Housing subsidies for low-income households (Policy Brief 264 - February 2012)
Despite the reinforcement of housing assistance, finding housing has become harder for low-income households. In fact, the affordable housing-stock available for these households has fallen since the late 1980s, particularly between 1988 and 1996.
- Housing subsidies for low-income households
Today, it seems like the public too often ignores the real return on the policy investments it funds because of poor indicators. These indicators are often based on an eligibility criteria. In addition, since the rent ceilings and other parameters are defined too broadly and do not take sufficiently into account the diversity of local housing markets, this too deterns the real return. This results in a misallocation between the housing-stock and the beneficiaries. In a particularly tense budgetary situation, this policy brief presents concrete proposals to strengthen the effectiveness of housing policies while making them more accurate. In some cases, this quest for efficiency must first pass through the creation of synthetic indicators that can compare different policies or different projects.
Summary
- Finding affordable housing has become harder, especially for low-income households
- Advantages and disadvantages of housing policy tools
- The need to develop cost-efficiency tailored for local circumstances
- Proposals for more efficient and fair assistance
- Appendix - American Studies on the effectiveness of housing programs
- Authors: Mahdi Ben Jelloul and Clément Schaff, Department of Economic and Financial Affairs,
Pierre-Yves Cusset, Department of Social Affairs
Press Contact:
Jean-Michel Roullé, Head of Communications
Tel. +33 (0)1 42 75 61 37 - jean-michel.roulle@strategie.gouv.fr