Stepped and Tiered Rent Demonstration Evaluation

Section 239 of the Fiscal Year 2016 Appropriations Act, P.L. 114-113 (2016 MTW Expansion Statute), authorizes HUD to expand the Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration program from the current size of 39 Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) to an additional 100 agencies over a period of 7 years. The Statute directs HUD to add new MTW PHAs in cohorts, with each cohort testing a specific policy change so that HUD can conduct a rigorous evaluation of that policy’s effects. A copy of the relevant section of law authorizing the Department to undertake “such programs of research, studies, testing, and demonstration relating to the mission and programs of the Department” (12 USC 1701z-1 et seq.) is included as Appendix H. The second cohort of MTW Expansion PHAs will test alternative ways of setting rents in the public housing and housing choice voucher programs. The traditional rent policy (the Brooke rent) typically sets each household’s rent at 30 percent of their adjusted monthly income. This rent policy is administratively complex and burdensome for PHAs and assisted households. The Brooke rent is hypothesized to be a disincentive for households to increase their earnings, as $100 dollars of increased income would result in $30 of increased rent. In this project—the Stepped and Tiered Rent Demonstration (STRD)—PHAs will implement alternative rents that might be easier to administer and might incentivize assisted households to increase their earnings. Five PHAs will implement a stepped rent, under which a household’s rent will increase modestly each year regardless of their income. Five PHAs will implement a tiered rent, under which households are assigned to income-based tiers and rents are set based on the tier. Both policies will enable households to increase their income without causing an immediate rent increase. Both policies include hardship provisions to prevent high rent burdens. And both policies include less frequent income reexaminations, to reduce the amount of PHA staff time required to administer the program. The STRD will be implemented as a randomized controlled trial (RCT); eligible households (limited to non-elderly, non-disabled households) will be randomly assigned to the new rent policy, or to remain on the traditional rent policy. This design is the gold standard for program evaluation and will enable HUD to conclude whether the new rent policies caused any differences observed between the two groups over time. HUD’s evaluation is expected to last 6 years. HUD has contracted with MDRC to carry out the first phase of HUD’s evaluation, to launch the STRD and lay the foundation for a long-term evaluation. HUD has also allocated resources to support software modifications required by the PHAs to implement the STRD Demonstration. This new information collection has the following components in this collection, all of which are necessary for the evaluation to succeed.

The latest form for Stepped and Tiered Rent Demonstration Evaluation expires 2028-07-31 and can be found here.

Head of Households 30-month Survey

Federal Enterprise Architecture: Community and Social Services - Community and Regional Development