Assessing the Feasibility of Direct Rental Assistance Pilots: A Learning Cohort of Public Housing Authorities

The Housing Solutions Lab at NYU Furman Center seeks to provide technical assistance, peer learning opportunities, and research and evaluation support to a set of 4-5 public housing authorities (PHAs) with the aim of developing rigorous direct rental assistance (DRA) pilots. As opposed to providing housing assistance payments to landlords, DRA provides cash assistance directly to individuals and families who use the funds for housing costs. DRA is emerging as a promising and more equitable strategy to address limitations of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, the nation’s largest rental assistance program. While momentum behind the concept of DRA has grown, there have been few opportunities to directly compare it with voucher assistance. This project builds on the Lab’s ongoing work collaborating with practitioners to design and implement pilot interventions and our expertise in cash transfer programs and housing voucher policy, to assess the feasibility of DRA pilots. Outcomes would include individualized action plans establishing DRA pilot designs for participating PHAs, and new insights about key decision points and design options for DRA programs broadly.