Choice and mobility are key aspects of the of the nation's largest federal housing assistance program, the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV, or voucher) program. The choice aspect of the program—that eligible families can use their federal subsidies to rent the housing they choose in the private market—differentiates it from the other major federal housing assistance programs, including public housing and project-based Section 8 rental assistance. It is, in part, because of the choice and mobility aspects of the program that it has grown to largely replace other forms of housing assistance. Congress has been considering reforms of the HCV program for the past decade, although legislation has not been enacted. Thus far, choice and mobility have not been the centerpiece of these efforts. However, these aspects of the program may be of greater interest to policymakers going forward, as new research findings have questioned the effectiveness of current policies in promoting mobility and improving family well-being. This report explores the concept of choice and mobility in federal housing policy, particularly in the Section 8 HCV program. It begins by describing the origins of choice and mobility in federal housing policy, followed by a discussion of choice and mobility in today's Section 8 HCV program. The report then provides an overview of relevant research on the effects of choice and mobility policies. It concludes with a discussion of considerations for policymakers. Originally, federal housing assistance programs did not offer families much choice about where they were to live if they wished to receive assistance. Families seeking assistance would apply to the local public housing authorities (PHAs) that administered federal housing assistance programs (i.e., public housing) and if a subsidized unit became available, it would be offered to the family. It is well documented that for the first several decades of the public housing program, families were directed to specific public housing developments based on their race. The housing developments to which black families were directed were generally in less-desirable geographic areas and of poorer physical condition than those to which white families were directed. This systematic racial segregation was eventually outlawed and several large PHAs were subject to court-ordered desegregation strategies (e.g., the Gautreaux Fair Housing program, discussed later in this report). However, many public housing developments, particularly in urban areas, remained racially segregated. These same housing developments have been characterized by severe distress, both physical and social, offering challenging circumstances and limited opportunities for the families that reside in them. The problems have been most acute in urban areas, where public housing helped contribute to the concentration of extreme poverty in inner-city, primarily black communities, and where joblessness, crime, and myriad other social problems were growing. It is against the backdrop of this history that "choice" has come to be considered a critical component in today's assisted housing policy. The concept of choice in federal housing policy is driven by two policy goals, neither of which the traditional public housing program appeared to have accomplished. One is to support the autonomy of individual families and their right to choose where they wish to live. The other is to promote racial desegregation and poverty deconcentration, by providing low-income families with the option to move to low-poverty and racially integrated areas. Both implicit and explicit in this goal is the desire to improve families' well-being, particularly their economic well-being. Encouraging moves to low-poverty neighborhoods is premised on the idea that low-poverty neighborhoods create better life outcomes, particularly for children. The disparities in health, education, exposure to violence, and employment outcomes between high-poverty and low-poverty neighborhoods are well documented. However, beyond a general agreement that individuals benefit from living in low-poverty neighborhoods, there are many unresolved questions. Researchers have not concluded why, how, and how much neighborhoods matter, and researchers continue to debate which differences in neighborhoods (e.g., differences in resources, social networks, role models, civic engagement, etc.) lead to differences in neighborhood features (e.g., school quality or crime levels). Congress included among the stated goals of today's largest federal housing assistance program, the Housing Choice Voucher program, the promotion of choice and mobility and the deconcentration of poverty. The Quality Housing and Work Opportunity Act of 1998 ( P.L. 105-276 ), which created the modern HCV program, identified public housing as plagued by a series of problems, including the concentration of extremely poor people in extremely poor neighborhoods, and it included among its purposes: "facilitating mixed income communities and decreasing concentrations of poverty in public housing"; and creating the voucher program as "a market-driven program that will assist in making tenant-based rental assistance under such section more successful at helping low-income families obtain affordable housing and will increase housing choice for low-income families." While few observers argue against the concept of providing low-income families with housing choice, there have been criticisms of the way that choice is provided through the Housing Choice Voucher program. Similarly, while there is little disagreement that systematic segregation is untenable and that areas of highly concentrated poverty with limited economic opportunity are undesirable, there is disagreement about how necessary racial and/or economic integration is to individual and family well-being. The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is arguably the federal government's largest housing mobility program, serving roughly 2 million low-income families. While choice and mobility are among the goals of the program, another primary goal is to make decent housing affordable to low-income families. This section of the report describes the program's structure and the ways in which that structure shapes the choices of the program participants. It also describes the design elements that have been incorporated into the program's structure to allow for and encourage families' moves to low-poverty and racially integrated neighborhoods. The Section 8 HCV program provides eligible low-income families with subsidies that they can use to rent the housing of their choice from private market landlords. Families are generally eligible to receive a voucher if they are very low-income (earning 50% or less of the local area median income) or if they are low-income (earning 80% or less of the local area median income) and meet other special criteria such as being elderly or having disabilities. The program is fully federally funded, but it is administered by local Public Housing Authorities (PHAs). Eligible families apply directly to PHAs for housing vouchers. Families that receive a housing voucher must find a unit that meets the program's housing quality standards (HQS) and is considered to have a reasonable rent when compared to similar units in the local market and on the premises. Families have a limited amount of time to search for a unit, as determined by the PHA, but which must be 60 days at minimum. Landlord participation in the program is voluntary, so families must not only find units that meet their needs and the program standards, but also units with landlords willing to accept their vouchers. The amount of assistance available to a household is based on the local area's Fair Market Rent (FMR). FMR is determined by HUD and is equal to the 40 th or 50 th percentile of the distribution of an area's rents, depending on the affordability of the local area. In setting maximum benefit levels in each community, PHAs have the discretion to apply a ratio between 90% and 110% to the FMR according to the conditions of the local market. The resulting "payment standard" varies by bedroom size and serves as the basis for setting a household's subsidy amount. A household's voucher benefit is calculated as the PHA's payment standard, less the household's rent contribution, which is generally equal to 30% of the household's income. The 30% contribution is the standard for what is considered "affordable" for a low-income family to pay towards housing costs. A household may choose to spend up to 40% of its income for rent within the first year of participation and more than 40% of its income on rent after the first year of participation. The structure of the program thus specifies the minimum quality of the unit and the maximum cost to the household to ensure that decent housing is made affordable to low-income families. The housing quality standards guarantee that subsidized families live in decent, safe, and sanitary housing and capped tenant contributions prevent participating families from having a high rent burden. On the other hand, these specifications do limit the units that are available to program participants. HUD's flexibility in setting the FMR, PHAs' flexibility in setting payment standards, and families' flexibility in determining the amount of their income to be contributed to rent can serve to make more expensive units, potentially including those in low-poverty neighborhoods, more available to low-income families. These features, however, may result in more expensive federal subsidies or higher rent burdens for families. Other program features, such as portability requirements and other deconcentration policies, are specifically intended to support and encourage the mobility of low-income families. Portability is a key feature of the current Section 8 HCV program. Portability allows families to move from one PHA's jurisdiction to another PHA's jurisdiction without an interruption of housing assistance. Portability has limits, however. PHAs have the ability to prohibit some families (those that are not residents in the PHA's jurisdiction) from making portability moves during their first year of participation in the program. PHAs may also deny portability moves if they do not have sufficient funding to support the move. Families that are able to make portability moves also face restrictions. The family's income must fall within the income limits of the receiving PHA and the family is subject to the receiving PHA's voucher payment standards, subsidy standards, search time policies for the portability move, and may be subject to rescreening for eligibility.