Section 8 housing voucher distribution canceled after thousands waiting in line get out of control

[Gormy Cuss]

49. It goes back much further than that - Nixon moved the focus away from funding new construction

of public housing. The Reagan administration did its part in further dismantling subsidized housing assistance and it's pretty much been shrinking ever since.

I think what you're referring to is the more recent programs designed to take down old, high density, decrepit public housing and replace it with low density housing and more Section 8 vouchers. The old public housing was in bad shape because of years of failure to meet maintenance needs and generally had low occupancy rates because so many units were uninhabitable. When replacement was funded, the number of units replaced was based on occupancy in the old, rather than the original capacity of those developments. So if the 1930s-era development was built with 1000 units but only 250 were inhabited at the time of funding for the demolition, only 250 replacements were funded (whether through new construction or Section8 vouchers.) In other words, 750 subsidized units were lost permanently.