A Pilot Study of Landlord Acceptance 

of Housing Choice Vouchers

Executive Summary

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development | Office of Policy Development and Research 
A Pilot Study of Landlord Acceptance of 

Housing Choice Vouchers

Executive Summary

August 2018

Prepared for 

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Submitted by

Urban Institute

Authors 

Mary Cunningham

Martha Galvez

Claudia L. Aranda

Robert Santos

Doug Wissoker

Alyse Oneto

Rob Pitingolo

James Crawford
DISCLAIMER 

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

the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the 

U.S. government, or the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
Executive Summary

A PILOT STUDY OF LANDLORD ACCEPTANCE OF HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHERS

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Executive 

Summary

This report presents findings from a fivesite pilot study of landlord acceptance or 

denial of federal housing choice vouchers. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 

Development (HUD) sponsored this study, 

and it is the first large-scale, multisite study of 

whether landlords treat people with vouchers 

differently than other renters. The project’s 

goals were to (1) identify testing methodologies 

for measuring differential treatment of renters 

who use housing vouchers authorized under 

Section 8(o) of the United States Housing Act 

of 1937, (2) identify the types and patterns of 

rental housing discrimination against voucher 

holders, and (3) measure the prevalence 

and extent of voucher-related discrimination, 

including differences in discrimination against 

racial and ethnic minorities and differences 

between low- and high-poverty neighborhoods.

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program 

is the federal government’s largest rental 

housing assistance program. The goals of 

the HCV program are to increase access to 

safe, affordable housing units and to provide 

opportunities for low-income families to obtain 

rental housing outside areas of poverty or 

minority concentration (HUD, 2009). Voucher 

holders can, in theory, move anywhere in 

the country where a PHA administers the 

program, but their housing choices are severely 

constrained by their ability to navigate the 

private rental market, find a unit with rent below 

the payment standard, and identify a landlord 

who will participate in the program. Landlords 

decide, for the most part, if they want to accept 

vouchers as payment for their rental units.

Is it illegal for landlords to refuse to rent to 

voucher holders? The Fair Housing Act (Public 

Law 90-284), enacted in 1968 as Section VIII of 

the Civil Rights Act, aims to “prevent segregation 

and discrimination in housing, including in the 

sale or rental of housing and the provision of 

advertising, lending, and brokerage services 

related to housing.” Under the Fair Housing 

Act, landlords are prohibited from refusing to 

rent to members of protected classes—defined 

based on race, color, national origin, sex, 

religion, disability, and familial status. Voucher 

holders are not protected under the Act and 

landlords may have a legal right to turn away 

voucher holders. Although voucher holders are 

not protected under the Fair Housing Act, the 

program disproportionally serves members 

of protected classes—families with children, 

racial and ethnic minorities, and persons with 

disabilities. Some fair housing advocates 

argue that claims under the Fair Housing Act 

may be justified, because the act prohibits 

practices that may appear neutral—such as 

electing not to accept vouchers—but result in 

“disparate impacts,” for example, residential 

segregation, for a protected class. Beyond the 

federal statute, states and local jurisdictions 

have passed local ordinances, often referred 

to as source-of-income protections, to prohibit 

discrimination against voucher holders. In 

these locations, it is illegal for landlords to 

discriminate against voucher holders. For 

this study, we use the term discrimination to 

describe unequal or differential treatment of 

voucher holders, although this treatment is 

not necessarily illegal in all our testing sites.

Study Methodology 

The pilot study was designed to conduct 

voucher tests across neighborhoods in several 

sites, roughly in proportion to the prevalence 

of voucher-affordable housing in each site. 

Finding affordable housing required sampling 

advertisements from the Internet from virtually 

every ZIP Code in each site to achieve a target 

number of tests. Once eligible advertisements 

were identified, the study used a three-stage 

testing methodology to examine interactions 
Executive Summary

A PILOT STUDY OF LANDLORD ACCEPTANCE OF HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHERS

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with landlords during the housing search. 

The first stage, the voucher acceptance test, 

was conducted in five sites: Fort Worth, 

Texas; Los Angeles, California; Newark, 

New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 

and Washington, D.C.1

 During these tests, 

a female tester who would be perceived as 

White called landlords advertising rental units 

to ask, “Do you accept housing vouchers?”

If a landlord answered that he or she accepted 

vouchers, the test moved on to the second and 

third stages, which were conducted in three 

sites: Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and Newark. 

In the second stage, pairs of White, Black, 

and Hispanic female testers, matched on all 

characteristics (including race and ethnicity) 

other than voucher use (for example, White 

voucher holder versus White non-voucher 

holder, Black voucher holder versus Black 

non-voucher holder, and Hispanic voucher 

holder versus Hispanic non-voucher holder) 

conducted telephone tests to determine 

whether voucher holders were told about 

available housing and were able to secure 

appointments to view available units. If both 

testers were able to secure appointments, 

they proceeded to the third stage—in-person 

tests to determine whether voucher holders 

were able to meet with a landlord to see 

available housing. In both the telephone and 

in-person tests, voucher and control testers 

also recorded detailed information related to 

potential differential treatment, including landlord 

statements about eligibility requirements (for 

example, applications, credit checks, cosigner 

requirements, or eviction checks), qualifications 

for tenancy (for example, information requested 

on marital status, income, occupation, or 

employer), and housing costs (for example, 

rent quoted by the landlord and any fees, 

incentives, or move-in costs). These measures 

provided opportunities to assess whether 

landlords who stated they accepted vouchers 

ultimately denied voucher holders indirectly. 

The original study design anticipated 

approximately 2,550 voucher acceptance tests, 

1,650 paired telephone tests, and 1,200 paired 

in-person tests. However, because landlord 

denial rates were high, we completed far more 

voucher acceptance tests (3,780) than telephone 

and in-person paired tests (694 telephone and 

509 in-person tests; Table ES.1). Moreover, 

because of high voucher denial rates in Fort 

Worth and Los Angeles, few tests from those 

sites advanced to the second or third stages 

of testing. Newark accounted for 61 percent 

of all telephone tests and 73 percent of all inperson tests. In addition, high proportions of 

Table ES.1: Total Tests Completed by Site and Test Mode

 Test Site Voucher Acceptance Tests Telephone Tests In-Person Tests

Fort Worth, TX 1,146 142 73

Los Angeles, CA 998 126 62

Newark, NJ 782 426 374

Philadelphia, PA 422 NA NA

Washington, DC 432 NA NA

Total 3,780 694 509

NA = not applicable.

1 The Fort Worth site included Tarrant County and the cities of Fort Worth and Arlington. The Los Angeles site included all of Los Angeles County, except 

for 13 small cities with PHAs administering a small number of vouchers. The Newark site included four counties in northeastern New Jersey: Bergen, Essex, 

Hudson, and Passaic. The Philadelphia site included the city of Philadelphia and Bucks County. The Washington, D.C. site included the District of Columbia 

and Montgomery County, Maryland.
Executive Summary

A PILOT STUDY OF LANDLORD ACCEPTANCE OF HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHERS

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paired telephone tests in Fort Worth and Los 

Angeles sites ended without appointments to 

meet with landlords, which led to smaller than 

anticipated sample sizes of completed in-person 

tests for those sites. As a result, we discuss only 

Newark’s telephone and in-person test results.

Findings

Finding Voucher-Affordable Units Is 

Challenging

How difficult is it to find voucher-affordable 

units? During 16 months, we screened more 

than 341,000 online advertisements across the 

five study sites to find 8,735 advertisements for 

rental housing that appeared to be vouchereligible based on information in the ad. On 

average, we screened 39 advertisements to 

identify one potentially eligible unit. The effort 

required to find voucher-eligible housing differed 

dramatically across sites. For example, the 

average number of advertisements screened to 

identify a potentially eligible unit ranged from 

more than 50 in Los Angeles and Newark to 30 

in Fort Worth, 19 in Washington, D.C., and 11 in 

Philadelphia. Once we found advertisements for 

units that appeared eligible, Los Angeles and 

Newark required the most effort to contact the 

landlord, an average of about two contacts per 

potentially eligible advertisement (Table ES.2). 

As our testers searched for units, they did 

not precisely model the housing search a 

voucher holder might conduct. Nonetheless, 

their experience shows that searching for 

housing with vouchers is time consuming and 

frustrating. Voucher holders must navigate 

the rental market on their own, searching 

for units that meet the program rental cap. 

This search requires combing apartment 

listings and making multiple telephone calls 

to landlords to inquire about apartment 

availability. Many searches turn up short.

Many Landlords Do Not Accept 

Vouchers

The voucher acceptance tests show clear 

evidence of outright denial of vouchers, although 

denial rates varied widely (Table ES.3). Denial 

rates were highest in Fort Worth (78 percent) and 

Los Angeles (76 percent) and only somewhat 

lower in Philadelphia (67 percent). Rates were 

substantially lower in Newark (31 percent) 

and Washington, D.C. (15 percent). Moreover, 

across the five sites, between 9 and 25 percent 

of landlords said vouchers were accepted only 

under certain conditions or they were unsure of 

the voucher acceptance policy. Landlords were 

more likely to deny voucher holders in lowpoverty areas compared with high-poverty areas, 

particularly in the sites with the highest voucher 

denial rates (Table ES.4). In four of the five 

Table ES.2: Level of Effort to Find Voucher-Affordable Units

Test Site

Average Number 

of Advertisements 

Screened per Potentially 

Eligible Ad

Average Number of 

Contact Attempts per 

Potentially Eligible Ad

Number of Units Found 

Eligible and Available per 

Potentially Available Ad

Average Number 

of Advertisements 

Screened per Completed 

Voucher Acceptance Test

Fort Worth, TX 29.83 1.67 0.51 58.40

Los Angeles, CA 51.55 1.98 0.38 137.33

Newark, NJ 52.68 1.97 0.37 143.76

Philadelphia, PA 11.15 1.77 0.47 23.59

Washington, DC 18.82 1.54 0.54 35.07

Across sites 39.10 1.83 0.43 90.35
Executive Summary

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Table ES.3: Voucher Acceptance Test Results and Voucher Denial Rates by Site

Fort Worth Los Angeles Newark Philadelphia Washington, D.C.

n % n % n % n % n %

Total tests 1,146 998 782 422 432

Denies vouchers 894 78.0 762 76.4 242 30.9 282 66.8 64 14.8

Accepts vouchers 132 11.5 148 14.8 342 43.7 99 23.5 306 70.8

Accepts vouchers 

with conditions 82 7.2 48 4.8 92 11.8 14 3.3 42 9.7

Unsure of voucher 

policy or other 38 3.3 40 4.0 106 13.6 27 6.4 20 4.6

Note: Testers recorded “accepts vouchers with conditions” whenever a landlord suggested vouchers would be accepted only under 

certain circumstances—for example, if the voucher was (or was not) from a particular public housing authority, if the voucher was for a 

certain unit size, if the voucher covered a certain amount of the rent, or if other requirements of tenancy (for example, a certain credit 

score) were met.

Table ES.4: Voucher Acceptance Test Results by Site and Low-, Medium-, and High-Poverty 

Census Tracts

Fort Worth Los Angeles Newark Philadelphia Washington, D.C.

Total tests 1,146 998 782 422 432

Voucher denial rate (%) 78.0 76.4 30.9 66.8 14.8

Standard error (%) 1.2 1.3 1.7 2.3 1.7

Average voucher denial rates 

in low-poverty areas (%) 85.0 81.5 37.7 82.5 16.2

Standard error (%) 2.1 2.3 3.0 5.1 3.0

Average voucher denial rates 

in medium-poverty areas (%) 81.1 80.7 28.8 70.9 15.0

Standard error (%) 1.8 2.1 2.6 3.4 2.8

Average voucher denial rates 

in high-poverty areas (%) 67.2 66.0 26.1 55.3 15.7

Standard error (%) 2.5 2.9 3.7 3.9 3.9

Statistical significance *** *** ** ***

** p < 0.05. *** p < 0.01.

Note: Significance tests measured the difference in denial rates in low-poverty tracts compared with denial rates in high-poverty tracts. 

sites (all but Washington, D.C.), voucher denial 

rates were substantially higher for low-poverty 

census tracts than for high-poverty tracts.

We found lower landlord denial rates in sites 

that have legal protections against voucher 

discrimination (Table ES.3). In Newark and 

Washington, D.C., where voucher holders are a 

protected class under local source-of-income 

antidiscrimination laws, denial rates were lower 

compared with sites without such protections. 

Philadelphia also has a source-of-income 

antidiscrimination law, but neighboring Bucks 

County does not. In Los Angeles and Fort 
Executive Summary

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Worth, no portion of the testing area has state 

or local laws against voucher discrimination. 

Source-of-income protections were not the only 

differences among the sites that could explain 

different outcomes. Washington, D.C., and 

Philadelphia had higher payment standards, 

and Washington, D.C., uses neighborhood-level 

payment standards. Although these results are 

suggestive of and consistent with a desirable 

voucher ordinance effect, it is not possible 

to conclude that voucher protections cause 

fewer denials. Housing market tightness, public 

housing authority (PHA) performance, and other 

factors could also affect landlord denial rates.

Landlords Generally Treat Voucher 

Holders Equally During Paired 

Telephone Inquiries

Do landlords who say they accept vouchers 

treat voucher holders differently than nonvoucher holders in phone calls? In paired phone 

tests, nearly all voucher testers were able to 

talk to landlords and secure appointments to 

view housing, with some small variations in 

treatment between the voucher and control 

testers that suggested landlords had some 

knowledge of how the HCV program works.

In 93 percent of the 426 paired telephone 

tests conducted in Newark, both the voucher 

holder and the control tester were able to make 

contact with a landlord to get information about 

housing, and 96 percent of testers who were 

able to speak to a landlord were told about one 

or more available units (Table ES.5). Nearly all 

(98 percent) of the testers—with and without 

vouchers—who were told that housing was 

available made appointments to view housing 

in person. During phone calls, landlords told 

the voucher testers about slightly fewer units 

compared with their counterparts without 

vouchers. The difference was statistically 

significant but quite small. On average, landlords 

told voucher testers about 1.1 units of available 

housing and testers without vouchers about 

1.2 units. Other small but statistically significant 

differences emerged through the Newark paired 

Table ES.5: Headline Measures of Differential Treatment in Paired Telephone Tests in Newark, 

New Jersey

Measure Both Control Voucher Net 

Difference

Standard 

Error of 

Difference

n

Testers able to obtain information about 

housing 93.4% 1.4% 2.6% – 1.2% 1.0% 426

If testers obtained housing information

Testers told any units available 95.5% 0.8% 0.5% 0.3% 0.6% 398

One tester told about more units 13.1% 6.0% 7.0% 2.3% 398 ***

Average number of units told about 1.22 1.14 0.08 0.04 398 **

Testers were able to get an appointment 98.2% 0.3% 0.5% – 0.3% 0.5% 380

Average rent for any unit $1,486 $1,494 – $9 $5 380

Average yearly net cost $20,309 $20,424 – $115 $105 380

** p < 0.05. *** p < 0.01.

Note: For the values presented as percentages, values in the “Control” column indicate the percentage of cases in which the control tester 

experienced the measure, but the voucher tester did not; values in the “Voucher” column indicate the percentage of cases in which the 

voucher tester experienced the measure, but the control tester did not; and the values in the “Both” column indicate the percentage of 

cases in which both testers experienced the treatment. 
Executive Summary

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telephone tests in how landlords discussed 

qualifications for tenancy and housing costs. 

Considered together, these results suggest that 

landlords understand how the HCV program 

works and recognize the voucher as additional 

income available to the potential applicant. 

Landlords Are More Likely To Miss an 

Appointment With Voucher Holders

Only 58 percent of the in-person tests ended 

with both testers able to meet with a landlord, 

even though most paired telephone tests 

ended with both voucher holders and control 

testers making appointments to meet with a 

landlord (Table ES.6). Appointment no-shows 

were common, with about 11 percent of inperson tests ending with landlords standing 

up both testers. However, the voucher testers 

were 8 percentage points less likely to meet 

with a landlord to discuss their housing 

options. In addition, landlords told control 

testers about more units and invited them to 

inspect more units, but the differences are 

small (for example, 1.39 versus 1.19 units). 

Similar to the paired telephone tests, the inperson tests found that other forms of differential 

treatment were minimal and appeared to reflect 

the landlords’ understanding of vouchers 

as secure income dedicated to housing. 

Implications for Future Testing

This pilot study explored different testing 

methodologies to provide insight for design 

and implementation of future studies.

Voucher acceptance tests and in-person 

paired tests yield the most valuable 

information. One-sided voucher acceptance 

tests captured the primary form of discrimination 

against voucher holders. Such tests can be 

used to measure differences across sites and 

Table ES.6: Headline Measures of Differential Treatment in Paired In-Person Tests in Newark, 

New Jersey 

Measure Both Control Voucher Net 

Difference

Standard 

Error of 

Difference

n

Testers able to meet with landlord 58.0% 19.3% 11.2% 8.1% 2.9% 374 ***

If testers able to meet with landlord

Told any units available 95.4% 3.2% 0.5% 2.7% 1.6% 217 *

One tester told about more units 22.1% 6.0% 16.1% 3.2% 217 ***

Average number of units told about 1.39 1.19 0.20 0.05 217 ***

If available units recommended

Inspected units 87.0% 3.4% 3.4% 0.0% 1.7% 207

One tester inspected more units 82.6% 11.1% 6.3% 4.8% 2.6% 207 *

Average number of units inspected 1.05 1.00 0.05 0.04 207

Average rent for any unit $1,507 $1,508 – $1 $7 207

Average yearly net cost $20,613 $20,725 – $112 $114 207

* p < 0.10. *** p < 0.01.

Note: For the values presented as percentages, values in the “Control” column indicate the percentage of cases in which the control tester 

experienced the measure, but the voucher tester did not; values in the “Voucher” column indicate the percentage of cases in which the 

voucher tester experienced the measure, but the control tester did not; and the values in the “Both” column indicate the percentage of 

cases in which both testers experienced the treatment. 

A PILOT STUDY OF LANDLORD ACCEPTANCE OF HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHERS
Executive Summary

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across different types of neighborhoods. The 

in-person tests then provided a measure of failed 

attempts to meet with landlords at scheduled 

appointments. In contrast, we gleaned little 

unique information about differential treatment 

from telephone tests. These findings provide 

continued support for the use of in-person 

testing rather than telephone testing.

Tester profiles must reflect HCV program 

rules. A clear lesson from this study is that 

any rigorous paired-testing study of voucherholder discrimination must incorporate HCV 

program-specific policies and requirements 

to minimize risk of detection and ensure that 

findings are credible. Training must prepare 

testers for questions about the HCV program 

and the PHA where testing takes place. 

Assessing the role of race or ethnicity in 

voucher-holder discrimination is challenging. 

The primary goal of this study was to identify 

whether voucher holders face discrimination 

compared with non-voucher holders. This goal 

led us to pair testers on every dimension but 

the voucher (for example, Black voucher holder 

and Black non-voucher holder). We were also 

interested in understanding potential differences 

in treatment by race. Barring sample size issues, 

this approach would have enabled us to produce 

estimates of adverse treatment of voucher 

recipients relative to unsubsidized renters of the 

same race or ethnicity and to compare these 

estimates across racial and ethnic groups. If 

adverse treatment of minority voucher recipients 

relative to their matched unsubsidized cotesters 

were greater than that of White voucher 

recipients relative to their unsubsidized White 

counterparts, we could conclude that race or 

ethnicity exacerbates the negative treatment 

of voucher holders. However, high voucher 

denial rates undermined our ability to conduct 

enough in-person tests to perform conclusive 

analyses of whether differential treatment against 

voucher holders varies by race. To rigorously 

compare differential treatment experienced by 

non-White voucher holders with that of White 

voucher holders would have required us to use 

a larger sample of in-person paired tests, which 

we could not conduct due to the high rates of 

landlord denials during the voucher acceptance 

test. Future testing will need to balance the 

goal of understanding the role of race in 

voucher discrimination with that of isolating the 

incidence and nature of voucher discrimination.

Conducting testing in low-poverty areas is 

feasible. Testing in low-poverty “opportunity” 

areas is feasible without oversampling. Analyses 

of American Community Survey data found 

that sufficient voucher-affordable units are in 

low-poverty areas. Further, we were able to 

find target numbers of advertisements in many 

of these neighborhoods. The areas where 

finding advertisements proved most challenging 

were places with low vacancy rates and not 

necessarily areas with low poverty rates. 

To produce national estimates of 

discrimination against voucher holders, we 

recommend a multiphase approach. Voucher 

acceptance tests documented the extent and 

variability of outright voucher denials in diverse 

testing sites, and revealed the implications of 

high voucher denial rates on paired-testing 

efforts. These implications suggest the need 

for a robust, multiphase design that can 

accommodate variations in denial rates. The 

first phase would include voucher acceptance 

testing by phone in a large enough sample of 

sites (for example, 50 sites) to characterize 

voucher discrimination nationally. Such a large 

sample, furthermore, would enable researchers 

to identify sites where additional testing would 

be viable and would further inform policymakers 

about the nature of voucher refusal. The 

second phase would involve continued voucher 

acceptance testing in a subsample of sites, 

accompanied by in-person paired tests.

More research on landlords is needed. This 

study did not explore landlords’ motivations 

for accepting or denying vouchers. In-depth 

interviews with landlords who reject, set 
Executive Summary

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conditions on, or accept voucher holders 

would shed light on landlords’ perceptions 

of the HCV program and voucher holders. 

Implications for Policy and 

Program Management

The challenges we encountered finding voucheraffordable rental housing in some sites and 

neighborhoods suggest that voucher holders’ 

housing searches are daunting. The difficulty 

finding landlords who will accept vouchers, 

particularly in low-poverty areas, likely increases 

the cost and duration of voucher housing 

searches, limits voucher holders’ housing and 

neighborhood options, and increases costs 

to local PHAs and HUD. With this difficulty in 

mind, we consider several policy and program 

changes to encourage landlord participation 

and to facilitate voucher holders’ searches.

Pursue legal protections for voucher 

holders. Although vouchers holders are not a 

protected class, the program is comprised of 

households that are protected under the Fair 

Housing Act and thus outcomes from the HCV 

program have potential fair housing implications. 

Among our five study sites, landlord refusal 

of vouchers is more common in jurisdictions 

without source-of-income protections. 

Coupled with other available evidence, this 

finding suggests that legal protections for 

voucher holders might improve HCV program 

outcomes and merit further consideration.

Encourage landlord participation and 

recruit landlords, particularly in lowpoverty neighborhoods. One way to increase 

landlord participation in the HCV program is 

to make it more attractive through recruitment 

strategies and incentive programs. Some 

PHAs and neighborhood mobility programs 

that help voucher holders search for housing 

have liaisons to recruit landlords in opportunity 

neighborhoods. HUD and PHAs could strengthen 

financial incentives (or remove perceived 

disincentives) for landlords to participate. For 

instance, PHAs could offer one-time signing 

bonuses or financial incentives for new entrants 

or for landlords in low-poverty neighborhoods. 

Some jurisdictions are piloting initiatives that 

provide security deposits or insurance against 

damages or tenants vacating the unit before 

their lease expires. Other jurisdictions waive 

permit fees for repairs or improvements or 

provide landlords access to interest-free loans 

they can use to rehabilitate their properties. 

Set rents to be more competitive and improve 

program management. For vouchers to be 

appealing to private market landlords, they 

must offer rent payments comparable with the 

market. This study did not examine the role of 

payment standards or Fair Market Rents (FMRs) 

in the availability of voucher-affordable housing 

or in landlord denial rates, but we did observe 

that some sites with higher payment standards 

had lower rates of landlord denial. Adopting 

Small Area FMRs or payment standards better 

aligned with market rents could make the HCV 

program more appealing to landlords in high-rent 

markets. In addition to offering competitive rents, 

improving PHA management could attract more 

landlords. Critics of the HCV program argue 

that there are good business reasons landlords 

do not participate; they include complaints 

about PHAs that have poor customer service 

or that increase the cost of renting to voucher 

holders by taking too long to complete housing 

quality standards inspections or by not sending 

rent checks on time. To increase customer 

satisfaction among landlords and decrease the 

real or perceived costs of doing business with 

housing authorities, PHAs could streamline 

these tasks so that landlords are not financially 

penalized for participating in the HCV program.

Expand search time and provide housing 

search assistance. Extending search times from 

60 days to 120 days would provide more time for 

voucher holders to identify landlords with units 

available. This extension is particularly important 
Executive Summary

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if voucher holders are searching for housing in 

opportunity neighborhoods or in tight housing 

markets where units are harder to find. Voucher 

holders may also benefit from housing search 

assistance—a combination of pre and postmove 

counseling, landlord outreach, and financial 

support for moves. Our findings on the difficulty 

identifying landlords who accept vouchers—

particularly in low-poverty areas—coupled 

with the evidence base on the importance 

of living in high-opportunity neighborhoods 

suggest these services may be an important 

step toward improving program outcomes 

and voucher holders’ long-term well-being.

Conclusion

This five-site study is the largest, most 

comprehensive test of voucher discrimination 

conducted to date, providing rigorous 

quantitative data on the prevalence of landlord 

denial and on the ways landlords treat voucher 

holders differently than similar prospective 

tenants. In designing and conducting nearly 

4,000 tests during 16 months, we gleaned 

lessons for future testing studies and housing 

policy, particularly related to voucher holders’ 

likely experiences searching for housing. We 

learned that the process of finding an available 

unit, reaching landlords, finding a landlord to 

accept vouchers, and then meeting with them 

to view the available housing was extremely 

difficult. It takes a lot of work to find housing with 

a voucher. The search requires sifting through 

numerous advertisements, making numerous 

calls, and facing frequent rejection. Our study 

reveals that many landlords refuse to accept 

vouchers. Voucher holders who want to find 

housing in an opportunity area—perhaps close to 

high-quality schools, jobs, and transportation—

face even more rejection. We learned that even 

if landlords said they accepted vouchers, they 

may treat voucher holders differently during 

apartment showings—standing them up at higher 

rates than control testers. Our findings should 

remind policymakers that landlords are not 

passive actors in the HCV program. Landlords 

play a critical role in narrowing or widening the 

choices available to voucher holders in their 

search for safe, affordable, quality housing. 
August 2018

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Office of Policy Development and Research

Washington, DC 20410-6000