Existing housing assistance in the United States serves only a fraction of those who qualify, leaving more than 22 million Americans either homeless or rent burdened, paying more than 30% of their income on rent. Nearly all contemporary housing policy heavily leverages privately owned units and depends on the voluntary participation of landlords to be effective and efficient. For this reason, it is critical to understand whether tenant-based assistance can be provided in ways that encourage landlord participation. In this paper, we examine how landlords might respond to a novel tenant-based housing program, direct rental assistance (DRA), which provides cash payments directly to tenants to help them afford their housing. 

The extent to which DRA might improve housing access and outcomes hinges on how landlords will respond to the program. We use data on landlords who rent to low-income tenants to provide insights into how they might respond to DRA, based on landlords’ perspectives on the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, the largest existing source of federal rental subsidies. These insights provide considerations and recommendations for those designing DRA programs and pilots.

This research was supported by the Economic Security Project (ESP) and Economic Security California (ESCA).