Length of Stay in 

Assisted Housing

Multi-Disciplinary

Research Team

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development | Office of Policy Development and Research
Length of Stay in Assisted Housing

Multi-Disciplinary Research Team

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Office of Policy Development and Research

October 2017

Submitted by

Economic Systems Inc.

Prepared by

Kirk McClure, Ph.D.

University of Kansas
ii

About MDRT

PD&R developed the Multidisciplinary Research Team (MDRT) vehicle to manage a team of 

qualified researchers. Researchers are selected for their expertise to produce an array of high 

quality, short-turnaround research. MDRT researchers use a variety of HUD and external data 

sources to answer research questions relating to HUD’s priority policies and strategic goals.

Disclaimer

The contents of this report are the views of the contractor and do not necessarily reflect the views 

or policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the U.S. government.
iii

Contents

Executive Summary .........................................................................................................................v 

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 

Prior Research ..................................................................................................................................4 

Methods and Data ............................................................................................................................8 

Analysis..........................................................................................................................................10 

Scale of the Data in the Study ....................................................................................................10 

Survival Functions......................................................................................................................12 

Length of Stay by Program ........................................................................................................14 

Length of Stay by Household Type ............................................................................................16 

Length of Stay by Race and Ethnicity ........................................................................................21 

Drivers of Length of Stay ...........................................................................................................23 

Length of Stay by Income Level and Source of Income ............................................................24 

Length of Stay by Rent Levels ...................................................................................................26 

Length of Stay by Housing Market Conditions .........................................................................27 

Models Explaining Variation in Length of Stay ........................................................................28 

Conclusion .....................................................................................................................................32 

References ......................................................................................................................................34 
iv

List of Tables and Figures

Table 1: Count of Assisted Households and Percent Ending Participation by Program and Year 

of Reporting, 1995–2015 ...............................................................................................................11 

Table 2: Average Length of Stay of Households in Assisted Housing by Program by Year of 

Exit .................................................................................................................................................15 

Table 3: Households in Assisted Housing by Household Type for Years 2000, 2005, 2010, and 

2015................................................................................................................................................17 

Table 4: Average Length of Stay in Assisted Housing by Household Type by Year of Exit .......18 

Table 5: Length of Stay of Households in the Housing Choice Voucher Program by Household 

Type for Year of Exit .....................................................................................................................20 

Table 6: Length of Stay of Households in the Public Housing Program by Household Type for 

Year of Exit ....................................................................................................................................20 

Table 7: Length of Stay of Households in the Section 8 Project-Based Housing Program by 

Household Type for Year of Exit ...................................................................................................21 

Table 8: Length of Stay of Households in the Housing Choice Voucher Program by Household 

Race and Ethnicity for Year of Exit ...............................................................................................22 

Table 9: Length of Stay of Households in the Public Housing Program by Household Race and 

Ethnicity for Year of Exit ..............................................................................................................23 

Table 10: Length of Stay of Households in the Section 8 Project-Based Housing Program by 

Household Race and Ethnicity for Year of Exit ............................................................................23 

Table 11: Correlation Between Length of Stay and Income by Source All Programs, 2015 ........24 

Table 12: Correlation Between Length of Stay and Program Rents All Programs, 2015 .............26 

Table 13: Correlation Between Length of Stay and Housing Market Conditions All Programs, 

2015................................................................................................................................................27 

Table 14: Models Explaining Variation in Length of Stay of Households, 2015 Descriptive 

Statistics .........................................................................................................................................30 

Table 15: Models Explaining Variation in Length of Stay of Households, 2015 ..........................31 

Figure 1: Survival Functions by Household Cohort and Program .................................................13 
v

Executive Summary

This research addresses the length of time that households remain in the various assisted housing 

programs the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) administers. The 

research examines HUD administrative data from 1995 through 2015 and addresses four research 

questions:

1. How long do HUD-assisted households stay in public housing, Housing Choice Voucher

(HCV), and project-based Section 8 (examined separately)?

The research finds that the typical household in assisted housing now stays for about 6 years. 

The length of stay varies by household type. Elderly households stay longer, about 9 years, while 

nonelderly families with children stay about 4 years.

The average length of stay varies across the major HUD programs. Households in the Housing 

Choice Voucher program stayed the longest, with 2015 leavers staying an average of 6.6 years and a 

median of 4.8 years. Households in public housing that exited in 2015 stayed an average of 5.9 years 

and a median of 3.0 years. Section 8 project-based households that left in 2015 had slightly shorter 

stays, with an average of 5.3 years and a median of 3.0 years. In each program, a substantial fraction 

of households have tenures exceeding the 13-year cutoff used for the survival analysis.

2. Has length of stay changed over time and for various cohorts of households?

The average length of stay is generally increasing for most cohorts of assisted households. 

Tenants that left assisted housing in 2015 had stayed 6.0 years, up from 4.4 years for the 2000 

leavers. Between 2000 and 2015, mean stays of leavers increased by 1.6 years in public housing, 

3.0 years in the HCV program, and 0.3 years in project-based Section 8. The households that left 

assisted housing during the 1990s experienced some level of reduced tenure in public housing

and in Section 8 project-based housing, but these reductions were small and short-lived. The 

households that left assisted housing from 2001 forward were all part of cohorts that had stayed 

in the housing incrementally longer than the preceding cohort.

Note that changes in lengths of stay in the various programs could be driven by the changing 

composition of the households in these programs rather than by changes in household choices. 

As each program increasingly serves a more elderly population, the tendency for elderly 

households to stay longer may be driving the increases in these programs.

3. What factors (for example, household composition, income, or housing market 

conditions) influence length of stay?

The length of stay in assisted housing is rising for all groups of assisted households, categorized

by age, disability, and the presence of children. The average length of stay for elderly households

grew by 1.4 to 1.5 years from 2000 to 2015. Households with disabilities saw their average stay 

grow by 1.2 to 1.7 years during the same period. Nonelderly families with children experienced 

the smallest change; their average length of stay grew by 1.1 years.
vi

The households that stay in assisted housing and the households that exit have comparable 

incomes, averaging between $13,000 and $14,000 per year. These income levels place the 

typical assisted household below the federal poverty line, which in 2015 was about $16,000 for a 

two-person household and about $20,000 for a three-person household (U.S. Department of 

Health and Human Services, 2015).

About one-third of the households that exit assisted housing have at least some income from 

employment. However, income level and source of income were not found to be good predictors

of length of stay. Households with more income seem to stay slightly longer in assisted housing, 

as do those with income from wages. Those households with income from public assistance 

seem to stay for shorter periods, suggesting that they may have greater housing instability.

Racial and ethnic minorities seem to stay for longer periods of time within the HCV program, 

but the influence of race and ethnicity is less within the public housing and the Section 8 projectbased housing programs.

Market conditions influence length of stay in assisted housing in a manner suggesting 

substitution effects. Where the rents on housing in the private marketplace are comparatively 

high or the availability of rental housing is comparatively low, households in assisted housing 

tend to stay longer.

4. Does the distribution of stays reflect a threshold that separates households that exit 

early from households that stay for an extended period?

The research finds that households that remain in assisted housing tend to follow a common 

pattern of stays. Once admitted into one of the assisted housing programs, more than 90 percent 

of all assisted households remain in that housing through the first year. Exits accelerate modestly 

after the first year, so that 70 to 80 percent of households remain through the second year. The 

pace of leaving assisted housing gradually slows over time. About one-half of all assisted 

households leave by 4 to 6 years after entry, and about 80 percent leave by years 9 to 11.
1

Introduction

A household enters an assisted housing program by demonstrating income eligibility, usually 

after a lengthy waiting period often measured in years (Smith et al., 2015). Once in an assisted 

housing program, usually the household may remain for an indefinite period of time. A 

household may leave assisted housing for any number of reasons, including change of household 

needs, eviction for noncompliance with program or landlord rules, loss of income, or graduating 

out of need as income rises.

In order to inform budget and policy decisions concerning the various rental assistance programs, 

the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) needs accurate and reliable 

length-of-stay estimates for households in the subsidized housing programs it administers

(Thompson, 2007).

The objective of this research project is to use the HUD administrative data to analyze specific 

cohorts of assisted households over time to obtain as complete a picture as possible of the 

influences of actual household experiences on length of stay in assisted housing programs. These 

programs include the public housing program, the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, and 

the Section 8 New Construction/Substantial Rehabilitation project-based housing program.

This research uses administrative data from HUD to track specific cohorts of assisted households 

over time to obtain a more complete picture of actual household experiences and to ascertain 

whether—and for which households—lengths of stay may have changed over time. The analysis 

separately examines each of HUD’s major program categories (public housing, HCVs, and 

project-based Section 8).1 The analysis examines these programs over time with the time spans 

varying as a function of the available data.

The analysis looks at income level, source of income (for example, income from wages and 

income from public assistance) and various household characteristics (for example, comparing 

elderly, disabled, and nonelderly nondisabled households), as well as housing market conditions 

(for example, tight vs. soft markets) that influence the length of stay of various cohorts of 

assisted households. In addition to basic length of stay, the analysis replicates and extends the 

research literature by including survival analysis and other alternative methods that provide a 

realistic picture of how long households remain in assisted housing.

The research questions addressed are:

1. How long do HUD-assisted households stay in public housing, HCV, and project-based

Section 8 (examined separately)?

 

1 Section 8 project-based housing has the federal assistance payment attached to the unit, whether through project-based vouchers 

or conventional project-based assistance contracts. Tenant-based vouchers and Section 8 certificates are included in the HCV 

program.
2

2. Has length of stay changed over time and for various cohorts of households (from 1995 to the 

present)?

3. What factors (for example, household composition, income, or housing market conditions) 

influence length of stay?

4. Does the distribution of stays reflect a threshold that separates households that exit early 

from households that stay for an extended period?

The analysis employs a survival analysis approach that includes examination of how household 

characteristics as well as external market factors influence length of stay. Significant program 

changes, such as adjustments to payment standards, Fair Market Rent levels, and local 

preferences, can affect the average length of stay observed at a given point in time (Olsen et al., 

2005). Changing composition in the assisted population can alter the level of turnover because 

some types of households, such as elderly households, may remain in the program longer than 

others (Ambrose, 2005; Cortes, Lam, and Fein, 2008; Freeman, 1998). Changes in HUD’s data 

systems and the completeness and quality of reporting from local public housing authorities

(PHAs) can affect estimates of the length of stay.

Point-in-time estimates of length of stay could be affected by changes in the composition of the 

assisted population or changes in the data collection procedures that do not represent an actual 

change in the pattern of decisions by households to exit the program. Much of the prior research 

used a point-in-time methodology to estimate the average length of stay for all households that 

were participating in assisted housing programs at the time of the study. The methodology used 

in this research examines all assisted households over a very long time period enabling 

identification of how lengths of stay for various cohorts have changed over time. Point-in-time 

studies examine average lengths of stay without firm knowledge of when a household will leave 

assisted housing. The longitudinal approach used in this research permits estimating the length of 

stay of all households that entered and exited assisted housing from 2000 to 2015, and even 

longer in some cases.

The research measures different lengths of stay in the assisted housing programs (public housing, 

HCV, and Section 8 project-based housing) for each of the types of participating households. 

The household descriptors found to be influential on length of stay in prior studies include—

• Presence and ages of children.

• Household composition (for example, gender of head, marital status, and so on).

• Race or ethnicity of head of household.

• Elderly and disability status.

• Income (for example, level, or poverty status) and sources (for example, wages, public 

assistance, and so on).
3

Where possible, the research generates these estimates over time spans that cover variations in 

programmatic and market factors that influence lengths of stay. Programmatic factors include—

• Changes in data reporting system.

• PHA participation in Moving to Work (MTW) and other special initiatives.

2

Housing market factors have also been shown to influence length of stay (Freeman, 2005). These 

market factors include—

• Vacancy rate, population size, and median rents.

• Region of the country.

• Incidence of poverty.

 

2 The MTW program permits high-performing PHAs greater flexibility in the administration of their project- and tenant-based 

funds so as to test innovative, locally designed strategies to use funds more efficiently (HUD, 2017).
4

Prior Research

Several pieces of research have been published addressing the factors that influence the length of 

stay of a household in assisted housing and the timing of the decision to leave. Most of these 

studies use HUD administrative data to investigate these issues. Collectively, the research 

demonstrates that the length of stay in assisted housing varies by program, by household type, 

and by the housing market conditions in which the household resides.

Hungerford (1996) was the first to venture into explaining variation in the length of time that an 

assisted household remains in a housing program. He employed a hazard model, which estimates

the probability that a household will leave at any given time. He drew his data from the Survey 

of Income and Program Participation, a household level longitudinal panel study carried out by 

the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The results indicated that elderly households and female-headed 

households tend to remain longer in assisted housing. He found that households with greater 

educational attainment remain for a shorter period, as do households with children.

Bahchieva and Hosier (2001) examined administrative data from the New York City Housing 

Authority. The lengths of stay in public housing were found to be very long; one-half of all spells 

lasted 42 years or more, and one-quarter lasted 55 years or more. New York City is an 

exceptionally tight, high-priced housing market, and its public housing developments are 

generally viewed as high quality. These factors may contribute to long spells of public housing

residence, which may not be the case in other housing markets. The authors found that shorter 

lengths of stay in public housing were associated with being young, very old, single, White, a 

non-Latino recent immigrant, and a nonuser of public assistance, having a higher income, and 

living in a smaller apartment.

These two studies did not make use of HUD administrative data. With HUD data, the research 

can cover a much wider study area and can capture specific variations between programs. A 

variety of research projects have used HUD administrative data for this purpose.

Lubell, Shroder, and Steffen (2003) used data from HUD’s Multifamily Tenant Characteristics 

System (MTCS) and Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System (TRACS). The MTCS data 

cover public housing as well as Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs). The TRACS data cover the 

Section 8 project-based housing developments as well as a variety of other project-based subsidy 

programs. The authors focused on both length of stay in assisted housing as well as whether 

assisted households worked. They found that five of every nine nonelderly nondisabled assisted 

tenants are employed. They found that the median length of stay was 4.69 years in public 

housing and 3.08 years in the voucher program. The shortest stays were found among households 

with children and the longest among elderly households and households with disabilities.

Olsen, Davis, and Carrillo (2005) looked at HUD data from 1995 to 2002 to estimate differences 

in attrition rates among households in the HCV program, but not the various HUD project-based 

programs. The authors found that elderly or disabled households are less likely to leave the 

program. The authors found that the prevailing vacancy rate in the market influenced decisions 
5

to leave, with greater vacancy rates associated with a lower probability of leaving assisted 

housing. The authors argue that vacancy rates not only describe market softness but also moving 

costs, leading to ambiguous expectations for this relationship. A significant contribution of their 

research is the analysis of administrative decisions by PHAs. The authors find that large 

decreases in the voucher program’s payment standard, which sets a ceiling on the maximum 

amount of subsidy that can be given to any one household, will have a very small effect on 

program attrition. The same is true for increases in the tenant contribution, that is, the share of 

the income of each household that must be contribute toward payment of rent and utilities.

Ambrose (2005) examines households in both the tenant-based HCV program as well as 

households in the project-based public housing and Section 8 programs. Rather than looking at 

the length of stay in assisted housing, he employs a hazard rate approach which models the 

influences on a household’s decision to leave assisted housing at any given point in time. He 

finds that characteristics of both households and housing markets influence that decision. Among 

the household characteristics, the likelihood of leaving a program increases with the presence of 

children and larger households and decreases among households that are elderly, disabled, Black 

or Hispanic. Among employed households, he finds limited support for the idea that increased 

wages increase the likelihood of leaving public housing, but not other programs. The same is true 

with income level generally; higher income households are more likely to leave. He finds mixed 

results on the influence of housing market characteristics. Greater poverty in the neighborhood 

decreases the probability of leaving assisted housing, but higher educational attainment among 

the neighborhood population increases the probability of leaving. Finally, the greater the level of 

housing price appreciation in the market, the lower the level of leaving housing assistance. 

Ambrose notes the similarities of his findings with Hungerford (1996) from the previous decade.

Cortes, Lam, and Fein (2008) found that the demographic profile and household composition of 

assisted tenants have changed, and such changes influence the length of stay. Their study 

particularly focused on how the presence of children influenced the length of stay in the HCV 

program, and they found that the presence of an infant or a toddler increased a household’s 

length of stay. The presence of other children in the same household, however, reduced the 

effect. The presence of teenagers, especially male teenagers, reduced the length of stay.

Climaco et al. (2008) examined only households in the HCV program, focusing on the use of the 

portability feature of the program. They examined households that received voucher assistance 

from 1998 to 2005, finding that 8.9 percent made a portability move. The rate of portability 

movers was highest among Black households (10.3 percent) compared with White households 

(8.1 percent) and Hispanic households (8.6 percent). Households with young children or with a 

younger head of household were more likely to make a portability move than HCV households 

as a whole. The length of stay in the HCV program is influenced by portability moves, as these 

moves are most likely to occur between the fourth and fifth years of participation. The authors 

found that HCV households that made portability moves relocated to census tracts with lower 

poverty rates.
6

Haley and Gray (2008) looked at only those households in Section 202 supportive housing for 

elderly people. Their study period was limited to a single year, 2006. They found that residents 

of Section 202 housing developments had a median stay of 4 years, with 18 percent of all 

households residing in the housing for more than 10 years. Typically, elderly persons admitted to 

Section 202 projects reside for longer periods of time in this kind of housing than do elderly 

households admitted to public housing or other multifamily assisted housing, or elderly using 

HCVs.

Smith et al. (2015) make an important contribution to the research on length of stay in assisted 

housing. They used data from the Urban Institute’s HOPE VI Panel study to look at what 

happens to housing assistance leavers. This panel followed 887 households from five housing

developments from 2001 to 2005. During that period, 103 households left housing assistance. 

The authors found that households leave housing assistance for both positive and negative 

reasons. Positive reasons include marriage or a wage increase; negative reasons include breaking 

program rules, being evicted, or being relocated. The housing assistance leavers were found to be 

doing better than those still in public housing or receiving rent subsidies; they had higher 

incomes, were more likely to be married, and lived in lower poverty, and in safer communities. 

Not surprisingly, households that left for negative reasons were found to be worse off than those 

households that left for positive reasons.

The prior research confirms that multiple factors influence that amount of time that a household 

resides in assisted housing.

These factors include demographic factors such as—

• Age: elderly households generally stay longer.

• Disabled: households with disabled individuals generally stay longer.

• Children: the presence of children in a household tends to shorten the stay.

• Gender: female-headed households tend to stay longer.

• Race: minority households, especially Black households, tend to stay longer but also tend to 

make greater use of portability moves within the HCV program.

• Income: higher income is associated with a shorter stay.

• Welfare: the lower income with welfare usage is associated with longer stays.

• Education: higher levels of educational attainment are associated with shorter stays.

These factors include market conditions such as:

• Vacancy: researchers disagree on the influence of vacancy rates. Some research suggests that 

tights markets (low vacancy rates) inhibit moving, thus lengthening stays in assisted housing. 

Other research suggests that soft markets (high vacancy rates) contributed to longer stays.

• Prices: a high level of rent and rent inflation is associated with longer stays.
7

These factors include administrative decisions within the HCV program such as—

• Payment standards: decreases in payment standards are not associated with households

leaving the program.

• Tenant contribution: increases in the tenant’s contribution toward rent causes greater 

program attrition.

This information guides the current analysis of length of stay in assisted housing.
8

Methods and Data

This research assesses the length of stay in assisted housing by households. The research uses 

methods that calculate the period of assistance for different types of households, in different 

types of markets, confronting different sets of administrative procedures.

It is important to note at the outset that changes in length of stay vary by household type, by 

program, and by housing market conditions. All these variations are examined. The reasons that 

a household chooses to leave assisted housing are not recorded in the administrative data. Thus, 

it is not known if a household left because their income rose so that the household graduated out 

of assisted housing, or if the household had to leave due to noncompliance or breakup of a 

household. Whatever the cause, variations in the length of stay in assisted housing can be seen 

across different household groups. The programs are increasingly serving older populations, so 

the lengths of stay in these programs will become longer, as elderly households are prone to 

longer stays. Variations in length of stay can be seen across different housing markets. As rents 

continue to rise faster than inflation and faster than the incomes of renter households, extremely 

low-income renter households will have fewer and fewer private market alternatives, preventing 

them from leaving assisted housing. HUD administrative data were explored to parse out these 

variations.

Administrative data are not always complete or accurate. As was true with prior research, many 

household records contain suspect information requiring decisions on treatment of these 

troublesome data records. Households with missing data, miscoded data, and otherwise suspect 

data were omitted.

The research examined individual households to assess whether tenant behavior changes over 

time through a cohort-based method. This method can provide accurate, readily understandable, 

longitudinal descriptions of the assisted population’s lengths of stay in assisted housing. These 

lengths of stay are analyzed across different points in time, across households of different types,

and across different housing markets, all which may affect households’ decisions to exit the 

various public assistance programs.

The household data were drawn from HUD’s administrative data. These household level data 

were merged with American Community Survey, or ACS, data describing demographic, 

housing, and economic conditions of the markets where the assisted households reside.

The primary database for this study is the recently created Longitudinal Occupancy, 

Demography, and Income (LODI) file that combines data from HUD’s Multifamily Tenant 

Characteristics System (MTCS) and Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System (TRACS) for 

1995 through 2015. This 21-year timeframe offers the opportunity to better examine any changes 

over time in the length of stay of households in any of the three major HUD rental assistance 

programs.
9

The data were collected from three types of files. For the years 2003 through 2015, the data came 

from the combined LODI reporting system, which contains data from the three major programs. 

For the years 1995 through 2002, the data came from two separate systems. The MTCS data 

cover public housing as well as tenant-based vouchers combined with the previous Section 8 

Certificate program. The TRACS data cover the various Section 8 project-based programs as 

well as a variety of other multifamily programs. The files were merged to form a single dataset 

covering all reported households in the following programs—

• The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program: This program includes all voucher 

households reported by PHAs plus Section 8 Certificates reported in 2002 or earlier but not 

including households in the Moving to Work (MTW) program.

• The public housing program: This program includes all reported public housing

households from PHAs that were not in the MTW program.

• Moving to Work public housing authorities (MTW PHAs): This program includes all 

households reported by MTW PHAs whether the household is using a tenant-based voucher 

or project-based assistance.

• Section 8 project-based program: This program includes all households in units assisted by 

the regular Section 8 New Construction or Substantial Rehabilitation program.

• Section 202/8: This project-based program serves the very low-income elderly through 

nonprofit sponsors.

• Section 202/811 Project Rental Assistance Contracts (PRAC) and Section 202/162 

Project Assistance Contracts, or PAC: This group of project-based programs covers 

housing for elderly people and persons with disabilities in which HUD provided capital 

advances to nonprofit sponsors.

Note that the following programs were not included in the analysis—

• The Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation program.

• The Rent Supplement program.

• The Rental Assistance Program, or RAP.

• Section 236 program.

• Below Market Interest Rate, or BMIR, program.
10

Analysis

Scale of the Data in the Study

Table 1 describes the scale of the data brought to this study. More than 80 million records were 

included in the study. Note that this table counts all households that entered, left, or remained in 

each program in each year. Thus, to the extent that a household left and a new household moved 

in, a unit can be counted multiple times in a single reporting year. The data are less 

comprehensive in the early years of the automated Multifamily Tenant Characteristics System 

(MTCS) and Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System (TRACS) data entry systems. Thus, 

the numbers of households included in the data from 1995 through 1998 are smaller than in the 

later years, 2003 through 2015, when the data collections systems were up to speed.

Table 1 indicates—

• Data are available and reliable for the public housing program from 1995, although the level 

of reporting is lower from 1995 through 2002.

• The adoption of the MTW program changed the reporting requirements for the PHAs 

participating in that program. Thus, from 2006 forward, the MTW public housing and 

voucher households are reported separately.

• Data are also available for the HCV program from 1995 but are considered to be more 

reliable from 1999 forward.

• Data are available for the Section 8 project-based programs from 1998 forward.

Table 1 lists the percentage of reporting households in each year that ended participation in the 

housing assistance program. The rates of program exiting do vary from program to program and 

over the decades of the study period. However, the general finding is that rates of exiting rental 

assistance do not vary by much. Over the entire study period, the percentage of households that

ended participation averaged 14 to 18 percent each year for all programs. Thus, one in five to 

one in seven assisted households leave each program in each year.
11

Table 1: Count of Assisted Households and Percent Ending Participation by Program and Year of Reporting, 1995–2015

Housing Choice 

Vouchera

Public Housingb Moving to Workc Section 8

Project-Basedd

Section 202/8 Section 202/

811/162 PRAC

Year of 

Reporting

Household

s

Perc

ent

Households Perc

ent

Household

s

Perc

ent

Households Perc

ent

Household

s

Perc

ent

Househol

ds

Perc

ent

1995 176,152 13 495,737 10 — — — — — — — —

1996 238,845 14 480,771 12 — — — — — — — —

1997 320,084 14 520,614 13 — — — — — — — —

1998 307,090 9 342,646 10 — — 860,593 9 193,981 7 35,554 8

1999 865,491 11 660,252 13 — — 801,643 10 188,825 8 42,556 7

2000 1,178,121 12 883,790 13 — — 845,762 17 198,221 13 52,230 13

2001 1,090,084 15 659,160 13 — — 915,548 13 203,606 11 61,514 11

2002 1,023,810 15 519,920 19 — — 852,434 14 192,555 12 65,276 11

2003 2,018,606 13 1,067,758 18 — — 1,147,450 16 246,791 14 22,158 14

2004 2,033,948 14 1,131,311 20 — — 1,223,538 18 253,507 15 25,655 15

2005 2,079,755 16 1,159,520 21 — — 1,227,866 18 250,573 15 27,824 16

2006 2,231,601 17 1,277,773 23 4,067 0 1,208,650 18 247,528 15 29,558 16

2007 2,236,668 15 1,274,534 20 56,367 5 1,254,894 19 246,232 15 32,393 16

2008 2,266,021 14 1,290,500 19 106,875 12 1,238,125 19 242,021 15 33,391 16

2009 2,262,709 14 1,266,540 18 148,896 14 1,229,023 18 238,475 15 34,463 16

2010 2,239,551 14 1,282,782 18 208,619 15 1,225,216 18 236,434 15 35,948 15

2011 2,211,323 13 1,315,687 18 270,762 17 1,225,002 17 235,064 14 36,842 15

2012 2,164,736 12 1,280,553 16 248,552 5 1,219,145 18 232,829 15 37,477 16

2013 2,158,019 12 1,285,272 17 256,459 8 1,202,938 18 229,948 15 37,827 16

2014 2,159,297 12 1,328,168 20 354,135 25 1,198,642 17 229,105 15 37,954 15

2015 2,206,597 12 1,318,363 21 389,193 27 1,205,568 18 229,409 15 38,730 15

All years 33,468,508 14 20,841,651 18 2,043,925 16 20,082,037 17 4,095,104 14 687,350 14

PRAC = Project Rental Assistance Contracts.

a Housing Choice Voucher includes Section 8 tenant-based certificates. b Public housing includes only units administered by non-Moving to Work public housing authorities. c Moving to Work units include both project-based (public housing) and tenant-based (voucher) units. d Section 8 project-based units do not include Section 202/8 units.
12

The programs differ in terms of the rates of exit:

• An average of 14 percent of participating households in the HCV program exit each year. 

This annual average rate of exit ranged from a low of 9 percent to a high of 17 percent, with 

no clear pattern over the study period.

• Households exiting the public housing program ranged from 10 percent to 23 percent, with 

an average of 18 percent exiting each year. 

• Households in the Section 8 project-based housing developments exited at annual rates from 

9 percent to 19 percent, with an average of 17 percent.

• Section 202/8 households and Section 202/811/162 households reported very low rates of 

exit in the early years of 1998 and 1999. These reports may be unreliable, given that they 

rose very sharply in 2000 and have remained relatively steady since that time. Since 2000, 

both sets of the Section 202 developments have experienced exit rates ranging from 11 

percent to 16 percent per year.

In terms of the percent of assisted households leaving the housing assistance programs in any 

one year, all programs peaked in the mid-2000s. Exit rates for the HCV program peaked in 2006, 

public housing peaked in 2006, and Section 8 project-based housing peaked in 2008. The mid2000s were a period of turmoil in housing markets, but those problems were more keenly felt in 

the markets of owner-occupied housing and not in rental markets.

Survival Functions

Survival functions indicate the proportion of a selected group of assisted households that remain 

in assisted housing (that is, “survive”) after any specified length of stay. Figure 1 presents 

survival functions for four cohorts of tenants for each of the three programs. The cohorts are 

based on households that lived in or exited from assisted housing during 4 different years: 2015, 

2010, 2005, and 2000. The changes in these functions display the changing trends in the patterns 

of staying (or surviving) in assisted housing. The charts illustrate survival from program entry 

through 13 years, although a small proportion of households may stay substantially longer. 

Survival function illustrations have the advantage that they identify any thresholds beyond which 

the result is either rapid withdrawals from the programs or stabilization of the stays (Thompson, 

2007). The charts answer questions such as—

• What is the general shape of the survival function?

• Does a point exist at which the result is rapid exiting from the programs?

• Does a point exist at which the pace of exiting stabilizes?

• How do the programs compare with each other?
13

Figure 1: Survival Functions by Household Cohort and Program
14

Figure 1 illustrates that typically, 90 percent of households who enter assisted housing remain in 

assisted housing through the first year. The losses are minimal during the first year, probably due 

to the effects of a yearlong lease on the assisted unit. These leases have the effect of keeping 

households in the unit. After the first year, the survival function reflects the successive loss of 

households from the programs for each length of stay in years. In all cases, the figures illustrate a 

very standard form of survival function, with survival always decreasing but at a decreasing rate 

over time.

For the HCV program, the shape of the survival functions has not changed dramatically. 

However, they have shifted toward a horizontal axis more so than the public housing program or 

the Section 8 project-based program as HCV tenants are choosing to stay longer. Perhaps this 

shift reflects a response to worsening rental housing market conditions. After the first year, the 

HCV survival functions do not show any dramatic thresholds where rates of exit change 

substantially. There is no point at which the pace of exits stabilizes. Rather, the most recent 

functions for 2010 and 2015 show a steady loss of households at a gradually slowing pace.

For the public housing and project-based Section 8 programs, the survival functions have 

changed very little over time. Both programs, in all four periods, show a steady decline in the 

percentages of assisted households that remain in the program. Neither program shows evidence 

of any thresholds where the pace of change shifts dramatically or lengths of stay after which the 

pace of change stabilizes.

Length of Stay by Program

Table 2 indicates the average length of stay of households that exited the various programs by 

the year of exit. This table provides the means to compare the typical length of stay across the 

programs and over the entire study period.

The reliability of the data becomes an issue with the examination of this table. During the early 

years of HUD’s automated tenant data systems, the reporting of household stays may have been 

biased. Households that lived in assisted housing for a long time prior to the automated systems 

often did not have their date of admission recorded. As a result, the households with complete 

records, including both date of admission and date of exit, may be biased toward those 

households that entered assisted housing only a short time before the year of exit. Thus, the 

length of stay figures become more trustworthy after 1998, as the automated systems matured.

With this caveat, it is apparent that the length of stay in assisted housing has grown longer in all 

programs over the study period. In 2000, the typical household that ended participation in 

assisted housing had lived in that housing for 4.4 years. By 2015, the typical household that

ended participation had lived in assisted housing for 6.0 years, an increase of 1.6 years.
15

Table 2: Average Length of Stay of Households in Assisted Housing by Program by Year of 

Exit

Year of Exit Housing 

Choice 

Vouchera

Public 

Housingb

Moving 

to 

Workc

Section 8 

ProjectBasedd

Section 

202/8

Section 

202/811/162 

PRAC

All 

Programs

1995 0.9 4.6 — — — — 3.5

1996 1.3 4.8 — — — — 3.5

1997 1.6 4.6 — — — — 3.4

1998 1.7 4.2 — 5.3 6.2 2.0 4.5

1999 2.6 3.9 — 5.0 6.2 2.2 3.8

2000 3.6 4.3 — 5.0 6.2 2.5 4.4

2001 3.8 5.0 — 4.5 6.0 2.6 4.4

2002 3.6 5.3 — 4.5 6.1 2.8 4.4

2003 3.6 5.1 — 4.5 6.0 2.4 4.4

2004 4.0 5.7 — 4.7 6.1 2.5 4.8

2005 4.5 6.0 — 4.7 6.2 2.6 5.0

2006 4.9 6.8 5.0 4.7 6.2 2.8 5.5

2007 4.9 6.1 5.5 4.7 6.2 2.9 5.3

2008 5.1 5.6 6.2 4.8 6.2 2.9 5.2

2009 5.4 5.5 5.5 4.9 6.3 3.1 5.3

2010 5.8 5.9 6.6 5.0 6.4 3.3 5.6

2011 5.8 5.5 6.2 5.0 6.4 3.4 5.5

2012 5.7 5.4 6.1 5.0 6.5 3.5 5.4

2013 6.0 5.5 5.4 5.1 6.5 3.8 5.6

2014 6.5 5.8 6.2 5.1 6.7 4.1 5.9

2015 6.6 5.9 5.7 5.3 6.7 4.3 6.0

2015 median 4.8 3.0 4.0 3.0 4.4 2.4 3.6

Average for all years 4.9 5.6 5.9 4.9 6.3 3.0 5.1

Median for all years 3.1 2.6 4.4 2.6 4.1 1.9 2.9

PRAC = Project Rental Assistance Contracts. a Housing Choice Voucher includes Section 8 tenant-based certificates. b Public housing includes only units administered by non-Moving to Work public housing authorities. c Moving to Work units include both project-based and tenant-based units. d Section 8 project-based units do not include Section 202/8 units.

The increase in average length of stay among households that left assisted housing was greatest 

in the HCV program, growing by 3.0 years, from 3.6 in 2000 to 6.6 in 2015. The increase was 

smaller in public housing. The average length of stay by households leaving public housing was 

4.6 years in 1995, falling slightly to 4.3 years in 2000, but growing to 5.9 years in 2015, an 

increase of 1.6 years. The Section 8 project-based housing program is more stable in terms of the 

length of stay than the other programs. The Section 8 program had an average length of stay of 

5.0 years in 2000, rising less than one-third of a year to 5.3 years in 2015, after experiencing 

small increases and decreases in the intervening years.

The MTW PHAs generally followed the same trend, with increasing lengths of stay over time. 

Unlike the other programs, households in MTW programs showed a slight drop in average length 

of stay from 2014 to 2015. Because HUD gives discretion to MTW PHAs to alter their approach 

to delivering assisted housing and the mixing of tenant-based households with project-based 

households, this volatility could be expected.
16

The Section 202/8 developments experienced average lengths of stay that mirrored the regular 

Section 8 project-based developments. The special needs households served by Section 202/811 

and 202/162 developments had the shortest average length of stay, but they also experienced a 

large proportional growth in length of stay from 2.5 years in 2000 to 4.3 years in 2015.

Length of Stay by Household Type

Prior research indicates that the length of stay in assisted housing varies with the type of 

household. Elderly households and households with disabilities tend to stay longer than 

nonelderly, nondisabled households. Households without children tend to stay longer than 

households with children.

By 2015, the housing assistance programs helped about 5.1 million households, up from 4.0 

million in 2000. HUD categorized these households by three characteristics of household type: 

elderly or nonelderly, disabled or nondisabled, and with or without children. Table 3 indicates 

that the largest group is elderly households with no children, at 33 percent of the total. In size, 

the nonelderly with children follows this group, at 32 percent of the total. These findings 

represent a reversal in the rankings of these two categories; in 2000, nonelderly households with 

children was the largest household type, comprising 43 percent of the total. Growth in the 

population of assisted households is nearly entirely among elderly households and households

with people with disabilities. These two groups grew collectively by about 1 million households 

from 2000 to 2015. Nonelderly households with children grew by fewer than 20,000 households 

during the same time period.

The message to take from table 3 is that changes in the composition of the assisted households 

are very likely a driver of changes in the length of stays in assisted housing. Elderly households 

and households containing people with disabilities are known to remain in assisted housing 

longer than nonelderly, nondisabled households. This shift toward more elderly and disabled 

households will generate longer stays in assisted housing, independent of changes in other 

factors.
17

Table 3: Households in Assisted Housing by Household Type for Years 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015

Year of Reporting

2000 2005 2010 2015

Households Percent Households Percent Households Percent Households Percent

Household category

Elderly

 No children 1,215,988 30 1,401,791 30 1,560,527 30 1,667,674 33

Nonelderly

Disabled

 No children 

503,972 12 745,588 16 900,883 17 917,370 18

Nonelderly 

Nondisabled

 No children 

473,984 12 478,776 10 569,279 11 603,364 12

Elderly 

 With children 38,030 1 45,512 1 49,934 1 49,953 1

Nonelderly 

Disabled

 With children 

73,280 2 237,703 5 276,289 5 259,398 5

Nonelderly 

Nondisabled

 With children

1,742,621 43 1,823,221 39 1,819,037 35 1,630,997 32

All households 4,047,875 100 4,732,591 100 5,175,949 100 5,128,756 100

Household subtotals

Elderly 1,254,018 31 1,447,303 31 1,610,461 31 1,717,627 33

Nonelderly 2,793,857 69 3,285,288 69 3,565,488 69 3,411,129 67

Disabled 577,252 14 983,291 21 1,177,172 23 1,176,768 23

Able-bodied 3,470,623 86 3,749,300 79 3,998,777 77 3,951,988 77

With children 1,853,931 46 2,106,436 45 2,145,260 41 1,940,348 38

No children 2,193,944 54 2,626,155 55 3,030,689 59 3,188,408 62

Elderly or disabled 1,831,270 45 2,430,594 51 2,787,633 54 2,894,395 56

Nonelderly Able-bodied 2,216,605 55 2,301,997 49 2,388,316 46 2,234,361 44
18

Table 4 examines average length of stay of different households by year of exit from assisted 

housing, combining all households from all programs. The table is organized by a household 

type designation used by HUD. This household type designation divides all assisted households 

into six categories based on three variables, which indicate if the household is (1) elderly or 

nonelderly, (2) disabled or nondisabled, and (3) membered with children or not.

Table 4: Average Length of Stay in Assisted Housing by Household Type by Year of Exit

Year of Exit Elderly

No

Children

Nonelderly

Disabled

No 

Children

Nonelderly

Nondisabled

No Children

Elderly

With

Children

Nonelderly

Disabled

With 

Children

Nonelderly

Nondisabled

With 

Children

1995 7.4 2.9 2.4 6.3 2.3 1.9

1996 7.9 2.3 2.9 6.7 2.0 2.0

1997 7.8 2.4 2.9 7.4 2.5 2.1

1998 7.7 3.0 3.0 8.0 3.4 3.0

1999 7.3 2.8 2.8 7.2 3.1 2.7

2000 7.6 3.4 3.8 8.1 3.7 3.1

2001 7.6 3.5 3.8 7.6 3.5 3.0

2002 7.7 3.6 3.7 8.0 3.6 3.1

2003 7.8 3.6 3.7 8.2 3.6 3.0

2004 8.3 3.9 4.2 9.5 3.8 3.3

2005 8.6 4.2 4.6 10.2 4.2 3.5

2006 9.1 4.7 5.3 12.5 4.7 3.9

2007 8.7 4.5 4.9 10.2 4.4 3.7

2008 8.5 4.5 4.8 9.6 4.4 3.6

2009 8.4 4.6 4.8 9.2 4.5 3.7

2010 8.7 4.8 5.3 9.5 4.9 3.8

2011 8.7 4.8 4.9 9.0 4.9 3.8

2012 8.6 4.7 4.8 8.8 4.5 3.7

2013 8.8 4.9 5.1 9.1 4.6 3.9

2014 9.1 5.0 5.4 9.4 4.9 4.1

2015 9.1 5.1 5.5 9.5 4.9 4.2

2015 median 6.7 3.1 2.7 6.5 3.3 2.8

All years 8.5 4.4 4.5 9.5 4.4 3.5

Median for 

all years

5.9 2.5 2.0 5.9 2.8 2.2

Growth in years

2000–2015

1.5 1.7 1.7 1.4 1.2 1.1

Table 4 presents lengths of stay of households exiting from 1995 through 2015 for these 

household types, extending the period of time studied over the prior research with the caveat that 

some of the counts are quite small in the early years of 1995 to 2000 for some programs. Despite 

the longer study period, the results are generally similar to previous studies. Elderly households

tend to have longer stays, at 8 to 9 years, compared with less than 5 years for nonelderly 

households. Households with children, which often consist of single mothers with children, tend 

to have shorter lengths of stay. The group of assisted households that has expanded in size most 

in recent years is households with disabled members. This group tends to have lengths of stay 

comparable to those of the nonelderly, which are well short of the stays of elderly households.
19

All six household types listed in table 4 experienced longer stays in assisted housing over the 

study period. With only a few very small exceptions, each household type’s average length of 

stay increased with the passage of each year; however, changes from one year to the next were 

not dramatic, and the increases were incremental but unequal. The rank ordering of the 

household types by average length of stay in the late 1990s remained the same in 2015, with 

elderly staying longest and the nonelderly with children staying the shortest. However, the 

amount of growth was only slightly different. The average length of stay for elderly households

grew from 1.4 to 1.5 years from 2000 to 2015. The stays for the nondisabled, nonelderly

households grew from 1.1 to 1.7 years, and the stays for households with disabilities grew from 

1.2 to 1.7 years.

Average length of stays can be misleading because survival functions of many shapes can have 

the same average. To prevent being misled by this issue but to make the analysis manageable, 

tables 5 through 7 follow the procedures used by Cortes, Lam, and Fein (2008). These authors 

examined length of stay of cohorts at three points along the survival function: the 25th, the 50th 

(median), and the 75th percentile for each of the three major programs. This technique discloses 

any dramatic shifts in the survival functions, such as a large increase or decrease in the length of 

stay. Any shift in the survival function will be identified as a significant change in the average 

length of stay at any one or all the percentiles.

Figure 1 showed that survival functions shifted for households in the HCV program with longer 

stays in more recent years. Table 5 helps to identify the patterns of change by household type for 

the HCV program, providing insights into which household types experienced the greatest shifts 

and in what direction. The simple answer to this issue is that all household types experienced 

some level of increased length of stay over time. All household types, at all three percentiles, 

experienced increases in the length of stay during all three periods, from 2000 to 2005, 2005 to 

2010, and 2010 to 2015. The scales of the shifts were generally comparable. The 50th percentile, 

or median length of stay, increased, from 0.5 years to 3.3 years over the various time periods, 

with most increasing at the lower end of this range, from 0.5 to 1.1 years, over any 5-year period. 

The largest 5-year increases in median stays were more than 2 years for elderly households with 

no children and more than 3 years for elderly households with children. Only one exception to 

the pattern of growth in length of stay for the HCV households exists; the nondisabled elderly 

with children experienced a slight reduction in the median length of stay from 2010 to 2015. It is 

worth noting that this cohort had one of the longest lengths of stay among all the assisted 

households at more than 7 years at the median. Thus, a slight downward shift is unremarkable for 

this already long-tenured population.
20

Table 5: Length of Stay of Households in the Housing Choice Voucher Program by 

Household Type for Year of Exit

Year 

of 

Exit

Percentile Elderly

No 

Children

Nonelderly

Disabled

No 

Children

Nonelderly

Nondisabled

No Children

Elderly

With 

Children

Nonelderly

Disabled

With 

Children

Nonelderly

Nondisabled

With 

Children

2000 25th 1.7 0.9 0.9 1.3 0.9 0.9

50th 4.6 1.8 2.1 3.3 2.0 1.9

75th 10.3 4.2 5.7 8.2 4.6 4.0

2005 25th 2.6 1.4 1.2 2.3 1.5 1.3

50th 5.1 2.9 2.8 4.4 2.9 2.7

75th 10.4 5.3 6.0 8.5 5.0 4.6

2010 25th 3.1 1.7 1.4 3.4 1.9 1.6

50th 7.2 3.9 3.9 7.7 3.9 3.3

75th 11.8 8.2 8.9 12.1 8.0 7.0

2015 25th 3.6 1.7 1.4 3.4 1.9 1.8

50th 8.0 4.2 4.3 7.3 4.4 4.1

75th 13.7 8.8 10.2 13.1 8.3 7.8

The survival functions for the public housing households and the Section 8 project-based 

households did not shift by much. Thus, the value of tables 6 and 7 is to determine whether the 

lengths of stay among exiting households remained stable for all household types. It is possible 

that the stable overall survival functions masked significant shifts in different directions between 

household types that washed out when combined. The message from these two tables is that both 

public housing and Section 8 project-based housing experienced, with only minor exceptions, 

very small shifts in lengths of stay across all household types across all time periods.

Table 6: Length of Stay of Households in the Public Housing Program by Household Type

for Year of Exit

Year 

of 

Exit

Percentile Elderly

No 

Children

Nonelderly

Disabled

No 

Children

Nonelderly

Nondisabled

No Children

Elderly

With 

Children

Nonelderly

Disabled

With 

Children

Nonelderly

Nondisabled

With 

Children

2000 25th 2.1 0.6 0.5 1.5 0.8 0.7

50th 5.8 1.7 1.2 4.8 1.8 1.6

75th 12.9 4.0 3.4 16.9 4.4 3.5

2005 25th 2.9 0.9 0.7 3.0 0.9 0.9

50th 7.3 2.3 2.0 9.5 2.4 2.0

75th 15.9 5.3 5.7 25.8 5.5 4.3

2010 25th 2.9 1.0 0.9 2.4 1.1 0.9

50th 7.1 2.5 2.1 6.3 2.4 2.0

75th 14.6 5.6 5.8 16.6 5.3 4.1

2015 25th 3.0 1.1 0.9 2.4 1.1 1.0

50th 7.6 2.7 2.4 6.5 2.5 2.3

75th 15.6 6.1 6.5 15.4 5.4 4.7
21

Table 7: Length of Stay of Households in the Section 8 Project-Based Housing Program by 

Household Type for Year of Exit

Year 

of 

Exit

Percentile Elderly

No 

Children

Nonelderly

Disabled

No 

Children

Nonelderly

Nondisabled

No Children

Elderly

With 

Children

Nonelderly

Disabled

With 

Children

Nonelderly

Nondisabled

With 

Children

2000 25th 2.4 1.0 0.7 2.4 1.0 0.9

50th 6.2 2.2 1.8 6.1 2.2 1.9

75th 13.1 5.4 4.8 15.0 5.4 4.1

2005 25th 2.3 0.9 0.7 1.8 1.0 0.9

50th 6.0 2.1 1.6 4.5 2.1 1.9

75th 12.7 4.7 3.6 12.1 4.7 3.7

2010 25th 2.4 0.9 0.8 2.0 1.1 0.9

50th 6.1 2.2 1.8 5.4 2.3 1.9

75th 12.4 4.9 4.5 12.8 4.7 3.8

2015 25th 2.6 1.1 0.9 2.2 1.1 1.0

50th 6.5 2.6 2.0 5.4 2.7 2.3

75th 13.1 5.7 4.9 12.0 5.8 4.5

The shifts from one time period to the next in lengths of stay were nearly all small fractions of a 

year. The same is true for shifts at the 25th and 75th percentiles. The only exception to this shift 

of any scale is the population of elderly households who are caring for children. This population 

largely serves as the caretakers for their grandchildren because the grandchildren’s parents are no 

longer able to care for them, leaving elderly people to care for grandchildren (Pebley and 

Rudkin, 1999). This particular cohort experienced some volatility, both up and down, in terms of 

length of stay. It is important to realize this cohort has the longest length of stay at the upper 

reaches of the survival function in all three of the major programs. The 75th percentile length of 

stay is 12 to 15 years, compared with 4 to 10 years for the nonelderly cohorts.

Length of Stay by Race and Ethnicity

Tables 8 through 10 perform the same analysis of shifts in survival functions across the rental 

assistance programs, but with these tables, the comparison is across racial and ethnic groups. 

These tables look for significant shifts in the survival functions for various racially or ethnically 

defined groups of households across the three rental assistance programs. To keep the tables of a 

manageable scale, all households have been placed into one of four racial or ethnic groups based 

on the race and ethnicity of the head of household. The first three groups are households that are 

non-Hispanic, with separate groups for White, Black, and all Other non-Hispanic households. 

The fourth group contains all Hispanic households of any race.

Table 8 lists the lengths of stay along the survival functions for HCV households. All households 

increased their median lengths of stay over all time periods, but the increases were all small, 

ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 years. In all cases, the length of stay at the median was greater for 

minority households compared with White households. Comparing the 2015 with the 2000 
22

cohort of exiters, median stays increased more for Black and Hispanic households than for White 

and Other Non-Hispanic households. Over the longer timespan, the 75th percentile length of stay 

increased substantially among exiters for all demographic groups.

Table 8: Length of Stay of Households in the Housing Choice Voucher Program by 

Household Race and Ethnicity for Year of Exit

Year of Exit Percentile White

Non-Hispanic

Black

Non-Hispanic

Other

Non-Hispanic

Hispanic

2000 25th 0.9 1.1 1.0 1.0

50th 1.8 2.5 2.5 2.3

75th 4.3 5.1 5.9 5.7

2005 25th 1.3 1.9 1.9 1.8

50th 2.8 3.5 3.5 3.4

75th 5.0 6.1 6.1 6.3

2010 25th 1.5 2.1 2.0 2.0

50th 3.3 4.9 4.4 4.9

75th 7.4 8.9 8.5 9.1

2015 25th 1.4 2.4 1.8 2.3

50th 3.9 5.6 5.2 5.8

75th 8.7 10.2 10.5 10.9

The administrative data used for this analysis provide limited information about factors that 

could lead to disparities in length of stay in the HCV program. Studies by DeLuca, Garboden,

and Rosenblatt (2013) and Krysan and Bader (2007) that examine panels of voucher households 

in individual cities have found that minority households confront greater challenges in their 

search for rental housing. These challenges may influence the perceived desirability of integrated 

neighborhoods. Discrimination has been found to increase the difficulty for minority households 

with a voucher to search for and lease units that will pass inspection (Bardo and Nguyen, 2010).

Both overall increases in length of stay for all demographic groups as well as differences for 

minority HCV households could be driven by the shrinking availability of units with rents below 

the Fair Market Rent levels that govern the program. HUD’s Worst Case Housing Needs study 

for 2015 (Watson et al., 2017) by HUD and the Affordable Housing Needs study for 2005 (HUD 

PD&R, 2007) indicate that the availability of rental units below the Fair Market Rent levels fell 

by about 6 percent over the period from 2005 to 2015. The number of affordable and available 

units per 100 income-eligible households fell from 86.6 in 2005 to 81.6 in 2015. If reductions in 

affordable units were greater in minority-dominated rental markets, it could increase market 

pressure causing minority HCV households to stay longer in the assisted housing program.

Table 9 finds very small differences between non-Hispanic White households and the three 

minority groups, in terms of increases in median lengths of stay in public housing. This finding is 

very different from the increases in lengths of stay in the HCV program where, relative to White

households, all minority groups increased their lengths of stay.
23

Table 9: Length of Stay of Households in the Public Housing Program by Household Race 

and Ethnicity for Year of Exit

Year of Exit Percentile White

Non-Hispanic

Black

Non-Hispanic

Other

Non-Hispanic

Hispanic

2000 25th 0.6 1.0 0.8 0.8

50th 1.6 2.3 2.3 2.1

75th 4.4 5.6 5.9 5.4

2005 25th 0.8 1.3 1.1 1.5

50th 2.1 3.1 2.9 4.1

75th 5.5 7.4 7.5 10.3

2010 25th 0.9 1.4 1.4 1.5

50th 2.3 3.1 3.3 3.6

75th 5.7 7.1 8.1 9.0

2015 25th 0.9 1.4 1.2 1.7

50th 2.4 3.2 3.3 4.3

75th 6.0 7.1 8.0 10.3

Table 10 extends the comparison to the Section 8 project-based Housing program. The results 

are very similar to those for the public housing program. Changes in lengths of stay are generally 

small from one time period to the next, and the changes contain a mix of both positive changes 

(longer stays) and negative changes (shorter stays).

Table 10: Length of Stay of Households in the Section 8 Project-Based Housing Program 

by Household Race and Ethnicity for Year of Exit

Year of Exit Percentile White

Non-Hispanic

Black

Non-Hispanic

Other

Non-Hispanic

Hispanic

2000 25th 1.0 1.2 1.2 1.1

50th 2.5 2.9 3.1 2.9

75th 7.1 6.5 7.2 7.1

2005 25th 0.5 1.3 — 1.4

50th 0.8 1.8 — 2.0

75th 3.7 5.1 — 10.5

2010 25th 1.0 1.2 1.0 1.2

50th 2.5 2.7 2.6 2.7

75th 6.4 5.7 7.3 6.5

2015 25th 1.1 1.4 1.2 1.4

50th 2.8 3.0 3.0 3.4

75th 7.0 6.3 7.6 7.5

Further research using household survey data is needed to explore the many possible reasons 

behind the longer lengths of stay in assisted housing among minority households.

Drivers of Length of Stay

Having looked at the household characteristics of race, ethnicity, age, disability and the presence 

of children, the analysis now turns to identification of what factors, if any, may drive the 
24

decision to exist assisted housing. These drivers may include household income level, its source, 

and market conditions, such as vacancy rates and rent levels. The analysis examines individually 

the relationships between each of these factors and lengths of stay in assisted housing to establish 

expectations on the scale and direction of the relationships. After examining individual 

relationships, regression models are used to estimate the relationships between these drivers and 

lengths of stay. Given the shifting demographics of the households in assisted housing, separate 

models are estimated for elderly or disabled households and nonelderly or nondisabled 

households. These models provide insights into whether or not the simple relationships found are 

robust with controlling for the influence of other factors.

Length of Stay by Income Level and Source of Income

Differences in lengths of stay and changes in lengths of stay from one time period to the next 

could result from household factors other than race or ethnicity. Households differ by income 

levels and the sources of that income, both of which could influence decisions to remain in 

assisted housing or leave to enter the unsubsidized market. Table 11 addresses this issue.

Table 11: Correlation Between Length of Stay and Income by Source All Programs, 2015

Number of 

Households

Mean Value

($)

Correlation 

Coefficient

Significance

Length of stay 5.2 years

Total income 454,677 13,747 0.124 **

Adjusted total income 454,677 12,690 0.126 **

Total wage income 163,824 19,598 0.225 **

Total public assistance income 109,544 4,016 – 0.120 **

** Significant at the .01 level.

All households in the HCV, the public housing, and the Section 8 project-based programs benefit 

from very similar subsidy calculations. For public housing and Section 8 project-based programs, 

each household generally pays about 30 percent of their adjusted gross income toward the gross 

rent on the rental unit in which the household lives.3 In the HCV program, the maximum subsidy 

provided is tied to a percentage of the local Fair Market Rent, with tenants enabled to pay more 

than 30 percent of their income for units renting above that level. However, the program does 

permit a household to pay up to 40 percent of income on housing if the household chooses to 

consume more housing.4

The rental assistance programs pay the difference between the tenant’s contribution and the rent 

charged for the unit. All participating households are subject to similar eligibility rules limiting 

their participation in any of the programs. Thus, nearly all households in the programs have

 

3 Some exceptions from this rule exist. In some settings, households can be subject to flat rents that can alter the tenant’s required 

contribution as a percentage of income.

4 McClure (2005) found that, for HCV households in 2002, 62 percent pay 31 percent of income toward rent. Another 21 percent 

spent more than 31 percent but not more than 40 percent of income. About 17 percent of HCV households spent more than 40 

percent of income on rent, a housing cost hardship that the voucher program was designed to prevent.
25

extremely low incomes, generally placing them below 30 percent of the Area Median Family 

Income of the metropolitan area where they live or the nonmetropolitan county if they live 

outside of a metropolitan area. In 2015, the average household income for the assisted 

households was between $13,000 and $14,000, meaning that the typical household receiving 

housing assistance lives below poverty. For that year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human 

Services (2017) set the poverty guidelines at about $12,000 for a family of one, $16,000 for a 

family of two, and $20,000 for a family of three.

The 2015 households that lived in assisted housing through the HCV, the public housing, or the 

Section 8 project-based programs had a mean income of only $13,456. The 2015 households that

left assisted housing had a comparable mean income at $13,747. Thus, in terms of income, the 

households that exited assisted housing were approximately the same as the larger population of 

households that remained in assisted housing. Higher or lower income does not seem to 

influence the decision to remain in assisted housing or to exit. A portion of these exiting 

households had income from employment. About 36 percent of the households exiting assisted 

housing had income from employment. Not surprisingly, these employed households had higher 

incomes than their unemployed counterparts at $21,200, with $19,598 of that income from 

wages. A smaller portion of the 2015 exiting households, 24 percent, had income from public 

assistance. The income from public assistance is much lower for these households, at only 

$4,016, bringing them to a total income that averaged only $11,114. Interestingly, about onethird of these public assistance recipient households also had income from employment, and that 

employment income was much larger, at $16,856, than the income from public assistance.

It was expected that, consistent with the research literature, household income for households in 

assisted housing, even with the very low income that they have, would be negatively correlated 

with length of stay. Those households with the least income would have been more inclined to 

remain in assisted housing longer. Those households with the greatest income would have a 

higher capacity to navigate the private, unsubsidized housing market and thus be more likely to 

end their time in assisted housing. Similarly, it was expected that source of income would matter. 

If a household had income from employment, it would seem more likely that this household 

could gain the extra income needed to enter the private market. Thus, income from wages was 

expected to be negatively correlated with length of stay. Finally, income from the various public 

assistance programs was expected to create the opposite effect. Income from assistance programs 

was expected to be positively associated with length of stay, as greater public assistance usage 

would be associated with greater dependency on rental assistance to meet housing needs.

None of these expectations were supported (see table 11). The correlations are all statistically 

significant at better than the .01 level. However, statistical significance is not policy-relevant 

significance. The scale of the dataset for this analysis is very large, with hundreds of thousands 

of households in the three major rental assistance programs in 2015. Nearly any analysisgenerating statistics from a dataset this large will produce statistically significant results. 

Although being statistically significant, the correlation coefficients are small, with absolute 
26

values ranging from .12 to .22. Coefficients of this scale indicate that the variables explain only 

about 1.4 to 4.8 percent of the variation in the dependent variable: length of stay. At the very 

minimum, other factors must explain much more of the variation, and more generally, the 

expected relationships were not found.

It remains something of an unanswered question why greater income among the eligible poor in 

assisted housing would be associated with longer stays in that housing rather than shorter stays 

and greater public assistance usage would be associated with shorter stays. Although perhaps 

counterintuitive at first, it may be that families receiving income from job earnings may be less 

stable in some respect; for instance, they may be more at risk to loss of that income due to shortterm emergencies (for example, becoming sick with a low-wage job without paid sick leave), or 

having to move more frequently in order to find alternative employment (DeLuca, Garboden, 

and Rosenblatt, 2013).

Length of Stay by Rent Levels

Differences in length of stay and changes in length of stay could result from rent levels either 

charged to the households through the rental assistance program or from the market within which 

the household lives.

All the households in the HCV, public housing, and Section 8 programs pay about 30 percent of 

their income on housing. As a result, the burden of rent on the income of the eligible poor is 

roughly the same across all households. With this equivalent burden, it would be expected that 

higher or lower rents paid by the tenants would have no effect on length of stay other than the fact 

that the tenant rent reflects the incomes of the households. Table 11 indicates that tenant income is 

weakly, but positively, associated with length of stay. Table 12 suggests that the same holds true 

for tenant rent at nearly exactly the same strength of correlation. In this regard, it can be speculated 

that tenant rent may not be related to length of stay except through the income effect.

Table 12: Correlation Between Length of Stay and Program Rents All Programs, 2015

Number of 

Households

Mean Value

($)

Correlation 

Coefficient

Significance

Length of stay 5.2 years

Tenant rent amount 429,215 327 0.123 **

Flat rent amounta 62,774 538 0.130 **

Gross rent amountb 300,495 854 0.244 **

** Significant at the .01 level. a Public housing only. b HCV and Section 8 only.

Some households in public housing are subject to flat rents. The expectation was that flat rents, 

especially if set at a high level, might create pressure on households to leave public housing and 

enter the private market. This expectation suggests a negative and significant correlation with 

length of stay, but the opposite was found. The relationship between flat rent amount and length of 

stay for public housing households that are subject to flat rents is significant but small and positive.
27

Gross rents are limited in the HCV and Section 8 project-based housing programs. They are 

limited through the Fair Market Rents published by HUD and, for the HCV program, the 

payment standards associated with the Fair Market Rents. These Fair Market Rents vary 

considerably across the county reflecting the rents found in each individual marketplace. 

However, the great benefit of a household receiving housing assistance through the Section 8 

program is that their housing cost burden is the generally the same, 30 percent of income, 

independent of the surrounding housing market conditions. Given the immunity from market 

pressures, it would be expected that no correlation exists between gross rents and length of stay, 

but the relationships is positive, statistically significant, but small. Such a relationship could be a 

response to a market substitution effect. If the surrounding market has higher rents, that would be 

expected to discourage leaving assisted housing and moving into the private marketplace, which 

would generate a positive correlation between gross rents and length of stay.

Length of Stay by Housing Market Conditions

The softness of the surrounding rental housing market may influence the probability that a 

household stays in or exits out of assisted housing. If the household has many options, especially 

affordable options, then it seems likely that the pace of exits from assisted housing would 

increase. To determine if this is the case, the households that exited assisted housing in 2015 

were examined for correlations between their length of stay and measures of housing market 

conditions, both in the immediate census tract and, if the household resided within a Core Based 

Statistical Area (CBSA), in the surrounding CBSA. These correlations test whether or not the 

length of stay is lower for households living in census tracts with higher rental housing vacancy 

rates. A second test is whether or not the length of stay is lower for households living in census 

tracts with lower gross rent levels. Table 13 examines these issues.

Table 13: Correlation Between Length of Stay and Housing Market Conditions All 

Programs, 2015

Number of Households

(thousands)

Mean 

Value

Correlation 

Coefficient

Significance

Length of stay 5.96

Census tract

Population 423 4,456 0.050 **

Percent poverty 423 27.68 – 0.026 **

Percent minority 423 46.39 0.153 **

Median gross rent ($) 423 731.52 0.213 **

Rental vacancy rate (%) 423 8.14 – 0.082 **

CBSA

Population 381 2,618,041 0.298 **

Percent below poverty 381 16.18 – 0.106 **

Percent minority 381 32.67 0.189 **

Median gross rent ($) 381 857.60 0.309 **

Rental vacancy rate ($) 381 8.12 – 0.137 **

CBSA = Core Based Statistical Area.

** Significant at the .01 level.
28

At both the tract and the CBSA level, length of stay is positively associated with population. 

Locations with larger populations tend to correlate with households staying longer in assisted 

housing. The incidence of poverty is found to have an inverse effect; the greater the level of 

poverty in the surrounding tract and CBSA, the shorter the length of stay, suggesting that 

assisted households are more willing to leave assisted housing if they are subjected to living in a 

high poverty setting. The incidence of the share of racial or ethnic minorities in the surrounding 

populations is found to have the opposite effect; the greater the incidence of minorities in the 

population, the longer the stay in assisted housing.

The price of housing and the availability of alternative rental housing in the marketplace are

expected to influence the assisted household’s decision to stay in or leave assisted housing. Both 

price and availability effects were found to exist. Length of stay is positively associated with rent 

levels, again at both the tract and CBSA levels, as would be expected. If the assisted household 

confronts higher rents in the surrounding neighborhood and the surrounding metropolitan area, it 

is more likely that the household will remain in assisted housing. Length of stay is negatively 

associated with rental vacancy rates at both the tract and CBSA levels, as would be expected. If 

the assisted household confronts tighter rental housing markets offering fewer alternative units 

for rent, it is more likely that the household will remain in assisted housing. None of the 

correlations coefficients are compellingly strong. The strongest are the coefficients for median 

gross rents in the tracts and the CBSAs; these coefficients are 0.26 and 0.30, respectively. 

Coefficients at this level explain only 7 percent and 9 percent of the total variation length of stay, 

leaving most of the variation to be explained by other factors.

Models Explaining Variation in Length of Stay

To this point, the analysis has examined the influence of demographic factors and market factors 

on length of stay in assisted housing with simple, bivariate relationships. These bivariate 

relationships indicate that market conditions influence length of stay decisions in the direction 

expected. Tight markets are associated with longer stays in assisted housing, and higher priced 

markets are also associated with longer stays. The bivariate relationships indicate the income and 

its sources matter, but not in the expected direction. Higher income among the eligible poor as 

well as any income from wages are both positively associated with longer stays. Income from 

public assistance is associated with shorter stays. The bivariate relationships indicate that 

demographic factors matter in the expected direction. Elderly households and households with 

disabled members, as well as racial or ethnic minorities, are generally associated with longer 

stays in assisted housing. The next step for the analysis is to move the examination to 

multivariate models that explain the variation in length of stay through the combined effects of 

demographic and market forces.

Two models were estimated, with separate models built for elderly households or households 

with disabled members and for the nonelderly nondisabled households. The purpose of these 

models was to see if the predictors of length of stay in a multivariate model differ from those 

suggested in the bivariate analysis. Control variables are introduced for the three major 
29

programs. It was expected that the housing market conditions may bear more forcefully on

households in the HCV program because of their dependency on the availability of rental units 

priced below the Fair Market Rents. Although public housing and Section 8 project-based 

households are not as strongly influenced by these factors, the presence of their housing stock is 

assured by the programs. The models include only households that left assisted housing in 2015, 

the most recent year for which data are available.

Table 14 provides the descriptive statistics for the variables to be tested. Models with many 

variables require a great deal of data, but because this study is based on the very large

administrative data available from HUD, the datasets are up to the task. More than 170,000 

elderly or disabled households have complete data, and nearly 200,000 nonelderly or 

nondisabled households have complete data. The data describe the many issues raised in the 

literature review and explored in the previous bivariate analysis. Regional variables have been 

added to the data to see if any regional effects have any influence on the length of stay.

Table 15 describes the models estimated. These models are ordinary least squares models. The 

dependent variables are the log of the length of stay, because the distribution of the length of stay 

is truncated at zero and has a positive skew because of the unlimited amount of time that a 

household can remain in assisted housing. The log form of the length of stay translates the 

variable into a normally distributed term suitable of ordinary least squares regression.

The models are statistically significant and generate coefficients that are generally of the 

expected sign and scale. Neither of the models is particularly impressive, in that both suffer from 

very low R squared values of .08 to .19. Thus, much more variation in length of stay is left 

unexplained by the models than is explained. The value of the models is not so much in the 

ability to explain variation in the lengths of stay. Rather, the value is in confirming that the 

relationships identified between length of stay and the many variables explored at the bivariate 

level remain statistically significant and of the same scale, when controlling for the influence of 

the other variables included in the model. In general, it can be said that the models confirm, at a 

multivariate level, what was found at the bivariate level.

The models indicate that, all else held equal, non-Hispanic Black households may stay longer 

than non-Hispanic White households, but Hispanic households will have shorter stays than 

White households. Markets with higher rents and lower vacancy rates are associated with longer 

stays. In 2015, households in the HCV program tended to have longer stays than households in 

either the public housing or the Section 8 project-based programs.

New information is also added by region. Households in the northeast regions tend to have 

longer stays than the other regions of the nation.

The models do suggest a few possible reversals from the relationships found with the previous

bivariate results. Income is not a significant predictor of length of stay for the nonelderly, but it 

is for elderly households. Even though statistically significant, the estimated effect is very small. 

An increase of income by $10,000 for an elderly household would result in only a 0.7 year 
30

longer stay. The presence of children in nonelderly households is associated with longer, rather 

than shorter, stays. It is worth noting that the low explanatory power of the models indicates that 

the results from these models should be viewed as suggestive and not determinative. Where the 

relationships found in the models and in the bivariate analysis conflict, it is unclear which 

methodology has come closer to identifying the true relationship.

Table 14: Models Explaining Variation in Length of Stay of Households, 2015 Descriptive 

Statistics

Elderly or Disabled 

Households

Nonelderly or Nondisabled 

Households

Variables Mean Std. Dev. Mean Std. Dev.

Dependent variables

Length of stay HCV 4.35 3.61 2.601 3.286

Independent variables

Program variables (HCV as 

reference)

Public housing 0.29 0.45 0.29 0.45

Section 8 project-based 0.32 0.47 0.33 0.47

Demographic variables

Number of adults 1.14 0.41 1.24 0.51

Number of children 0.24 0.73 1.64 1.33

Black household 0.31 0.46 0.50 0.50

Hispanic household 0.10 0.30 0.13 0.34

Other non-Hispanic 

household 0.04 0.19 0.03 0.18

Income variables

Total annual income 13,715.78 8,034.93 14,848.44 14,581.40 

Total income from wages 1,518.37 6,341.24 12,547.27 15,252.08 

Total income from public 

assistance 419.72 1,395.81 1,453.88 2,941.49 

Tenant rent 317.65 193.24 351.47 352.82

Tract variables

Population 4,404.27 1,941.08 4,573.70 2,040.07 

Percent population minority 45.36 31.26 52.00 31.80

Percent population below 

poverty 26.62 14.85 29.62 15.50 

Percent rental stock vacant 7.69 6.07 8.34 6.36 

Median gross rent 770.69 282.22 732.77 242.18 

Core Based Statistical Area

Population (thousands) 3.15 5.31 2.20 4.03

Percent population minority 32.34 18.65 33.08 18.76

Percent population below 

poverty 15.67 4.00 16.63 4.50

Percent rental stock vacant 7.78 2.74 8.40 2.86

Median gross rent 887.17 229.23 833.24 192.96

Region (Northeast as reference)

Dummy for South 0.34 0.47 0.48 0.50

Dummy for West 0.15 0.36 0.12 0.32

Dummy for Midwest 0.27 0.44 0.28 0.45

Number of cases 169,053 202,299

HCV = Housing Choice Voucher.
31

Table 15: Models Explaining Variation in Length of Stay of Households, 2015

Elderly or Disabled 

Households

Nonelderly or Nondisabled 

Household

Variables Coefficient Significance Coefficient Significance

Dependent variable

Log of length of stay 

Independent variables

Program variables (HCV as reference)

Public housing – 0.08 0.00 – 0.34 0.00

Section 8 project-based – 0.13 0.00 – 0.33 0.00

Demographic variables

Number of adults 0.06 0.00 0.16 0.00

Number of children – 0.10 0.00 0.07 0.00

Black household 0.01 0.08 0.23 0.08

Hispanic household – 0.03 0.00 0.06 0.00

Other non-Hispanic household – 0.03 0.07 – 0.06 0.00

Income variables

Total annual income 0.000070 0.00 – 0.000001 0.56

Total income from wages – 0.000001 0.14 0.000005 0.00

Total income from public assistance – 0.000020 0.00 – 0.000006 0.00

Tenant rent – 0.002738 0.00 0.000247 0.00

Tract variables

Population 1.3071 0.00 2.3804 0.00

Percent population minority 0.0030 0.00 0.0037 0.00

Percent population below poverty – 0.0015 0.00 – 0.0008 0.00

Percent rental stock vacant – 0.0046 0.00 – 0.0047 0.00

Median gross rent 0.0001 0.00 0.0003 0.00

Core Based Statistical Area

Population (thousands) 0.0058 0.00 0.0000 0.00

Percent population minority 0.0044 0.00 0.0019 0.00

Percent population below poverty 0.0005 0.68 0.0054 0.11

Percent rental stock vacant – 0.0057 0.00 – 0.0018 0.07

Median gross rent 0.0007 0.00 0.0009 0.00

Region (Northeast as reference)

Dummy for South – 0.29 0.00 – 0.34 0.00

Dummy for West – 0.25 0.00 – 0.29 0.00

Dummy for Midwest – 0.15 0.00 – 0.14 0.00

Constant 0.66 0.00 – 0.39 0.00

Number of cases 169,053 202,299

R-squared statistics 0.08 0.19

HCV = Housing Choice Voucher.
32

Conclusion

HUD plays a very large role in assisting extremely low-income renter households afford the cost 

of housing. HUD supports housing developments typically occupied by extremely low-income 

households through the public housing program and the Section 8 project-based housing 

program. HUD also funds the Housing Choice Voucher program, which supports extremely lowincome households that enter the private marketplace to rent a unit. This study sought to 

determine, once a household begins to receive assistance through one of these three programs, 

how long will the household stay in the program?

This research finds that the typical household that left assisted housing recently stayed for about 

6 years. Differences between types of households are stark; elderly households stayed longer at 

9 years; and disabled households stayed for about 5 years, while nonelderly families with 

children stayed for about 4 years.

The length of stay has increased somewhat over time for all groups. The average length of stay in 

assisted housing grew for elderly households by 1.5, to 1.7 years, from 2000 to 2015. 

Households with disabilities saw their average stay grow by 1.2, to 1.7 years, during the same 

period. Nonelderly families with children experienced the smallest change; their average length 

of stay grew by 1.1 years.

Racial and ethnic minorities seem to stay for longer periods of time within the HCV program, 

but the influence of race and ethnicity is less within the public housing and the Section 8 projectbased housing programs.

Among the eligible renter households, all of whom have very low incomes, those households 

with more income seem to stay longer in assisted housing as do those with income from wages. 

Those households with income from public assistance seem to stay for shorter periods.

Market conditions influence length of stay in assisted housing in a manner suggesting 

substitution effects. Where the rents on housing in the private marketplace are comparatively 

high or the availability of rental housing is comparatively low, households in assisted housing 

stay longer. Where alternative housing in the private market is expensive and scarce, households 

will stay longer in assisted housing.

The research finds that households that remain in assisted housing tend to follow a common 

pattern of stays. Once admitted into one of the assisted housing programs, more than 90 percent 

of all assisted household remain in that housing through the first year. From 70 to 80 percent of 

households remain through the second year. The pace of leaving assisted housing continues but 

at a decreasing rate over time. About one-half of all assisted households leave by 4 to 6 years 

after entry, and about 80 percent leave by years 9 to 11.

It is not surprising that the length of stay in assisted housing is increasing. Prior research 

suggests that this pattern has been seen in the recent past (Ambrose, 2005) and the more distant 

past (Hungerford, 1996).
33

The prior research, as well as the research presented in this report, cannot identify definitive 

reasons for the changes in lengths of stay in assisted housing. The research can only identify 

relationships that exist between lengths of stay and various forces that might influence a 

household’s decision to leave or remain in assisted housing. The prior research, as well as this 

research project, confirms that length of stay is related to the household’s age, presence of 

children, and the ability of the household to find alternative housing in the private marketplace.

Although definitive causation is beyond the scope of this study, it is likely that fundamental 

market forces including increasing housing costs and inadequate incomes play the greatest role. 

The economic forces in the U.S. rental markets are moving in a manner that probably contributed 

to the longer stays in assisted housing. From 2000 to 2015, the United States saw median gross 

rent grow by 54 percent (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2017). This growth in rents outpaced 

inflation by 16 percentage points as the Consumer Price Index grew by 38 percent during the 

same time period (U.S. Department of Labor, 2017). The rapid growth in rents contributes to the 

loss of affordable housing in the nation because the incomes of renters are not keeping up with 

inflation, much less with the growth of rents. From 2000 to 2015, median renter incomes grew 

by only 31 percent (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2017). This trend has continued for a very long 

time. Despite the rise and fall of prices of homes for owner-occupancy during the housing 

bubble, its collapse, and the recovery that followed, rents have been on a steady upward path, 

outpacing both inflation and renter income. As long as this pattern continues, it can be expected 

that the lengths of stay in assisted housing will continue to increase.
34

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