The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Program has produced nearly 3 million housing units, making it the most important source of funding for affordable housing. Yet despite the importance of LIHTC to the field of affordable housing, there has been remarkably little research that has focused on the residents living in LIHTC developments. Instead, much of the research influencing housing policy has been developed through studies focused on residents living in HUD-subsidized housing programs, for example, through the research conducted as part of the Moving to an Opportunity demonstration project and the HOPE VI panel study. But HUD-subsidized housing programs including both project-based public housing developments and housing choice vouchers are different from LIHTC in several important ways. First, the public housing projects that were subject to HOPE VI and MTO intervention were characterized by significant distress resulting from a legacy of discriminatory siting, long-term isolation, structural racism, chronic underfunding, and stigmatization.

HUD-subsidized housing programs—including both project-based public housing developments and housing choice vouchers—are different from LIHTC in several important ways. First, the public housing projects that were subject to HOPE VI and MTO intervention were characterized by significant distress resulting from a legacy of discriminatory siting, long-term isolation, structural racism, chronic underfunding, and stigmatization. LIHTC properties haven’t been subject to this same legacy of isolation and disinvestment: while in general LIHTC properties are located in neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty than the average neighborhood in the United States, they have benefited from consistent financing, and the buildings tend to be well-managed and more integrated into the neighborhood fabric. Second, rent calculations in LIHTC properties operate differently from public housing and housing choice vouchers.