Housing vouchers work

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities - Housing Choice Vouchers are the most effective tool to help homeless families with children find and keep stable housing, a major new study from the Department of Housing and Urban Development concludes. These findings should spur Congress to fund more vouchers for homeless families, as the President has proposed, by restoring the 67,000 vouchers cut due to sequestration and targeting a large share of them to homeless families.


The 12-city study randomly assigned families living in homeless shelters to receive one of several types of assistance, including housing vouchers. The report, detailing the impacts for families 18 months later, shows that vouchers greatly improved family well-being. Compared to families in homeless shelters that received no extra help under the study, families given vouchers were:

• 56 percent less likely to experience another episode of homelessness;
• 55 percent less likely to report incidents of domestic violence; and
• 42 percent less likely to have their children placed in foster care or temporarily housed with other family members.

Families with vouchers also had 16 percent fewer absences from school or child care for their children.