Emanuel Jay Howenstine - Housing Vouchers: A Comparative International Analysis

Originally published in 1986 by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Published 2013 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Copyright 1986 by Taylor & Francis.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2012017093

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Howenstine, E. Jay (Emanuel Jay)
Housing vouchers : a comparative international analysis / E. Jay Howenstine.
p. cm.
Originally published in 1986 by the Center for Urban Policy Research as: Housing vouchers : an international analysis.
ISBN 978-0-88285-111-2
1. Rent subsidies. I. Title.
HD7288.83.H69 2012
363.582--dc23

2012017093

ISBN 13: 978-0-88285-111-2 (pbk)

Housing vouchers provide cash assistance to low-income households to help pay the rent for a minimum-standard dwelling they cannot afford. The voucher is not tied to a particular unit; it is paid directly either to the program participant or the landlord.

The idea of a voucherthat is, a consumer housing subsidyis not new in the United States. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 established a leased-housing program under Section 23. Administered by public-housing authorities, the program involved direct payments to landlords on behalf of tenants to reduce excessive burdens. In 1972 the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) launched a 10-year Experimental Housing Allowance Program (EHAP), which paid monthly housing allowances to more than 30,000 families in 12 locations. Drawing on EHAP experience, an Existing Housing Program was created in the Section 8 program of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. This program continues to make housing affordable for more than 800,000 households by paying a monthly stipend to the landlord on behalf of low-income tenants living in privately owned, existing housing. When other forms of Section 8 assistance are added to the Existing Housing Program, an estimated total of around 2,139,000 lower-income households will receive payments in 1985.

The Presidents Commission on Housing, in its final report in 1982, declared that affordability is the primary housing problem of the poor and recommended that:

The primary Federal program for helping low-income families to achieve decent housing should be a Housing Payments Program. This program, coupled with housing supply assistance through the Community Development Block Grant Program, should replace future commitments to build or substantially rehabilitate additional units under Federal housing programs.

In July, 1984, HUD embarked on a new housing demonstration, under the Housing and Rural Recovery Act of 1984, to compare and test certain features of the Section 8 Existing Housing Program and the voucher program. The new demonstration provides vouchers to 4,543 very-low-income families living in privately owned, existing housing in 20 cities. In launching the demonstration, Secretary of Housing Samuel R. Pierce, Jr. stated, We believe it has the potential to shape housing policy for decades to come.

Among foreign governments the idea of a consumer housing subsidy is a highly developed concept. Housing allowances, shelter allowances, rent allowancesor rent rebates as they are variously called (the term housing voucher is rarely used)have been paid out on a larger scale for longer periods of time on an entitlement basis, with a much greater variety of rationales than in this country. As the United States moves ahead with its new demonstration program, it is timely to examine and evaluate foreign experiences with the consumer housing subsidy approach.

This study is divided into three major parts. The first part reviews the historical background and analyzes the various housing allowance strategies that foreign governments have adopted. The second part examines in detail the major principles and elements with which governments have fashioned their systems. The accent is on issues of maximum relevance to the American scene, and an attempt is made to define quantitatively the place of housing allowances in national housing subsidy policy. In the third part the impact of housing allowance systems is weighed in the light of the original objectives. Conclusions are also drawn about foreign experiences with respect to two central policy issues: 1) Should financial assistance to low-income families be in the form of consumer housing subsidies or producer housing subsidies, or in some synthesis of the two systems? 2) Should the housing allowance be maintained as a separate housing policy, or should it be integrated into a general income maintenance policy?

The author wishes to thank numerous persons who have provided valuable assistance to this study. They are as follows: Australia: Warwick Temby, Department of Housing and Construction, Canberra; Belgium: J. Bouillon, Secretary General, Institut National de Logement, Brussels; Canada: Frances Cameron, Director, Planning Division, and Maurice Rabot, Manager, International Relations, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Ottawa; Professor Marion Steele, Department of Economics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario; and Janet McClain, Director, Housing Programs, Canadian Council on Social Development, Ottawa; Denmark: Hanne Victor Hansen, International Relations Division, Ministry of Housing, Copenhagen; Federal Republic of Germany: Eugen Dick and Horst Bolting, Ministry for Regional Planning, Building, and Urban Development, Bonn; Finland: Keijo Tanner, National Housing Board, Helsinki; France: D. Loudenot, Civil Administrator, A. Weber, Civil Administrator, and A. Talmant, Ministry of City Planning and Housing, Paris; the Netherlands: Loek Kampschoer, Deputy Inspector General, Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment, The Hague; and Hugo Priemus, Professor of Housing, Technische Hogeschool, Delft; Norway: Egil Tombre, Director, and Tor Bysveen, Norsk Institut for By-og Regionforskning, Oslo; Sweden: Bo Loon, Research Secretary, Swedish Council for Building Research, Stockholm; Per Ahren, Housing Division, and Ian MacArthur, Administrator, International Department, Ministry of Housing and Physical Planning, Stockholm; Switzerland: K. Baumgartner, Secretary, Federal Housing Office, Bern; and A. Naef, ORL-Institute, Zurich; United Kingdom: P. R. T. Martin, Housing Al Division, Department of the Environment, London; and Michael John Oxley, Principal Lecturer in Urban Land Economics, Leicester Polytechnic, Leicester; United States: Ray Struyk, Director, Center for International Activities, Urban Institute, Washington, D.C; J. Barry Cullingworth, College of Urban Affairs and Public Policy, University of Delaware, Newark; Martin Levine, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, D.C; Duncan MacRae, Robert Buckley, Duane McGough, Terrence Connell, Jane Karadbil, Howard Hammerman, and Robert Gray, Office of Policy Development and Research, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C.