SUB provided permanent assistance with housing rental costs through state or local PHAs. As long as families remained eligible (for example, met low-income criteria and had no drug-related convictions) and compliant (for example, paid rent on time), they could continue receiving the housing subsidy indefinitely. Housing subsidies were typically provided as a housing choice voucher, which intervention participants could use to rent housing that met the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Quality Standards, and that had a rent that was deemed reasonable based on rental costs for comparable homes in a given housing market. The local PHA set Housing Choice Voucher amounts, and if rental costs exceeded this limit, families were required to pay 30 percent of their unadjusted monthly income toward rental costs The primary population for the subsidies was families who spent at least seven days in an emergency homeless shelter and had at least one child age 15 or younger. The intervention took place in 12 locations in the United States: Alameda County, CA; Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Connecticut; Denver, CO; Honolulu, HI; Kansas City, MO; Louisville, KY; Minneapolis, MN; Phoenix, AZ; and Salt Lake City, UT.
Comparing the effectiveness of SUB with the effectiveness of PBTH indicates how much better SUB meets participants’ needs than PBTH does. The distinctive feature of SUB is that it provided permanent assistance to eligible families, whereas PBTH provided temporary housing and case management for 6 to 24 months. This evaluation also studied Community-Based Rapid Rehousing.
SUB aimed to provide housing stability for families as a means to improving their economic outcomes. This evaluation directly compared SUB with a separate intervention, PBTH, to better understand which of the two interventions might be more effective; the distinctive feature of SUB is that it provided permanent assistance with housing rental costs through state or local public housing agencies (PHAs).