Public Housing

The overall vacancy rate in public housing is about eight percent. This average, however, masks the conditions at many large housing authorities where uninhabitable buildings cause the rate to be close to 22 percent. At some authorities, whole projects are vacant and hundreds of run-down buildings stand idle. If housing authorities tear down or sell any of these buildings, they are required to replace the housing units on a one-for-one basis with new or other inhabitable housing or provide equivalent rental assistance to the tenants. However, because some authorities believe that they lack enough money or appropriate sites to replace demolished housing, they leave the deteriorated buildings in place. This report provides information on (1) housing authorities with the highest number of vacant units, (2) the impact of the one-for-one requirement on housing authorities' ability to deal with their uninhabitable housing units, and (3) housing officials' views on the proposed waiver of the one-for-one replacement law.

GAO found that: (1) 27 housing authorities account for about one-half of the 102,000 vacancies nationwide; (2) most of the 27 authorities are located in major cities and have more than 1,250 units; (3) the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has classified 10 of the 27 authorities as troubled; (4) 200 of the more than 13,000 public housing developments have vacancy rates of 50 percent or more; (5) the lack of federal funding for new housing or other replacement assistance and the lack of suitable replacement sites make it difficult for housing authorities to tear down and replace their nonviable housing units under the one-for-one rule; (6) HUD officials believe that funding for replacement housing is available on a multiyear basis, but housing authorities have failed to apply for such funding; (7) the failure to tear down nonviable housing results in excessive operating costs and federal subsidies and abets crime and vandalism; (8) although housing officials believe that waiving the one-for-one replacement rule would be useful in eliminating nonviable units, they view the proposed waiver as too restrictive and inflexible; and (9) housing officials believe that complying with one or more criteria should be sufficient grounds for granting a waiver, and that the lack of suitable replacement sites and other issues should be considerations when qualifying for a waiver.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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