ding for vouchers through the appropriations process. Most agencies receive voucher “renewal” funding each year, based on the number and cost of the authorized vouchers in use during the prior year, adjusted for inflation. If Congress provides less renewal funding than agencies are due, each agency’s funding is reduced proportionately. Funding for new vouchers and administrative costs is provided separately. Agencies participating in the Moving-to-Work demonstration are funded under their agreements.

How Effective Are Vouchers?

Vouchers sharply reduce homelessness and other hardships, lift more than a million people above the poverty line, and give families more choices about where to live, including by expanding access to neighborhoods with more resources. These effects, in turn, are closely linked to educational, developmental, and health benefits that can improve adults’ well-being and children’s long-term outcomes, while reducing costs in other public programs.

Most households with vouchers that can reasonably be expected to work, do work. In 2016, 69 percent of non-elderly, non-disabled households using vouchers were working or had worked recently, while an additional 10 percent were likely subject to a work requirement under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Moreover, vouchers enable more than 800,000 older adults and 1.3 million people with disabilities to live independently.