The Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is the federal government's largest needs-based housing assistance program, in terms of both the number of families served and the cost to the federal budget. The program serves roughly 2 million low-income families at a cost of approximately $19 billion (in FY2012) in discretionary appropriations. 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. However, 75% of all vouchers available in a year must be provided to extremely low-income families (earning 30% or less of the area median income). The subsidies cover the difference between a family's minimum contribution toward their rent (generally, 30% of family income) and the market rent for the housing unit. The Section 8 HCV program has a unique administrative structure. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provides federal funds to Public Housing Authorities (PHAs)—which are state-chartered local government entities—to administer the program. While the basic structure of the program, such as the type of assistance provided and who is eligible, is governed by federal statutes and regulations, many important elements of the program are left to the discretion of local PHAs. That local discretion is the subject of the CRS study presented in this report. PHAs have been responsible for administering federal housing assistance since the mid-1930s, when the low-rent public housing program was created. Public housing is federally subsidized housing owned by local PHAs and available to low-income tenants for below-market rents. In the earliest years of the public housing program, almost all aspects of the program design were left to PHAs. Over time, the federal government, through both congressional legislation and administrative actions, increased the amount of federal rules and regulations governing the program. By the time the Section 8 housing assistance program—the precursor program to the Housing Choice Voucher program—was enacted in the mid-1970s, federal law governing public housing directed much of the administration of the program, including which families PHAs should serve (both in terms of income eligibility and priorities and preferences for certain types of families) and how much PHAs should charge families for rent. These rules and regulations were designed to promote the federal policy goal of ensuring that housing is safe, decent, affordable, and available to certain populations. The rules were extended to the new Section 8 program, and over time additional rules and regulations were added to Section 8 as additional policy goals emerged—such as promoting tenant choice and family self-sufficiency. By the mid-1990s, federal policy had shifted in favor of deregulation and greater local control in federal social assistance programs, a policy often referred to as devolution. Congress passed laws to deregulate federal housing assistance programs throughout the 1990s, culminating with a major assisted-housing reform bill: the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 (QHWRA, P.L. 105-276 ). As a result of QHWRA and earlier deregulation laws, PHAs were given broader latitude in establishing their own tenant selection policies, income and rent policies, and administrative operations policies in both the Section 8 HCV program and low-rent public housing. The primary policy goal behind the devolution of social programs, including the HCV program, is to allow states and localities to design their programs differently in order to reflect their different interests, values, and needs. The resulting variations in program policies across PHAs are consistent with that goal. Devolution may also allow communities to experiment with new and innovative models for providing assistance. As such, devolution may serve the federal purpose of increasing efficiency in the program if PHAs find less costly ways to provide housing assistance. On the other hand, devolution might present challenges to achieving federal policy goals, such as promoting consistent and equitable access to assistance. There is also a concern that devolution could lead some PHAs to elect policies that will be less advantageous to low-income populations. Questions may also arise about how best to balance federal policy intentions with the desires of state and local administrators when they are in conflict. Finally, there are concerns that increased devolution may lead to lax oversight of federal funds. Due to these policy tensions, policymakers continue to debate how much discretionary authority should be afforded to PHAs. PHAs have several areas of discretion in the administration of the HCV program; they are able to set some of their own policies and have the flexibility to determine how some federal policies are implemented. For example, PHAs have discretion to determine which categories of families to prioritize for assistance (through a practice known as "local preferences"), which categories of families to exclude from assistance (through screening, denial of admission, and termination of tenancy policies), how families are chosen for assistance (through waiting list policies), how much time families have to use their assistance (through housing search time policies), how much families will be required to pay in rent (through minimum rent policies), and how often families' rents will be adjusted (through interim recertification policies). The decisions made by PHAs in all of these policy areas—which are the focus of this study—and the many other policy areas in which they have discretion have implications for the federal cost of the program and the achievement of federal policy goals, and for how families experience and access the HCV program. This study presents findings on the use of PHA discretionary authority. It characterizes PHA discretionary policies into three major categories: tenant selection, income and rent determination, and program administration. The study focuses upon discretionary policies within these areas because they affect which families receive assistance, the level of assistance families receive, and the way in which families access that assistance. CRS collected data on the following specific PHA discretionary policies: local preferences, screening and denial of assistance, termination of assistance, minimum rent level, interim recertifications, waiting list administration, and search time and extensions. The following summarizes the data sources and the data collection process for this study, and it also describes previous research on PHAs' discretionary authority. (A more thorough discussion of the methodology can be found in Appendix B .) Descriptions of the selected PHA discretionary policies and the data collected on these policies are provided in the research findings section of this report. In order to collect data on PHAs' discretionary policies, CRS reviewed PHAs' Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher administrative plans and interviewed PHA officials. The data collection process thus had two stages. The first stage involved the collection and review of PHA administrative plans, which are policy documents that PHAs are required to develop and make publicly available. The policies stated by PHAs within their administrative plans are the primary source of data for this study. PHAs were asked to provide their plans during the period from October 2011 through January 2012. The second stage of data collection involved interviews with officials from a subsample of PHAs. During the interviews, which took place in January 2012, PHA officials were asked to explain their PHAs' discretionary policies. The data collection processes for the administrative plans and for the interviews with PHA officials are described in greater detail in the following sections of this report. Data limitations that have implications for the findings presented in this report are also discussed. Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher administrative plans were the primary source of data for this research study. PHAs are required to state their local discretionary policies within their administrative plans. PHAs must update their administrative plans to reflect any new requirements as directed by HUD and to reflect any changes that might be the result of local circumstances. The plans are not required to be updated annually, although in practice it appears that many PHAs frequently update their administrative plans to reflect changes in both discretionary and mandatory policies. HUD discourages the inclusion of mandatory policies within the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher administrative plans, but PHAs functionally use their administrative plans as program guidebooks in which all policies and procedures are transcribed in one document. The administrative plans are thus a rich source of information about the daily administration of the Housing Choice Voucher program as mandatory and discretionary policies intersect. (See Appendix A for a more thorough discussion of PHA administrative plans and issues related to them.) In total, 131 PHAs were selected for the study's sample, which represented a PHA universe of 1,732 PHAs. The PHA universe excluded all PHAs that operate outside of typical program rules or models. These include Moving-to-Work (MTW) PHAs, PHAs in territories, and PHAs administering state-level programs. In addition, CRS limited the PHA universe for this study to exclude all PHAs with fewer than 100 units, which is consistent with an earlier HUD study, in order to make the sample size for the study manageable. When selecting PHAs for the sample, CRS ensured that PHAs of all sizes and regions of the country were adequately represented. CRS attempted to collect the administrative plans from PHAs in a manner that would create the least burden for PHAs. When possible, CRS collected the plans by downloading them from PHA websites. When plans were not available from PHA websites, CRS contacted the PHAs and requested a copy of their current plans. A small number of PHAs were unable to provide a copy of a current administrative plan, and opted instead to answer a brief questionnaire that asked them to describe their PHA's discretionary policies. Two PHAs selected for this study did not supply administrative plans or complete a questionnaire and were represented as missing data within research findings.