Portability of HUD Vouchers, Oregon and SW Washington: Vancouver and Central Oregon Show Biggest % Gain in Locally Used Vouchers.

One of the most useful features of the HUD voucher program is the portability feature. This housing choice feature:

• Allows tenants, under specific circumstances, to take their voucher from one geographic location and use it in another, whether that be within a city or county, within a state, or in another state. 
• Allows families to pursue job opportunities and to adjust to changing family circumstances and needs, instead of being locked into a specific location specific project. 

(A January 2011 HUD Notice 2011-2 HA provides more background on tenant moves and portability)

For the first time ever, there is recent (Sept 2010) public data available at the PHA level that shows how much, and what kind of "porting" is occurring. With that data it is now possible to calculate whether a PHA is losing or gaining vouchers in local use because of net activity from port INS or port OUTS. 

As indicated at bottom of table I prepared HERE the port definitions are:

• PORT OUTS: Total number of vouchers for which the PHA is being billed by and is remitting HAP costs to another PHA under the portability option.  These vouchers are part of the PHA’s inventory 
• PORT INS: Are vouchers from another PHA and are part of the OTHER PHA's inventory                 

Some observations

1. Most Oregon PHA's are losing more vouchers in local use because more voucher tenants are porting out than those that are coming into the local area through porting in.(Only 5 of Oregon PHA's report that they are gaining more vouchers in local use from net porting activity, while 16 Oregon PHA's are losing vouchers in local use because port outs exceed ports in).
2. It is impossible to know with the data available whether porting activity is between other PHA's in Oregon or to or from out of state PHA's. 
3. Vancouver comes out as a BIG benefactor from portability. In Vancouver/Clark County, locally used vouchers increase by 19.6% because of portability. The reported data shows Vancouver PHA lost 45 ports to other PHA's but they gained 423 port ins, for a net increase of vouchers in local use of 378. (Again, with the data available, it is impossible to know whether these ports came from Oregon PHA's, Washington state PHA's, or other PHA's around the country). 
4. Within Oregon, the Central Oregon PHA had the highest net port in percentage of all Oregon PHA's at 8.7%. While the reported data shows Central Oregon lost 11 ports to other PHA's, they gained 109 port ins, for a net increase of vouchers in local use of 98.  
5. Mid Columbia PHA lost the greatest percentage of vouchers in local use in Oregon (6.8%) because they lost 37 voucher holders through port outs while they had NO reported gains from port ins. 
6. Oregon's largest PHA, Portland, had 184 port outs and 313 ports in, so they netted an increase of 129 vouchers in local use (1.7%).
7. Surprisingly, the reported data shows that Washington County PHA lost more voucher holders through port outs (102) than they gained through port ins (6). This mean that the number of Washington County vouchers in local use declined by 96 units (3.7%) because of the net porting activity. Other than possibly Columbia County (that county data is buried within multi county NW Oregon PHA data) Washington County was the ONLY county in the 6 county (Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington, Yamhill, and Clark) Portland bi state metro area to see a reduction in local voucher use because of portability.

Caveats

• It is possible that reporting errors could be distorting porting activity, or that informal porting arrangements are not being reflected in the reported porting activity. 
• The table reflects a point in time analysis, it is possible that activity in other months might show different levels and kinds of port activity. 

If anyone has any additional insights please add a comment to this post (it's easy) or drop me a note.  

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.