Rental Housing: Use of Smaller Market Areas to Set Rent Subsidy Levels
Has Drawbacks (Chapter Report, 06/24/94, GAO/RCED-94-112).

To ensure that needy families are able to live in adequate housing, the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provides rent
subsidies to low-income households. This program, known as the Section 8
program, served more than one million households at a cost of about $7
billion in 1992. The amount of rental assistance that a household
receives varies with the market area in which the household lives. The
size and nature of a market area can vary greatly: Entire states, large
metropolitan areas, and medium-sized cities can all be considered market
areas. In response to congressional concerns that these market areas are
too broadly defined to permit rental assistance payments that reflect
true market rents, this report determines (1) the effects of basing rent
subsidy payments on smaller market areas, including any effects that
doing so would have on recipient households' access to education and
employment and (2) the extent to which payments made under the current
program have an inflationary effect on the rental rates in surrounding
areas. GAO also provides information on where Section 8 recipients lived
and their proximity to key services and businesses. GAO based its
analysis on the following four market areas: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma;
Seattle, Washington; Washington, D.C.; and Wilmington, Delaware.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  RCED-94-112
     TITLE:  Rental Housing: Use of Smaller Market Areas to Set Rent 
             Subsidy Levels Has Drawbacks
      DATE:  06/24/94
   SUBJECT:  Rent subsidies
             Housing programs
             Fair market value
             Cost analysis
             Federal aid for housing
             Rental housing
             Public housing
             Economic analysis
             Data collection operations
             Rental rates
IDENTIFIER:  District of Columbia
             Calvert County (MD)
             Charles County (MD)
             Frederick County (MD)
             Montgomery County (MD)
             Prince George's County (MD)
             Arlington County (VA)
             Fairfax County (VA)
             Loudoun County (VA)
             Prince William County (VA)
             Stafford County (VA)
             Seattle (WA)
             King County (WA)
             Snohomish County (WA)
             Lynn (MA)
             HUD Section 8 Housing Assistance Program
             
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