Housing Choice Voucher Location Patterns a Decade Later

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) prepared a study of the location patterns of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. This study became an important baseline for the evaluation of the HCV program and its ability to serve the goal of poverty deconcentration. The study examined the ability of HCV households in the 50 largest metropolitan areas to make entry to a broad array of neighborhoods and to locate in high-opportunity neighborhoods with low levels of poverty.

New data from HUD and the American Community Survey permit the study to be replicated. We find that vouchers continue to consume only a small portion of the housing stock, with relatively small amounts of spatial concentration. Unfortunately, only about one in five voucher households locate in low-poverty neighborhoods, and this share is rising only very slowly. If the nation wants to pursue poverty deconcentration through the HCV program, we cannot rely on the program, as it is now structured, to accomplish this goal. Additional incentives and constraints will be needed, similar to those that were part of the Gautreaux and Moving to Opportunity programs.     

Iran's Financial Stake in Caspian Oil

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the questions of how to divide the Caspian Sea and transport its oil and gas have not been resolved and have become more problematic because of outside interference. It is in Iran's financial interest to take the initiative and either accept a smaller section of the Caspian Sea—if guaranteed the opportunity to participate in the transport of its hydrocarbons—or propose an Iranian solution of creating a joint Caspian oil and gas company that would get the hydrocarbons out more quickly and efficiently.