Public Housing Time Limits: How It All Began
Under the Clinton administration, Congress passed the Moving to Work (MTW) program in 1996. It is a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) deregulation demonstration. It was enacted in order to assess whether housing authorities would succeed more if they were given less regulation over allocation of funds and implementation of policies and procedures. MTW paved the way for agencies to carry out what they believed were innovative strategies in order to fix the issues of public housing. A small number of local and state housing agencies were given permission by the MTW to request waivers that will in turn allow agencies to adopt policies or develop programs. Of the 27 active participants in MTW, 13 had imposed time limits on various program benefits, including housing assistance, prior to 2007. (Urban.org)
Goal of Time Limits. Housing agencies believed that time limits will motivate residents to seek out a stable job and create a progress towards self-sufficiency. This can include increasing their incomes, renting in the private market, and having the possibility of purchasing a home. Housing authorities asserted that if residents are given a specified amount of time to stay at location, they will recognize that they need to secure housing in the private market, which will cause a decrease in reliance on government subsidy. Public housing is facing a deficiency in available apartments and vouchers, they argued, and implementing time limits will increase that number. In theory, their plan seems flawless.
The System is Flawed. However, while it motivated some, once time limit terms came to an end in past experiments, many residents became either homeless or rent burdened. This, in consequence, may shift the burden of housing these families to local homeless assistance agencies, resulting in a need for increased public funds. It may also have dramatic short and long-term impacts on social services needed by evicted households.
Time limits placed on residents in the past have resulted in increased costs. However, the magnitude of the increase is unknown. These costs can include but are not limited to:
- Transitioning to time-limited housing
- Adopting new policies and procedures to accommodate for time-limited housing
- Turnover rate increase
- Operating multiple programs alongside the time-limited housing changes
“I don’t think limiting their stay in public housing to five to 10 years should be set in stone, but it should be used to motivate or give the individual a guide to go by. As far as work goes, we need to have the opportunity to play our part in society just like everyone else.”
– Edward Washington, Jr. – Houston Housing Resident (ABC News)
An article written by the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill states that “as Housing Authorities evict non-compliant families, they may substantially increase homelessness. This, then, may shift the burden of housing these families to local homeless assistance agencies, resulting in a need for increased public funds to re-house these households” (UNC.edu). While time limits might have the capability to alleviate the need to house families for longer than an extended period of time, these changes in policy can potentially be very dangerous to housing.
