The Triumph of Housing Allowance Programs: How a Fundamental Policy Conflict Was ResolvedAbstractSurely the most polarizing and enduring policy controversy in the annals of government-assisted housing concerns the direction of True North. Where is it most beneficial to point the enacted housing subsidy streams? Are the underhoused's needs most sensibly addressed by steering resources to the household—the demand side of the market—conferring sufficient purchasing power to compensate for lack of affordable housing in the marketplace? Or is True North in precisely the opposite direction, on the supply side? In that view, a concerned government best overcomes the housing deficit—with greater certainty and, in the long term, more cost effectively—by producing or inducing a supply of new housing, affordability assured by subcost rents. HUD's 30th anniversary is a good time for a meditative retrospect on the nature, origins, and settlement of that controversy.The Triumph of Housing Allowance Programs: How a Fundamental Policy Conflict Was Resolved (*.pdf, 133 KB)
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