Just Suppose: Housing Subsidies for Low-Income Renters

John Quigley

RR07-9: This paper considers what the appropriate design of government policies towards rental housing subsidies would be in the absence of the long and mixed legacy of public intervention in housing markets. The fundamental housing problem facing low-income households is the high cost of rental housing and the high rent burdens these households face. This is best addressed by an entitlement program for shelter subsidies modeled after the food stamp program or the Earned Income Tax Credit Program. A universal program would remove glaring inequities in the current treatment of identically situated low-income households, and it would eliminate most of the inefficiencies in the current mixed program of supply and demand subsidies for rental households…