For More Affordable Housing, Fix the Housing Choice Voucher Program

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is one of Pittsburgh’s most well-funded affordable housing efforts. However, due to structural and operational challenges, it serves far fewer people than it could. With the right reforms, the program has the potential to help many more residents.

The HCV program is Federally funded with a $61.7 million allocation in 2024¹HUD lists the allocations by housing authority here., and operated by the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh (HACP). This figure dwarfs state and local funding of affordable housing in Pittsburgh. For comparison, the locally funded housing opportunity fund has an annual budget of just $10 million²The other large, Federally funded affordable housing program is the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). This program receives more funding than the HCV program overall nationally, but it is distributed at the state level so the amount allocated to Pittsburgh varies year to year and cannot be easily compared to the amount of local HCV funding. LIHTC is used to subsidize new construction housing that includes deed restricted affordable units. As described in this article, academic research shows that LIHTC is even less efficient than the HCV program at helping low income people. However, because it allows rent seeking middlemen to be enriched, it has a constituency that can lobby for funding more effectively than low-income voucher recipients. This makes the funding more durable..

There are thousands of people who meet the income requirements and are currently on waiting lists to receive vouchers. The Housing Authority provides vouchers to approximately 5,000 households. Funding is available to fund approximately 2,000 additional vouchers, however there is a shortage of landlords who are willing to accept vouchers. As a result, the housing authority has been diverting voucher money to other, less effective housing programs³See this article and this one for more information..

The mayor and certain city council members, including Barb Warwick, are relying on the HCV program for funding to support a proposed affordability mandate on most new construction housing⁴The mandate would only apply to new developments with 20 or more units.. They plan to embed this requirement in the zoning code, misleadingly branding it as “Inclusionary [sic] Zoning” (IZ), a term I will use hereafter. I previously wrote in detail about the IZ proposal here. While IZ currently applies to a few Pittsburgh neighborhoods, the Mayor aims to expand it citywide.

To her credit, Pittsburgh City Councilmember Barb Warwick recently held a meeting with HACP executive staff and three participating landlords to discuss program improvements. Councilmembers Erika Strassberger, Deborah Gross, and Bob Charland also attended. A full recording of the nearly two-hour meeting is available here. Public Source provided a summary here, while the Post-Gazette published an opinion piece criticizing HACP Executive Director Binion for his inadequate responses at the meeting.

HACP operates two types of voucher programs. Tenant-based vouchers are provided directly to tenants, allowing them to rent from any market-rate landlord who meets program requirements. Project-based vouchers, on the other hand, are allocated to new developments or rehabilitated properties in exchange for a 40-year affordability requirement. During this period, tenants for these units must be referred by the housing authority⁵Director Binion explains the difference between these voucher programs at timestamp 12:13. At timestamp 45:23, Director Binion answers a question from Erika Strassburger that makes it sound like project based vouchers are more suitable for helping developers meet the IZ requirement, however, his response was pretty unclear. Some additional information about project based vouchers on the HACP website..

After watching the full video myself, I met with a friend from church who works as a property manager for a landlord that has a lot of HCV tenants. His input helped inform this post.

Problems with the Voucher Program Discussed at the Council Meeting

Vacancies caused by the Housing Authority

Despite long waiting lists for affordable units, the housing authority often fails to place tenants in project-based voucher units, leaving them vacant. While landlords receive reimbursement for the first two months of vacancy, they receive no compensation afterward⁶The HACP Chief Operating Officer Marsha Grayson explains this at timestamp 76:55.. Glenn Williams, executive director of a nonprofit managing 37 units, reported that between December 2022 and April 2024, five units remained vacant, resulting in $40,800 in lost rent⁷Glenn Williams, the executive director of the housing non-profit Sixth Economic Empowerment Development Inc., described this at timestamp 22:17.

HACP staff faced numerous questions about the causes of these vacancies and potential solutions. One key challenge is that developments with project-based voucher units often rely on multiple funding sources, each with its own compliance requirements. For example, Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) funding requires some units to be reserved for tenants earning below 20% of the Area Median Income (AMI). However, since eligibility for the project-based voucher waiting list is set at 50% AMI, this discrepancy complicates the task of identifying the next eligible tenant on the waiting list⁸Marsha Grayson, the HACP Chief Operations Officer, describes this at timestamp 28:39..

Problems with Tenants Damaging Property, Violating the Lease or Failing to Pay Rent

A second challenge that was discussed is difficult tenants. Landlords expressed a desire for the housing authority to provide assistance in cases where tenants damaged the property, violated the lease, or failed to pay utilities or rent⁹Southside Landlord Deborah Clark describes some of these problems at timestamp 54:52.. The HACP Chief Operations Officer Marsha Grayson responded that since HACP is not a party to the lease, it is the landlord’s responsibility to take their tenants to court for problems, and HACP can only terminate a tenant from the program following a successful court judgement.

A third challenge identified was the impact of remote work during the pandemic, which created operational difficulties for the Housing Authority¹⁰See timestamp 32:44.. The agency also experiences an annual staff turnover of over 25%¹¹According to this Post-Gazette article.. Director Binion noted that due to the complexity of regulations HACP must follow, it takes new employees about two years to become fully proficient in their roles¹²See timestamp 82:49.. However, he claimed that significant progress had been made in training, with the percentage of properly trained staff increasing from 30% to 90% over the past six months¹³See timestamp 1:23:16..

Failure to Process Paperwork Quickly

Kendall Pelling, the Executive Director of Rising Tide Partners, said that based on his discussion with various property managers, the Allegheny County Housing Authority is very prompt at processing documents, whereas with the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh, paperwork often falls into a ‘black hole’. ¹⁴See timestamp 1:24:00.

Kendall stated that it typically takes four months from the time his organization requests tenancy approval until an inspection is scheduled. Since HACP must conduct an inspection before a new tenant can move in, this delay creates significant challenges¹⁵See timestamp 19:56.

When asked whether there were better ways for HACP to communicate and collaborate with landlords to prevent these delays, Marsha Grayson responded that the Federal Privacy Act prevents the housing authority from sharing information on paperwork processing status¹⁶See timestamp 86:16..

Director Binion mentioned that the housing authority had sought HUD approval for regulatory and policy changes based on input from a landlord committee. However, he did not specify which changes were proposed or whether HUD had approved any of them¹⁷See timestamp 33:05..

Problems with the Voucher Program Not Discussed at Council

Unfortunately, the meeting failed to address a number of problems with the voucher program. Research funded by HUD has identified several additional reasons that landlords are reluctant to participate. Ten different papers funded by HUD can be found here on the topic. This HUD funded report written by researchers at John Hopkins University is (in my opinion) the best of the ten.

Issues with Inspections

The most common reason cited by landlords is issues with inspections., as shown in Exhibit 12 of the John Hopkins paper replicated below.

Before a tenant can move in, a property must pass an inspection to meet Housing Quality Standards (HQS), with annual inspections required thereafter. If a unit fails inspection, landlords must complete repairs, potentially leading to lost rent if the repairs take time to complete.

HACP provides an HQS checklist and guide on its website, but the actual standards are vague and subjective. A property manager I spoke with noted that inspectors have significant discretion, with some enforcing rules strictly while others take a more lenient approach.

For example, the HACP guide states that units must have “code wiring”. Many Pittsburgh homes still use knob-and-tube wiring, an outdated and less safe system that does not meet modern electrical codes. While upgrading a home to compliant wiring can cost over $10,000, most HACP inspectors do not require landlords to replace it. However, the property manager recalled at least one instance where an inspector did.

The HUD funded studies state that many landlords won’t consider the HCV program because they know or believe their units won’t pass inspection¹⁸See for example, page 56 of this study..

Many Housing Quality Standards (HQS) make sense for new construction but can be prohibitively expensive to implement in older homes that weren’t built to these standards. Moreover, many of these requirements are things that most homeowners or high-income renters wouldn’t address if they had to pay out of pocket.

For example, item 10 on the checklist asks: ‘Is [the] bathroom vented with either and[sic] exterior window or exhaust fan?’ From 2013 to 2019, I lived in a seventh-floor owner-occupied condo in Squirrel Hill. The building’s bathrooms were not located near exterior walls, so there were no windows, nor were there exhaust fans venting outside. Unit owners were not allowed to modify the building’s exterior, making compliance impossible. Even if the condo association had permitted the upgrade, the cost would have been in the thousands. Despite this, our condo was a high-quality home and a much safer¹⁹Apartment buildings have much better fire safety records than single family homes. Additionally, our condo was a newer building (built in the 1960s instead of the 1920s) so it had modern electrical wiring instead of knob and tube. Our house also had asbestos we had to abate at the time of purchase. Finally, our house has stairs whereas the condo could be navigated by elevator. While not prohibited by safety codes, stairs are an incredibly common source of injury. place to live than the house we later purchased.

Unreasonable inspection requirements prevent voucher holders from renting many of the available apartments in Pittsburgh, often placing the homes best suited to a family’s needs off limits. Frequently, it prevents them from being able to use the voucher at all.

HUD research shows that landlords in cities with older housing stock are more likely to find the inspection process burdensome²⁰Exhibit 11 of the John Hopkins paper shows that a much higher portion of landlords in Cleveland (60%) and Baltimore (50%) than Dallas (12%) thought the quality inspections were burdensome. The paper says this is likely due to Dallas having much newer housing stock.. Pittsburgh’s housing stock is very old, which limits the number of available units that meet modern code requirements.

The HUD research shows that a significant minority of landlords find the inspection process to be helpful overall. The property manager I spoke with viewed the inspections positively. He said that many tenants, both with and without vouchers, fail to report problems themselves, report problems themselves, and so having the inspections to catch things is helpful.

However, the property manager also said that they are mindful of the inspection requirements in the properties that they acquire. This is not a scalable solution because some landlords will end up owning units that are cost prohibitive to renovate to meet the quality standards.

Tenants “Trashing” the Unit

The property manager that I spoke to said that from the conversations that he’s had with various landlords, many don’t accept voucher tenants because they are concerned the tenants would “trash” the unit. He said that in his experience, voucher tenants are more likely to do this than other tenants. He said that one of the reasons that the landlord he works for is able to participate in the program is that he has more skill than many at judging whether a prospective tenant is likely to trash or damage the unit.

The housing authorities in some municipalities have programs that compensate landlords when voucher tenants damage the unit²¹This newsletter describes several such programs.. I asked whether such a program could be helpful in Pittsburgh. He said it might, but one challenge is that some of the problems are subjective. For example, two of the larger problems are people smoking in the units, and people being so messy with food that it attracts pests.

Exhibit 9 of the John Hopkins paper shows that the perception that voucher holders are worse tenants is common among landlords.

Learning Curve to Working with the Housing Authority

The property manager said that there is a learning curve to understanding how to work with the bureaucracy of the Housing Authority, and that it would be difficult for any landlord at the outset.

This is the reason that Barb Warwick said that her husband, who is a landlord, does not accept HCV tenants.

Oddly, Barb didn’t ask the landlords or the housing authority staff any questions to evaluate how to address this issue at the meeting.

Payment Standards

The housing authority explained that they recently updated their payment standards to be higher than market rate²²The housing authority staff explain how the payment standards are above market rate at timestamp 7:45, and timestamp 32:15. Barb Warwick asks what the payment standard is for Squirrel Hill as an example at timestamp 1:33:30 and reacts “that’s pretty good”., a change that was broadly viewed as positive at the council meeting.

However, there was no discussion about whether these higher payments are sufficient to attract landlords, given the additional costs associated with the HCV program—costs that landlords renting to market tenants do not face. Instead, attendees seemed to assume that because the housing authority set rates above market value, payment standards were not a limiting factor.

When voucher program requirements increase the cost of landlord participation, the burden ultimately falls on taxpayers and low-income individuals on the waiting list. If above-market payment standards are necessary to attract landlords, fewer people can receive vouchers within the program’s budget.

To maximize the program’s reach, the housing authority should prioritize reducing the costs and barriers landlords face. These include bureaucratic inefficiencies, tenant onboarding delays, compliance with inspections, and late rent payments. Additionally, the agency should explore programs or resources to support landlords dealing with problematic tenants.

Missing Landlord Perspectives

A major shortcoming of the council meeting was the limited participation from landlords, which left important perspectives unrepresented.

Notably, no landlords who refuse to accept vouchers participated. Ideally, some of these landlords could have shared firsthand why they opt out of the program and what changes might encourage them to participate.

Additionally, the meeting no input from private landlords who own 20 or more units. This is the class of landlord that is most impacted by the IZ requirements, so it is especially important to get their perspective.

Director Binion’s Responses were Unsatisfactory

Director Binion’s answers didn’t give me confidence that things were going to improve.

A number of the problems that were discussed at the meeting are ones that Public Source has reported on for years. Given that, I found it very discouraging when Director Binion kept saying things like, “ if it’s possible in the future six months from now whatever you want to revisit this we we we open to that” ²³See timestamp 1:23:34. and “I don’t have all the answers today” ²⁴See timestamp 1:13:24..

He went on a tangent about using unspecified AI tools²⁵See timestamp 1:15:19. that left me with the impression that he didn’t have realistic, serious answers to solving the problems.

Legalizing New Housing is Necessary for an Effective Voucher Program

The tighter the housing market, the more selective landlords are able to be about which tenants they accept. By increasing housing supply in Pittsburgh, landlords who refuse voucher holders risk prolonged vacancies, creating an incentive for broader landlord participation. More housing also drives down prevailing rents, allowing existing HCV program funding to support a greater number of vouchers.

New construction has additional benefits—it adheres to modern building codes, therefore meeting the HCV program housing quality standards.

Making it easier to build is crucial to ensuring that the financial benefits of vouchers go to their recipients rather than landlords. When housing construction is restricted, vouchers simply drive up rents. But when development is unimpeded, the markets respond to the subsidized demand by building new housing which keeps rents from rising.

One of the many advantages of reforming Pittsburgh’s zoning code and permitting process is that it would directly support both current voucher holders and those still waiting for assistance. Pro-Housing Pittsburgh has a list of solutions to boost housing production on their website. It is for this reason that IZ is counterproductive to getting more landlords to accept vouchers.

Conclusion

It is possible to significantly improve Pittsburgh’s housing choice voucher program. However, the city council meeting showed that significant work needs to be done, and different leadership may be necessary. Making improvements that reduce the cost for landlords to participate needs to be a focus. A well designed and run program would have landlords competing for HCV tenants, funded by vouchers that only paid slightly above market rate rents.

Attempts to force participation through IZ affordability mandates are counterproductive. Requiring developers to engage with a flawed system will only stifle new housing construction, further tightening the rental market and making it even harder for voucher holders to secure homes.

If the program is reformed, landlords will willingly accept vouchers without the need for mandates, eliminating IZ program drawbacks such as the requirement that tenants must move if their income exceeds a set threshold.

Kudos to Councilmember Barb Warwick for organizing this discussion in an effort to improve the program. Hopefully, this will be the first step in a sustained push for meaningful reform.