ABSTRACT
For about 20 years, from the early 1960s to the early 1980s, the federal government financed the development of more than 1 million low- and moderate-income rental housing units owned by private entities. This chapter provides a brief overview of these programs and discusses the challenge of preserving this housing for continued low-income occupancy. Although the government sought to construct more public housing than before, it also sought to establish a less controversial subsidy program. To renew federal subsidies at current levels was politically unacceptable, but cutting these subsidies, absent other changes, would make it difficult if not impossible for owners to meet all of their properties' operating expenses, including debt service on their mortgages. However, the federal government's commitment to the production of subsidized housing has been erratic at best, and since the 1980s very little new housing has been built with direct federal subsidy.
