How to Strengthen the Housing Choice Voucher Program
Posted by Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity on November 18, 2025
A webinar hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center explored reforms, many of which have bipartisan support in Congress, to increase efficiency and utilization in the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program. This Spotlight Exclusive looks at some the potential solutions raised, such as reducing the administrative burden for potential landlords or changing the HCV benefit into more of a direct cash program like SNAP. The program helps more than 2 million low income families affordably rent high quality homes at a time when housing is in short supply nationally. “But despite the program’s importance, rising housing costs, administrative hurdles, and low voucher utilization limit the program’s impact,” said Kristen Klurfield, a senior policy analyst for BPC’s J. Ronald Terwilliger Housing Policy Center. The HCV program “is arguably one of the best, if not the best, housing program out there,” said Hunter Kurtz, founding partner at Gate House Strategies and a former assistant secretary, Public and Indian Housing, at HUD. “But, you know, even something that’s almost perfect, there’s still a lot of room to make it perfect.”
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