Edgar O. Olsen
Scott E. Davis
Paul E. Carrillo
University of Virginia, Department of Economics

This article uses administrative data on families that participated in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 8 Housing Voucher Program between 1995 and 2002 combined with data from other sources to estimate the differences in attrition rates among families with demographic characteristics of greatest interest for housing policy and the effects on attrition of changes in the program's main parameters. The most important results are that large decreases in the program's payment standard and increases in the tenant contribution to rent will have small effects on program attrition. These results suggest that the overwhelming majority of voucher recipients receive substantial benefits from program participation. The empirical analysis also indicates that whether the head of the household is elderly and whether the head is disabled are by far the most important influences on the likelihood that the family will exit the tenant-based voucher program. Families with disabled heads of the household are about 37 percent less likely to exit the program and families with elderly heads of the household are about 23 percent less likely to exit the program each year than otherwise similar families. Differences in attrition rates based on other family characteristics are much smaller.

Explaining Attrition in the Housing Voucher Program