Ben Carson may change who gets housing assistance, but whether it disappears altogether is up to Trump and Congress

As Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Ben Carson may move to make it so anyone receiving rental assistance must prove they’ve been working a certain number of hours per week. In DC, that would change who actually gets housing vouchers, but it wouldn’t make housing vouchers go away. Actual spending cuts are what would do that.

When President Donald J. Trump nominated Ben Carson to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it sparked a fair amount of head-scratching. Carson, while an accomplished pediatric neurosurgeon, has no background in housing (contrary to initial reports, Carson did not live in public housing as a child, although he did grow up in a poor family in Detroit).

In fact, Carson at first resisted Trump’s offer on the grounds that he felt unqualified to run HUD, which despite its reputation as a bureaucratic backwater is in fact a significant department: with oversight over a number of programs designed to promote affordable and equitable housing, it has a workforce of 8,000 and a budget of $50 billion.

Pretty much everyone in power, including Carson, wants to change how HUD provides assistance

Though he doesn’t have a housing background, Carson has been outspoken in saying that he sees housing assistance as a government handout that isn’t necessary to escape poverty; in fact, according to Carson, such aid can discourage upward mobility by fostering dependency.

With that in mind, it’s reasonable to expect that Carson will want to toughen rules that say who is and isn’t eligible for HUD housing assistance. And that goal dovetails with those of congressional Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, making it all the easier to realize.

This past June, Ryan released an anti-poverty blueprint that called for “expanded work requirements for those receiving federal welfare, food or housing assistance.” Although Ryan did not offer specifics about what a work requirement for housing assistance would look like, he might follow the example of the 1996 welfare reform act he celebrates, which established a requirement to work after two years on benefits along with a five-year lifetime limit.

In DC, work requirements would mean vouchers for different people, but not necessarily fewer

Any initiative to make federal housing assistance contingent on work would encompass the Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as Section 8. This program is the largest source of aid to renters both nationwide and in DC, where 13,000 households receive either tenant-based vouchers (tied to the family) or project-based vouchers (tied to particular properties) under the program.

The District of Columbia Housing Authority distributes the vouchers accordingly to a lottery. Once accepted, families spend no more than 30% of their monthly income on housing, with the federal government paying the balance of the rent to the landlord.

Under the status quo, families qualify for vouchers if they earn less than 50% of the area median income where they live; in the Washington region, 50% of AMI is $50,000 for a family of four. As long as they don't make more than that, their voucher does not expire in most cases.

In the absence of additional funding, this means that new applicants must wait until a spot opens up in the program. While some federal programs, like food stamps and Medicaid, can go to an unlimited number of people as long as they qualify, there are only so many “open spots” for people to get housing assistance.

The result is a significant backlog in housing assistance for eligible families: the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI) estimates that there are 26,000 households both have extremely low incomes and are severely rent burdened. This means that they earn less than $32,000 per year for a family of four and that they pay more than half of their income in rent. This is twice the number of households currently receiving rental assistance.

If Trump, Carson, and Ryan succeed in implementing a work requirement for housing choice vouchers, what would that mean for DC residents who participate in the program? Some may be kicked out of the program for not having jobs, although most would still be eligible.

According to a 2015 report by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), “in 2014, 74% of non-elderly, non-disabled households receiving HUD rental assistance in District of Columbia worked, had worked recently, or likely were subject to work requirements through another program.” These 74% of assistance recipients would instantly check off the work requirement box.

Of the remaining 26%, some may be able to find a job in today’s relatively healthy job market. At 6.1 percent, the unemployment rate in DC has returned to its pre-recession level - although both the number of employed people and the number of people in the labor force have fallen in recent months, suggesting that the local economy is still soft.

Out-of-work DC residents may also encounter other impediments: these include racial discrimination, criminal history, and lack of relevant skills.

But even if the 26% of rental assistance households not currently working cannot satisfy the work requirement, their newly vacant spots would quickly fill with families on the waitlist. The DCFPI study demonstrated that families who are eligible for housing assistance but don’t receive it have similar rates of employment to those who do receive assistance: of the adults in such households, 70% are “attached to the labor force” meaning that they either are working or looking for work. These households could gain benefits if non-working recipients roll off the program, and a large majority would still qualify even with a work requirement in place.

The bottom line is that a work requirement for housing assistance would have a limited impact in DC, since most families would be able to meet it. A few may lose benefits, but the overall number of enrolled families would not change since there are more than twice as many households on the waitlist for housing choice vouchers as there are households in the program.

Spending cuts are what would really reduce housing benefits for people

The above analysis assumes that overall HUD appropriations stay the same. But given Trump’s budget priorities, which emphasize tax cuts and a military buildup over domestic spending, it’s possible that any budget he submits to Congress will include cuts for HUD— possibly big ones.

Should this happen, there would be fewer vouchers available, and so the families booted by the work requirement would not be replaced by others. With this in mind, both the administration and its critics should focus on HUD’s budget, and not get bogged down too much by work requirements, which are really a side issue in the grand scheme of things. Housing advocates who want to maintain (if not increase) the current number of vouchers should dig in to defend the HUD budget against cutbacks, not against work requirements.