Abstract
The Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP) offers choice to poor renter households,
but only a fraction of the households in the program use that choice to locate in lowpoverty
neighborhoods. Analysis of metropolitan areas across the United States finds
that the typical metropolitan area locates 19 percent of its HCVP households in census
tracts where less than 10 percent of the population is impoverished. This rate is less than
the share of units with rents low enough for the program found in these low-poverty tracts.
Race and ethnicity matter. Non-Hispanic White HCVP households are able to enter lowpoverty
neighborhoods at a rate greater than the availability of affordable units, whereas
minorities are not. The metropolitan areas differ markedly in the per centage of HCVP
households who locate in low-poverty tracts. Greater entry into low-poverty tracts is
found in soft markets and markets with a high percentage of total tracts that are lowpoverty
tracts. The level of the Fair Market Rents (FMRs), which govern the HCVP,
also proves to influence the level of voucher entry into low-poverty neighborhoods,
suggesting that gains could be realized by localized changes to the FMRs.