Project Based Housing Vouchers and the "Family's Right to Move".
Housing Choice Vouchers, formerly known as Section 8 vouchers, include both "tenant based" and "project based" housing vouchers. The difference between the two is important.
A person who has applied for a housing voucher with his/her public housing authority receives a "tenant based voucher." That voucher is attached to or "goes with" the person. That is, if a person with a tenant based voucher decides to move, the voucher stays with the person and can be applied to an other apartment. The tenant/family controls the voucher.
A "project based voucher" is attached to a specific unit or apartment, regardless of who resides in that unit. Historically, if a person residing in an apartment with a "project based voucher" decides to move, the family cannot take the voucher with them. Rather, the voucher is attached to the apartment or unit, and the next tenant in that unit receives the housing subsidy of the voucher.
Many Housing Authorities have converted "tenant based vouchers" into "project based vouchers" and then awarded these "project based vouchers" to housing developers. Historically, "project-based vouchers" had the effect of putting low-income disabled families in the bind of either staying in a place where they no longer want to reside (in order to keep the housing subsidy) or moving and losing the voucher's housing subsidy.
HUD regulations provide for the "Right to Move" from a "project based" unit and to receive a tenant based voucher instead of the project based subsidy. Specifically, the family "may terminate the project based assisted lease at any time after the first year of occupancy. The family must give the owner advance written notice of intent to vacate (with a copy to the PHA)." The Public Housing Authority "must offer the family the opportunity for continued tenant-based rental assistance, in the form of either assistance under the voucher program or other comparable tenant-based assistance." That is, the Housing Authority must offer a tenant based voucher to the person leaving a project based unit.
"Before providing notice to terminate the lease" to the owner, a family "must contact the PHA to request comparable tenant-based rental assistance." "If voucher or other comparable tenant-based rental assistance is not immediately available upon termination of the family's lease of a project based voucher unit, the PHA must give the family priority to receive the next available opportunity for continued tenant-based rental assistance." This right to obtain a tenant based voucher for a family in a project based apartment tilts the power significantly back to the tenant. Without this opportunity, families would be forced to chose between a bad housing situation with a subsidized rent and a much better housing situation without a subsidy. This regulation balances the relationship.
Special thanks to Luciene Parsley of the Maryland Disability Law Center.
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
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