparity in location outcomes between minority and White households in the voucher program. This article finds evidence of improvements in the location outcomes of Black and Hispanic voucher households because of the use of zip code-based rent limits, but that these results are only marginal with respect to the persistent disparities in outcomes based on race within the voucher program.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Lei Ding of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and Paul Jargowsky of Rutgers University, Camden, for organizing a symposium on the Fair Housing Act, editing this issue of Housing Policy Debate, and providing important feedback on this article. The author would also like to thank Mark Shroder and Peter Kahn at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for their feedback. The research assistance provided by Joshua Davidson and Claudia Aiken was incredibly important to this article. Finally, the author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thorough and thoughtful feedback. Any mistakes in this article are the author’s.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.