Subsidized housing is government sponsored economic assistance aimed towards alleviating

housing Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether it ...

costs and expenses for impoverished people with low to moderate incomes. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, subsidized housing is often called "

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affo ...

". Forms of subsidies include direct housing subsidies, non-profit housing, public housing, rent supplements/vouchers, and some forms of co-operative and private sector housing. According to some sources, increasing access to housing may contribute to lower poverty rates.

Types

Co-operative housing

Some co-operative housing may offer subsidized units, but its main mandate is not subsidization. Its operating mandate is to offer non profit housing, where the rents or housing charges as they are called, goes back into the maintenance of the building instead of the profit of a landlord. Co-operative housing is controlled by the members of the co-op, which is run by a board of directors. There is no outside landlord. In most cases, all residents of the co-op become members and are owners, and agree to follow certain by-laws. Some co-ops are subsidized housing because they receive government funding to support a rent-geared-to-income program for low-income residents. There are other co-ops that are market-rate and limited equity, these types of cooperatives do not receive government funding and are not subsidized housing. In addition to providing affordable housing, some co-ops serve the needs of specific communities, including seniors, artists, and persons with disabilities. Examples of co-operative housing include: College Houses, Urban Homesteading Assistance Board ( UHAB), and

Habitat '67 HABITAT 67, or simply Habitat, is a housing complex at Cité du Havre, on the Saint Lawrence River, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, designed by Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie. It originated in his master's thesis at the School of Archite ...

, and regular rental housing be they regular looking apartments, townhouses or high end buildings such as those overlooking Central Park in New York City.

Housing subsidies

Housing subsidies are government funded financial assistance programs designed to mitigate the costs of housing for

low-income Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

tenants. Subsidies can be provided in the form of housing vouchers given to tenants, e.g.

Section 8 (Housing) Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937 (), often called Section 8, as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of low-income households in the United States. Fort Lauderdale, Florida Hou ...

, or via direct deposits to landlords with government contracts to provide

Home mortgage interest deduction

The largest housing subsidy in the US is the home mortgage interest deduction, which allows homeowners with mortgages on first homes, second homes, and even boats with bathrooms to lower their taxes owed. The cost to the federal government of the mortgage interest deductions in 2018 was approximately $25 billion, down from $60 billion for 2017 as a result of the

Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 The Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018, , is a congressional revenue act of the United States originally introduced in Congress as the Tax Cuts and Jobs A ...

. Some states also have the mortgage interest deduction provision. The majority of the home mortgage interest deduction goes to the top 5% income earners in the United States.

Rental subsidies

Some housing subsidies are provided to low income tenants in renting housing. These include shelter allowances, housing supplements, and shelter supplements from regional and local governments designed to help low-income households that spend a large proportion of their income on rent, such as

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

's Family Eviction Prevention Supplement program. The subsidies are often defined by whether the subsidy is given to the landlord and then criteria are set for the tenants they can lease to or whether the subsidy is given to the tenant, typically as a voucher, and they are allowed to find suitable private housing. The subsidy amount is typically based on the tenant's income, usually the difference between the rent and 30% of the tenant's gross income, but other formulas have been used. According to a 2018 study, major cuts in rental subsidies for poor households in the United Kingdom led to lowered house prices. In rare cases a financial institution or non-profit organization will provide mortgage loans at rates that are not profitable for the sake of a specific group. In Canada one such organization is Non-Profit Housing Subsidies Canada which provides subsidized mortgage loans to employees and volunteers of other non-profit organizations.

Non-profit housing

Non-profit housing is owned and managed by private non-profit groups such as churches, ethnocultural communities or by governments. Many units are provided by

community development The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activists ...

corporations (CDCs). They use private funding and government subsidies to support a rent-geared-towards-income program for low-income tenants.Cf. Koebel (1998), chapters on Non-Profit Housing

Public housing

Public housing is real property owned and managed by the government. Tenants must meet specific eligibility requirements.

Rent supplements

Rent supplements are subsidies paid by the government to private landlords who accept low-income tenants. The supplements make up the difference between rental "market price" and the amount of rent paid by tenants, for example 30% of the tenants income. A notable example of a rent supplement in the

is Section 8 of the

Housing Act of 1937 The Housing Act of 1937 (), formally the "United States Housing Act of 1937" and sometimes called the Wagner–Steagall Act, provided for subsidies to be paid from the U.S. government to local public housing agencies (LHAs) to improve living cond ...

().