ABSTRACT
In summarizing legislative and regulatory changes proposed or enacted in 2004 and 2005, this chapter illustrates the degree to which the federal government may be reversing its direction in many areas of housing policy. It assesses the extent to which recent policy changes-proposed or enacted deviate from the principles and priorities of federal housing policy, especially with regard to the lowest income households. The chapter provides a brief discussion of the most fundamental challenges of US housing policy, whether or not housing programs are changed along the lines of current proposals. Under the proposed changes, local authorities would have the ability to provide vouchers to higher income households who require less subsidy than poor households, to require recipients to pay more than 30% of their income on rent, or to reduce the amount of rent that vouchers will cover.
