By Catherine Reagor, Amy Qin, Jessica Boehm | Arizona Republic
Housing choice vouchers are supposed to give low-income tenants real choices about where to live and a chance to move to a better neighborhood.
But few tenants with vouchers in metro Phoenix get that opportunity.
Most of the housing that voucher holders find is concentrated in certain neighborhoods.
More than 70% of voucher holders, or more than 8,000 households, live in just 25% of all the ZIP codes where vouchers are used, an Arizona Republic analysis found.
Here’s one example of how the geography of housing remains so lopsided: More than 300 voucher holders live in each of the top 10 ZIP codes for voucher use. But the median number of vouchers used across all ZIP codes where voucher holders live is 37.
ZIP codes where voucher holders live tend to be poorer and have fewer opportunities than the rest of metro Phoenix.
They are also some of the neighborhoods with the highest rent increases and highest eviction rates.
“Section 8 housing choice vouchers are akin to school choice vouchers,” said Owen Metz, senior vice president of the affordable housing developer Dominium Apartments, which accepts housing vouchers. “One gives parents options to send their children to a school of their choice. The other provides opportunity for families to help choose where they live. ”
But, Metz said, there is a problem. Many landlords don’t accept vouchers, even though most schools do.
In metro Phoenix, as of April, almost 12,000 households were living in rentals subsidized by the voucher program, according to HUD, which is roughly 2% of all renter occupied households in metro Phoenix.
ZIP code 85301 in central Glendale is the top ZIP code for voucher usage. It also has more eviction actions since 2015 than any other Valley ZIP code. Median rents there also have risen by 143% from 2014 to 2022, according to rent data tracked by Zillow.
Many of the ZIP codes where the most voucher holders live — such as 85040 just south of Sky Harbor or 85201 in central Mesa — have almost twice the percentage of people who live below the poverty line than metro Phoenix has.
In a few ZIP codes, the program seems to be meeting its intended goal of allowing people to live in places where there are a mix of incomes and affordable housing stock. More than 300 renters with vouchers call ZIP code 85251 in central Scottsdale home, an area where median incomes are higher, and rents are much higher.
The Arizona Republic requested and analyzed housing choice voucher data by ZIP code from the seven housing authorities that serve the Phoenix area.
Six of the seven — Maricopa County, Phoenix, Glendale, Mesa, Tempe, and Scottsdale — provided data. Chandler did not, writing in a letter to The Republic that the housing authority does not keep data on the number of vouchers used by ZIP code. Chandler represents under 4% of all vouchers reported leasing in the Phoenix area, according to city-level data from HUD.
“The name is housing choice voucher program, and in theory, you can take your voucher into the world and pick housing of your choosing,” said Alicia Mazzara, deputy director of housing equity and data analysis at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C. “But obviously, there are strings around that.”
Landlords unwilling to rent to voucher holders, limited housing authority budgets, a shortage of vouchers available and rents that are outpacing voucher subsidies are making it harder than ever for Phoenix-area voucher holders to find housing.
Those who do often struggle to find a home outside a handful of the same neighborhoods, many of which don’t have the same resources or amenities that wealthier neighborhoods do.
Only 11% of voucher holders live in low-poverty neighborhoods, or ZIP codes where the percentage of residents living below the poverty line is less than 10%.
They tend to live in neighborhoods with fewer parks and playgrounds; less access to grocery stores, quality schools and jobs; and higher industrial pollution levels. These are among some of the conditions that researchers have summarized into what is called a Child Opportunity Index, a single measure that combines 29 different indicators of whether a neighborhood is very high, high, moderate, low, or very low opportunity.
The Republic found just 2% of voucher households live in ZIP codes deemed very high opportunity areas. More than 65% of all voucher households live in very low or low opportunity ZIP codes.
A few of the areas in metro Phoenix with a high number of vouchers have a mix of higher-end and affordable homes, but rents have soared in those neighborhoods. Also, out-of-state corporate buyers are snatching up those areas’ affordable apartments and no longer accepting housing vouchers, according to public records, voucher holders and housing advocates.
South Scottsdale 85251
This is the only Scottsdale neighborhood to make the top 10 list for the most housing vouchers. The area features older homes and apartments as well as many new luxury apartments and pricier homes that have been renovated. The ZIP code has 330 voucher holders.
- Median rent in June 2022: $1,994, according to Zillow
- Median rent in June 2015: $1,091
- Increase: 83%
- Median rent for metro Phoenix: $1,938
- Percent of renter-occupied units: 72%
- Median annual household income: $71,662
- Total population: 41,592
- Demographics: 18% Latino, 73% white, 9% Black
- Child Opportunity Index level: High
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