The Houston Housing Authority (HHA) is considering imposing work requirements and time limits on about 19,000 low-income households receiving federal Housing Choice Vouchers.
Kenneth Coles, the authority’s senior vice president for voucher operations, told Houston Public Media that potential changes are “in the infancy in discussions,” and any program update won’t happen for at least a year.
According to Coles, the rationale centers on decreasing the amount of money the housing authority pays for each household. Recipients typically allocate 30% to 40% of their annual income toward rent, while vouchers make up the difference.
“If we add work requirements, that would reduce the subsidy amount and increase the tenant portion. … That means we can serve more families from the waiting list,” Coles said. “It also generates self-sufficiency to the families where we’re now becoming a helping agency instead of empowering poverty.”
He added, “There’s always going to be exceptions for elderly and disabled.”
After a long-awaited update to the waitlist, about 1,600 applicants were still in line for housing vouchers in July. More than 16,600 were removed from the list after failing to meet an end-of-June deadline to provide updated information on a new HHA online portal. Time limits and work requirements would move more people from the waitlist into the program, according to Coles.
Are you a housing voucher recipient, or are you on the waitlist? Email dominic@houstonpublicmedia.org.
The considerations come as President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up its effort to impose work requirements on a range of social safety net programs, including Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and housing vouchers.
Responding to a question about the potential nationwide expansion of work requirements and time limits on housing vouchers at a press conference in June, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner said the current system is part of a “mindset of complacency” in the United States, “which causes stagnation, which causes deterioration, it hurts the family unit.”
Dominic Anthony Walsh/Houston Public Media
“When you think about work requirements and time limits, that’s where the heartbeat is,” Turner said. “It’s about helping people in America to live self-sustainable, and to fulfill the American dream of home ownership, to fulfill their God-given potential.”
Coles said the idea for work requirements and time limits originated “a few years ago,” when HHA joined the Moving to Work Demonstration program — a federal initiative in which a few dozen housing authorities are allowed to “design and test innovative ways to address local housing needs in communities across the country.”
“D.C. might beat us to the punch and come up with something more draconian, but just to reiterate that our internal discussions are in its infancy, and we’ll get as much input from our partners as we possibly can before final decisions are made,” Coles said.
Taylor Laredo, community navigator at advocacy group Texas Housers, said “it’s very disappointing to me to see the Housing Authority following suit” as the federal government makes it “a little bit more difficult to access those benefits that so many folks need.”
A spokesperson for HHA said the potential rule change would be subject to extensive public comment, data-driven impact studies, engagement with stakeholders and approval by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Laredo said the public comment period would be essential to “explore some solutions that are both fiscally responsible as well as, you know, not overly restrictive or removing benefits from the populations that need them the most.” He said work requirements would be complicated for single-parent households, senior citizens and people with chronic illnesses.
“I think that more of my alarm comes in on the time limits,” Laredo said. “This is housing stability for people who are working class, people who are trying to make ends meet, people who are trying to get decent housing in a housing market that is becoming increasingly competitive and increasingly less affordable and accessible to the lowest income Houstonians. Vouchers are a tool to sort of like alleviate that gap. By putting a time limit on that, you’re jeopardizing a bunch of people’s housing stability.”
As a public housing authority, HHA operates independently from the city of Houston and Harris County, though the Houston mayor appoints the board of commissioners. Mayor John Whitmire overhauled the HHA board in 2024, and the new board hired Jamie Bryant as CEO earlier this year.
Coles said HHA had already informed the city’s housing and community development department about the considerations. The city’s housing department and Harris County’s housing department deferred comment to HHA.
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