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Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. § 1437f), often called Section 8, as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of low-income households in the United States. Of the 5.2 million American Housholds that received rental assistance in 2018, approximately 1.2 million of those households received a Section 8 based voucher. 68% of total rental assistance in the United States goes to seniors, children, and those with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development manages Section 8 programs.

The Housing Choice Voucher Program provides "tenant-based" rental assistance, so a tenant can move from one unit of at least minimum housing quality to another. ''Landlords are not required to participate in the voucher program. Some states have laws that prevent landlords from discriminating based on 'source of income'. These laws are not applicable in all areas and the program remains voluntary in most places.'' It also allows individuals to apply their monthly voucher towards the purchase of a home, with over $17 billion going towards such purchases each year (from ncsha.org analysis).[citation needed] Voucher amounts vary depending on what city or county you are in, size of unit, and other factors. ''Once individuals receive a voucher they have a limited amount of time to find a unit with a willing landlord that meets HUD housing standards. There are often long wait lists for Section 8 vouchers.''

Voucher amounts are based on Fair Market Rents (FMRs) calculated in the area by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Recently, a Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs) program was established to reduce the area rents are based on to zip codes in major metropolitan areas.

Section 8 also authorizes a variety of "project-based" rental assistance programs, under which the owner reserves some or all of the units in a building for low-income tenants, in return for a federal government guarantee to make up the difference between the tenant's contribution and the rent amount in the owner's contract with the government. A tenant who leaves a subsidized project will lose access to the project-based subsidy.

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have created a program called Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH), or HUD-VASH, which distributes roughly 10,000 vouchers per year at a cost of roughly $75 million per year to eligible homeless and otherwise vulnerable U.S. armed forces veterans. This program was created to pair HUD-funded vouchers with VA-funded services such as health care, counseling, and case management.

Fair Market Rents (Section to Be Added to Current Article)
''Fair Market Rents (FMRs) are calculated to determine how much a landlord is able to accept for rent of a unit to a Section 8 voucher recipient. FMRs are gross rental rates and dictate the maximum rental rate to be agreed upon in a lease document. The calculation of FMRs is based on a standard quality rent from the five year American Community Survey, as well as a recent mover adjustment, which is the relationship between the standard quality for five years and the one year recent mover rents. FMRs also include a CPI adjustment and a trend factor adjustment. The trend factor adjustment is how HUD expects rental rates to grow. ''

''FMRs include all major utilities (heat, electricity, etc.), but does not include telephone, cable, satellite television, or internet service. Utilities are included in FMRs whether the obligation of payment is under the tenant or the landlord. FMRs can be found using HUDs Database.''

The Small Area Fair Market Rents Program (SAFMRP) was officially implemented by HUD in January of 2017. ''This system is an update to the system HUD uses to calculate Fair Market Rents (FMRs) in metropolitan areas. The purpose is to examine metropolitan area FMRs by ZIP code, as opposed to in total. HUD stated that this program is aimed to allow voucher recipients to move into higher opportunity areas and reduce the concentration of voucher recipients in a given metropolitan area.  While the program was originally intended to be mandatory for several metropolitan areas immediately, the requirement for the use of SAFRMs was delayed to October 1, 2019. SAFMRs can now be found through the HUD database.''

''The implementation of this program follows a demonstration project coordinated by HUD in 2010. The project included the following Public Housing Authorities (PHAs): The Housing Authority of the County of Cook (IL), the City of Long Beach (CA) Housing Authority, the Chattanooga (TN) Housing Authority, the Town of Mamaroneck (NY) Housing Authority, and the Housing Authority of Laredo (TX). ''

''An early report states that the effects of this program need to be analyzed over a long period of time before determining results. Vincent Reina, Arthur Acolin, and Raphael W. Bostic, published an early examination of the new SAFMRP in 2019. This study finds varied results in the SAFMRP based on different metropolitan areas. Two areas of note are the highest performing city in the study and the lowest, Dallas, TX, and Chattanooga, TN, respectively. The authors argue that Dallas performed well with the SAFMRP because the city was required by court order to implement the program, and the program has been in place for longer than all other cities in the study. This suggests that the benefits of the SAFMRP change over time, and analysis of the program must include time series analysis for all effects. ''

''The authors also explain why Chattanooga, TN may have performed the lowest in the study. Two reasons include the fact that most rental units were already in accessible areas, and most residential areas in Chattanooga are low opportunity, therefor voucher recipients did not have increased choice with the implementation of the program. ''

Housing Specialists
''Matthew Marr published a study of the Los Angeles housing market in Summer of 2001 that examines the effects of housing placement specialists on the Section 8 voucher program. Marr finds that housing placement specialists function as an intermediary between tenants and landlords that help increase mobility of Section 8 voucher recipients. ''

''Tight rental markets can pose a challenge to Section 8 voucher recipients. Marr finds, through observations and interviews, that the resource of housing placement specialists can help prevent private landlord apprehension, and help voucher recipients navigate the program and general rental market.  Landlord apprehension can be a result of many factors. Common qualitative data indicates some factors to be: tenant behavior, tenant cleanliness, and financial burden. These factors are some areas housing specialists work to mitigate problems.''