Quality of Life, Transportation Costs, and Federal Housing Assistance: Leveling the Playing Field

David Bieri and Casey J. Dawkins

Housing Policy Debate, 2016, vol. 26, issue 4-5, 646-669

Abstract: Federal housing subsidies are allocated without regard to spatial differences in the cost of living or quality of life. In this article, we calculate housing subsidy payments for participants in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program and demonstrate that these subsidies are significantly related to metropolitan quality-of-life differentials. We then estimate amenity-adjusted subsidies and compare these estimates with data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Location Affordability Portal. Our analysis yields three insights regarding the relationship between federal housing assistance payments (HAP), metropolitan quality-of-life differentials, and transportation cost burdens. First, HCV HAP show a strong inverse correlation with household transportation expenditures, and this is particularly pronounced for low-income households. Thus, HAP do not address location affordability because those living in high-transportation cost metropolitan areas receive the lowest housing subsidies. Second, we present evidence that HAP are positively related to metropolitan quality-of-life differentials. This suggests that high-amenity metropolitan areas also tend to be the most affordable from a transportation cost perspective. Third, our proposed amenity-adjusted HAP strongly reduce the inverse relationship between HAP and transportation cost burdens.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10511482.2016.1188844 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:houspd:v:26:y:2016:i:4-5:p:646-669

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RHPD20

DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2016.1188844

Access Statistics for this article

Housing Policy Debate is currently edited by Tom Sanchez, Susanne Viscarra and Derek Hyra

More articles in Housing Policy Debate from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().