How Universal Basic Housing Works
On any given night, there are an average of 549,928 people who experience homelessness in the United States.
194,716 of these people are families.
355,212 are individuals.
35,686 are unaccompanied homeless youth.
77,486 are considered “chronically homeless” individuals.
The Current Section 8 Voucher Program
The Section 8 Voucher Program, or Housing Choice Voucher Program, is the federal government’s major program for assisting extremely low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to afford safe, decent housing.
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The New Section 8 Voucher Program
Congress created the Section 8 Housing Voucher Program in 1974, intending to help families move out of fractured urban neighborhoods to safer areas. What actually happened? Somehow, these “safe” areas became difficult to distinguish from the public housing properties, the same properties from which this program intended to help families escape.
The problem with the current Section 8 program:
- Poorly structured
- President Nixon’s administration created the vouchers to ensure that those eligible for the program pay no more than 30% of their income on housing costs — however, not everyone is given the opportunity to receive these benefits
- It presently only reaches 17% of low-income renters
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Implementing a new-and-improved universal housing voucher program would allow the existing Section 8 Voucher Program to be as easily accessible as food stamp programs. By meeting the criteria, anyone would be able to use his or her voucher to rent on the private market.
In order to house the number of people who currently need accommodation, the number of available Section 8 vouchers would need to drastically increase. Currently, we guarantee medical care through Medicaid and food through the SNAP program to those in need. Why can’t we provide housing to those in need? We can. Using a housing voucher system, if any American’s income drops below the eligible level, they can choose to use a voucher.
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What does this mean in terms of homelessness?
Under the housing voucher system, no one would have to spend 70–80% of his or her income on rent. In turn, disposable income within households would increase, providing not only more but better-quality food and clothing. This program would also decrease the number of evictions. All of this means that more people would have places to live and fewer people would be sleeping on the streets at night.
