The Section 8 program was conceived as a way to allow low-income families access to affordable housing in their neighborhood of choice by paying the difference between 30 percent of renters’ incomes and market rent. But the effects of landlord discrimination, program disinvestment, and unfettered rent increases created a gap between the large numbers of renters who need vouchers and the few who receive them.
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In September, Shelterforce’s Shelby R. King was invited to participate in a virtual “Housing Hangout.” Panelists discussed the history of the Section 8 program, its strong points and failings, and ideas for large-scale reforms.
Other panelists included H. Jacob Carlson, assistant professor of sociology at Kean University; Ingrid Gould Ellen, Paulette Goddard professor of urban policy and planning at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and faculty director at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy; and Will Fischer, senior director for housing policy and research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“Housing Hangouts” are a recurring event hosted and moderated by Bruce Rich, director of the Center for Housing and Community Studies at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
Try talking to to people on the program that’s living it on section 8 program like me you get better information on whats going on or the will be a whole new breed of homelessness on section 8 because that me right now. Thank you for letting have the floor on here.