{
  "id": "RL32284",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL32284",
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      "id": 428076,
      "date": "2014-02-07",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-06T20:40:16.712400",
      "title": "An Overview of the Section 8 Housing Programs: Housing Choice Vouchers and Project-Based Rental Assistance",
      "summary": "The Section 8 low-income housing program is really two programs authorized under Section 8 of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, as amended: the Housing Choice Voucher program and the project-based rental assistance program. Vouchers are portable subsidies that low-income families can use to lower their rents in the private market. Vouchers are administered at the local level by quasi-governmental public housing authorities (PHAs). Project-based rental assistance is a form of rental subsidy that is attached to a unit of privately owned housing. Low-income families who move into the housing pay a reduced rent, on the basis of their incomes.\nThe Section 8 program began in 1974, primarily as a project-based rental assistance program. However, by the mid-1980s, project-based assistance came under criticism for seeming too costly and concentrating poor families in high-poverty areas. Congress stopped funding new project-based Section 8 rental assistance contracts in 1983. In their place, Congress created vouchers as a new form of assistance. Today, vouchers\u2014numbering more than 2 million\u2014are the primary form of assistance provided under Section 8, although over 1 million units still receive project-based assistance under their original contracts or renewals of those contracts.\nCongressional interest in the Section 8 programs\u2014both the voucher program and the project-based rental assistance program\u2014has increased in recent years, particularly as the program costs have rapidly grown, led by cost increases in the voucher program. In order to understand why costs are rising so quickly, it is important to first understand how the program works and its history. This report presents a brief overview of that history and introduces the reader to the program. For more information, see CRS Report RL34002, Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program: Issues and Reform Proposals; and CRS Report R41182, Preservation of HUD-Assisted Housing, by Maggie McCarty and Libby Perl.",
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      "topics": [
        {
          "source": "IBCList",
          "id": 2201,
          "name": "Housing for Low-Income Individuals and Families"
        },
        {
          "source": "IBCList",
          "id": 4326,
          "name": "Benefits and Services for Low-Income Households"
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      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
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      "id": "RL32284_2008Jan29",
      "date": "2008-01-29",
      "retrieved": "2016-03-19T13:57:26",
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      "id": "RL32284_2005Jan10",
      "date": "2005-01-10",
      "retrieved": "2016-03-19T13:57:26",
      "title": "An Overview of the Section 8 Housing Program",
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