The majority of U.S. households that qualify for federal rental housing assistance do not receive it. In the absence of an entitlement to housing assistance, an underexplored cause of the shortfall is that higher rents in some areas driven by supply-constraining local regulations increase program costs, leaving fewer funds available to serve additional families. In this paper, we simulate the effect of increasing housing supply on the cost of Section 8 housing assistance programs in Los Angeles, as well as all 11 metropolitan areas most constrained by local regulations. If Los Angeles (all 11 metropolitan areas) produced new housing units at the same rate as the 90th percentile metropolitan area for a decade, market rents would fall by 18.1 percent (2.0 to 24.0 percent), and federal cost savings would equal $353 million ($1.8 billion), enough to increase the number of assisted families by 23.8 percent (18.6 percent). For comparison, doubling the number of units placed in service through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit for a decade—an alternative method for increasing housing supply—would lead to much lower cost savings of $18 million in Los Angeles, and $231 million across all 11 metropolitan areas.

大多数有资格获得联邦租赁住房援助的美国家庭没有得到它。在没有住房援助权利的情况下，造成短缺的一个未被充分探索的原因是，在供应受限的地方法规的推动下，某些地区的租金上涨增加了计划成本，从而使可用于为更多家庭提供服务的资金减少。在本文中，我们模拟了增加住房供应对洛杉矶第 8 节住房援助计划成本的影响，以及所有 11 个最受当地法规限制的大都市地区。如果洛杉矶（所有 11 个大都市区）在十年内以与第 90 个百分位大都市区相同的速度生产新住房单元，市场租金将下降 18.1%（2.0% 至 24.0%），联邦成本节省将达到 3.53 亿美元（ 18 亿美元），足以将受助家庭的数量增加 23.8%（18.6%）。相比之下，十年来通过低收入住房税收抵免将投入使用的单元数量翻一番——一种增加住房供应的替代方法——将导致洛杉矶节省 1800 万美元的成本要低得多，而所有 11 个地区则节省 2.31 亿美元大都市区。