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GAO-01-901R 1 (2001-07-18)

handle is hein.gao/gaocrptanqt0001 and id is 1 raw text is: SGAO Accountability * Integrity * Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 July 18, 2001 Congressional Committees Subject: Federal Housing Programs: What They Cost and What They Provide This letter provides our interim response to a mandate in the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-276) requesting that we compare the total per-unit costs of various housing assistance programs, taking into account qualitative differences in the housing and services provided. We previously briefed your office on our key interim findings (see enc. I). This letter summarizes these findings and discusses several of the policy issues they raise. In fiscal year 1999, the federal government provided housing assistance to about 5.2 million renter households' at a cost of about $28.7 billion in budgetary outlays and tax credits. During the same year, almost 9 million very-low-income renter households who qualified for housing assistance did not receive it because of other budgetary priorities and constraints. This year was not unusual: The federal government has never provided housing assistance as an entitlement for all households that qualify for aid. Instead, the Congress has traditionally appropriated funds for assisting a specific number of new households each year, as well as for renewing assistance for those households already served by various federal housing programs. Of the $28.7 billion in federal housing subsidies provided in fiscal year 1999, over $15 billion supported housing units developed under production programs that no longer receive appropriations to produce new or rehabilitated units. While maintaining the inventory of units produced under these inactive programs is an important goal of federal housing policy, our analysis for this report focused, as requested, on six programs that continue to increase the number of households assisted by the federal government: the housing voucher program, which is the largest source of federal funds for housing assistance, and five production programs, which currently receive federal funds to produce new or rehabilitated units.2 Of these production programs, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program is by far the largest, accounting for over 80 percent of the new units produced in 1999. The six programs we analyzed are as follows: Housing Voucher - supplements tenants' rental payments in privately owned, moderately priced apartments chosen by the tenants. Low-Income Housing Tax Credit - provides tax incentives for private investment in the production of new and rehabilitated affordable housing units consistent with state-determined housing priorities. 'Of these 5.2 million renter households, 4.3 million have very low incomes (50 percent or less of area median income) and 900,000 have low incomes (51 to 80 percent of area median income). 2This analysis does not include the HOME program because HOME funds are often used in conjunction with other housing programs, including the ones covered in this analysis. GAO-01-901R Costs and Characteristics of Federal Housing Assistance

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