Additional Estimates of Enrollment and Allowance Payments Under a National Housing Allowance Program

Supplementing N-1035, which reports eligibility and cost estimates under three proposed housing allowance formulas, this Note presents estimates of participation rates and allowance-payment costs for several variations of a national housing assistance program under one of those formulas, Housing Gap I. Whereas N-1035 considered income as the only criterion of eligibility for the program, this study tests the effects of additional eligibility criteria based on other household characteristics. Program variations are defined by introducing policy parameters affecting eligibility for housing assistance, e.g., age and household composition, and geographical limitations. For each variation, eligibility of households to participate in the program was first determined. The expected number of allowance recipients was then obtained by estimating the probability that eligible households of various types would actually enroll. Results are based on expected participation and are not directly comparable to eligibility estimates in N-1035.