HUD Expands Moving to Work (MTW) Demonstration Program

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced the Landlord Incentives cohort of the expansion of the Moving to Work (MTW) Demonstration Program. Through this cohort, HUD will evaluate landlord incentives and their impact on participation in HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher Program to improve residents’ ability to use vouchers in their community.

“As Moving to Work marks 25 years, we are pleased to announce the latest cohort of local housing authorities that will join this program to test new housing strategies,” said HUD Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman. “These agencies have put forth impressive plans to further support housing choices for people in their communities, including innovative ways to engage landlords, who are critical partners in delivering HUD’s rental assistance program.”

This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the MTW Demonstration Program. First authorized by Congress in 1996, MTW is a demonstration that provides public housing authorities (PHAs) the opportunity to redefine how they operate by giving them flexibility to try “outside the box” ideas that address community needs in innovative and creative ways. MTW allows PHAs the flexibility to create customized solutions to their community’s specific challenges. With the addition of the 29 PHAs selected for this cohort, HUD will have added a total of 70 PHAs to the MTW Demonstration Program since January 2021. MTW PHAs are now in 38 states and the District of Columbia.

MTW encourages an entrepreneurial spirit to think of and create solutions in a new way. MTW agencies have directly influenced national policy for 25 years, paving the way for the future delivery of federally assisted housing. PHAs in the MTW demonstration have pioneered several innovative policy interventions that have been successful at the local level, and subsequently rolled out to the rest of the country’s PHAs. Examples include requiring less frequent recertifications for those on a fixed income, increasing payment standards for the reasonable accommodation of persons with disabilities, and allowing the owners to maintain site-based waiting lists for project-based vouchers.

This latest cohort focused on landlord incentives continues this tradition of policy innovation benefiting residents of HUD-assisted housing. The expansion of MTW focuses primarily on small- and medium-sized PHAs that face administrative and policy challenges given their size and location.

The following PHAs were selected for the MTW Landlord Incentives cohort:

Interested PHAs will be able to apply to a future cohort in Spring 2022, when HUD will invite small- and medium-sized PHAs to apply to a cohort that will evaluate asset-building initiatives.