Advocates fought hard to implement the changes to maintain project-based housing and will continue to work to save this housing. If the project-based contract is not renewed, HUD must provide vouchers to residents to enable them to remain in their current housing. Usually, when owners leave the subsidy program, rents go up, often dramatically an average increase of greater than 50 percent. Enhanced vouchers cover the resident's new rent, up to costs deemed reasonable by the local housing authority, in their once-subsidized unit, as well as subsequent rent increases. However, when the tenant leaves their unit, that housing unit loses any future affordability and the subsidy becomes a regular tenant-based voucher.
Vouchers are indispensable to any housing system.
But they are not necessarily a suitable replacement for housing that is being lost. For example, in tight market areas, or where the tenants are elderly, vouchers are not an effective surrogate for affordable housing. In 1997 Congress enacted the Multifamily Assisted Housing and Affordability Act, establishing a comprehensive program to address hundreds of thousands of properties that are privately owned and receive Section 8 subsidies. Properties where current rents exceed market value, are HUD-insured, and currently receive Section 8 subsidies are eligible for restructuring. The Section 8 contract is then renewed at lower rent levels and the owner agrees to accept Section 8 for 30 years.