Housing and Urban Development

Current federal housing programs are seen as overly regulated and leading to warehousing of the poor, and Congress is asking state and local governments to assume a larger role in defining how the programs work. Congress is now reconsidering the most basic aspects of public housing policy--whom it will house, the resources devoted to it, the amount of existing housing stock that will be retained, and the rules under which it will operate. These statements provide GAO's views on legislation pending before Congress--S. 1260 and H.R. 2406--that would overhaul federal housing policy. GAO testified that the two bills contain provisions that will likely improve the long-term viability of public housing, such as allowing mixed incomes in public housing and conversion of some public housing to housing vouchers or tenant-based assistance when that makes the most sense. GAO also supports provisions to significantly beef up the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) authority to intervene in the management of troubled housing authorities, but GAO cautions that questions remain about the reliability of the oversight system that HUD uses to designate these agencies as "troubled."