Overview of Findings:
An analysis of the location of Housing Choice Voucher (HCV, the program formerly known as Section 8) recipients in the 100 largest U.S metropolitan areas in 2000 and 2008 finds that:
- By 2008 roughly half (49.4 percent) of all HCV recipients lived in suburban areas. That represents a 2.1 percentage point increase in the suburbanization rate of HCV recipients compared to 2000. However, by 2008 HCV recipients remained less suburbanized than the total population, the poor population, and affordable housing units generally.
- Black HCV recipients suburbanized fastest over the 2000 to 2008 period, though white HCV recipients were still more suburbanized than their black or Latino counterparts by 2008. Black HCV recipients’ suburbanization rate increased by nearly 5 percentage points over this period, while that for Latinos increased by about 1 percentage point. At the same time, the suburbanization rate for white HCV recipients declined slightly.
- Between 2000 and 2008, metro areas in the West and those experiencing large increases in suburban poverty exhibited the biggest shifts in HCV recipients to the suburbs. Western metro areas like Stockton, Boise, and Phoenix experienced increases of 10 percentage points or more in the suburbanization rate of HCV recipients.
- Within metro areas, HCV recipients moved further toward higher-income, jobs-rich suburbs between 2000 and 2008. However, the poor and affordable housing units shifted more rapidly toward similar kinds of suburbs over that period. By 2008 about half of suburban HCV recipients still lived in low-income suburbs.
Together, these findings indicate that HCV recipients are suburbanizing over time, alongside poor households more generally. However, the slow pace of the shift compared to that for the poor and for affordable housing suggests that suburbs have the capacity to absorb more HCV recipients. Moreover, within suburbs, HCV recipients are more likely than the overall population and the poor to live in low-income suburbs with inferior access to jobs. Policies that provide more incentives for multifamily housing, reevaluate existing zoning laws and development impact fees, facilitate the use of housing vouchers in new higher-income suburban locations, and enforce fair housing laws in suburban areas could give HCV recipients access to a broader range of high quality residential environments.