In February, the Clinton Administration released a good-news budget for affordable housing. All eyes are on one catchword: vouchers. This budget proposal, $6 billion higher than last year’s, requests 120,000 new vouchers for Section 8 subsidized housing. In New York City, where more than 200,000 families now sit on an eight-year wait list for these certificates, that could help about 6,000 households.

The plans also include:

  • 32,000 vouchers to help welfare recipients find stable housing near job opportunities;
  • 18,000 focusing on homeless programs;
  • 10,000 designed to be combined with tax credit money, in a new initiative to build apartments for very poor families.