Using housing vouchers to move to the suburbs: the Alameda County, California, experience

When families with Section 8 housing vouchers move from inner-city communities to the suburbs, are they more likely to perceive difficulties and to be dissatisfied with their search for housing than families who make local moves or families who first move to the suburbs but then return to the central city? Both bivariate cross-tabular and logistic regression analysis are applied to a telephone interview sample of 300 Section 8 voucher recipients in Oakland and Berkeley, California. Although many of the movers experienced difficulty in carrying out the housing search, a vast majority were satisfied with their search. Suburban-bound movers were not more likely to perceive difficulties or to be dissatisfied with their search than were members of the two other mover groups when other background characteristics were controlled. The implications of these results for the Section 8 housing voucher program are discussed. Keywords: housing search; housing policy; United States; housing vouchers; portability; suburbs