The Reconcentration of Poverty: Patterns of Housing Voucher Use, 2000 to 2008

Molly Metzger, Northwestern University

Between 2000 and 2008, the federal Housing Choice Voucher program grew from 1.8 million households to over 2.2 million households nation-wide. The expansion of the voucher program was motivated, in part, by goals of racial integration and the deconcentration of poverty. Unlike traditional public housing, vouchers allow low-income families to access housing in neighborhoods previously inaccessible to them. This study tests the hypothesis that vouchers have actually perpetuated the segregation, by both class and race, that they are intended to challenge. Using HUD’s Picture of Subsidized Households data for the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, linked to tract-level Census and American Community Survey data, I find that voucher households are more spatially, economically, and racially segregated than a voucher-eligible comparison group. While voucher households became somewhat less racially and economically segregated from 2000 to 2008, they remained more segregated than other low-income households.