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An in-depth look at America’s largest rental assistance program and how it shapes the lives of residents in one low-income Baltimore neighborhoodHousing vouchers are a cornerstone of US federal housing policy, offering aid to more than two million households. Vouchers are meant to provide the poor with increased choice in the private rental marketplace, enabling access to safe neighborhoods with good schools and higher-paying jobs. But do they?The Voucher Promise examines the Housing Choice Voucher Program, colloquially known as “Section 8,” and how it shapes the lives of families living in a Baltimore neighborhood called Park Heights. Eva Rosen tells stories about the daily lives of homeowners, voucher holders, renters who receive no housing assistance, and the landlords who provide housing. While vouchers are a powerful tool with great promise, she demonstrates how the housing policy can replicate the very inequalities it has the power to solve.Rosen spent more than a year living in Park Heights, sitting on front stoops, getting to know families, accompanying them on housing searches, speaking to landlords, and learning about the neighborhood’s history. Voucher holders disproportionately end up in this area despite rampant unemployment, drugs, crime, and abandoned housing. Exploring why they are unable to relocate to other neighborhoods, Rosen illustrates the challenges in obtaining vouchers and the difficulties faced by recipients in using them when and where they want to. Yet, despite the program’s real shortcomings, she argues that vouchers offer basic stability for families and should remain integral to solutions for the nation’s housing crisis.Delving into the connections between safe, affordable housing and social mobility, The Voucher Promise investigates the profound benefits and formidable obstacles involved in housing America’s poor.

Housing policy --- Housing subsidies. --- Rent subsidies. --- Park Heights (Baltimore, Md.) --- Baltimore (Md.) --- Economic conditions. --- Alice Goffman. --- American poverty. --- Ben Austin. --- Ben Carson. --- Down, Out, and Under Arrest. --- Esther Sullivan. --- Evicted. --- FMR. --- Forrest Stuart. --- Freddie Gray. --- HCVP. --- HUD. --- High-Risers. --- Manufactured Insecurity. --- Matthew Desmond. --- On the Run. --- PHA. --- Richard Rothstein. --- The Color of Law. --- The Wire. --- ethnography. --- fair market rent. --- horizontal immobility. --- housing insecurity. --- housing projects. --- low-income housing. --- low-income renters. --- poor neighborhoods. --- public housing authority. --- public housing. --- rent subsidies. --- residential mobility. --- slumlords. --- social policy. --- social safety net. --- urban affairs. --- urban development. --- urban sociology. --- urban studies. --- white flight.