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Essay On Housing Assistance

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The topic selected addresses housing assistance to low income households by the federal government. The federal government provided assistance through the housing choice voucher (HCV) program, public housing, project-based rental assistance, grants and tax expenditures. Funds range from $18 billion dollars for housing vouchers to 7 billion dollars for tax expenditures for the low-income housing tax credit. The three main programs assists almost five million households or close to 10 million people. However, these programs and funds only are utilized by only one quarter of the population who are eligible to receive these services. Annual household income for the participants of these programs were less than $14,000 per year which places …show more content…

The first option includes altering the household compositions of the assisted household. This includes reducing the number of HCV’s by ten percent which would result in a savings of $18 billion dollars or increasing the number of HCV’s by ten percent which would cost 18 billion dollars. Reducing the number of HCVs could allow for money saved by the government but this could severely harm the individuals who are already experiencing many hardships and who are unable to afford housing without support from the government. This option also includes requiring individuals who are not elderly or disabled to participate in a self-sufficiency program to assist them in leaving assisted housing;, this would increase the budget by ten billion dollars, but has the potential to have positive long term effects in helping the individuals gain skills that will allow for them to decrease their dependence on governmental assistance.. The second option discusses the modification of the residents’ monthly contribution to their rent by either increasing in by 5 percent or reducing it by 5 percent. Therefore, tenants would pay thirty-five percent of their gross income instead of 30 percent and this could save over 22 billion dollars over a ten year period. However, if monthly contributions were reduced to 25 percent, the cost would rise by 22

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