The housing choice voucher program is the largest housing assistance program in the United States, costing an estimated $25 billion and assisting about 1.3 million families annually.
In the February 2024 Housing & Health issue of Health Affairs, Sandra Newman of Johns Hopkins University and her team of coauthors explore the causal effects of housing choice voucher receipt on family stress.
They find that among families in the Cleveland, Ohio, and Dallas, Texas, metropolitan areas, voucher recipients were more likely to report sufficient space, adequate heat, and enjoy feelings of neighborhood safety, reductions in mothers’ hypertension and parent stress.
Affordability played the most important role in reducing parent stress among recipients.
For more on the paper’s findings, listen to a new episode of A Health Podyssey featuring lead author Sandra Newman and Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil.
