Many social safety net programs struggle with incomplete program take-up, oftentimes due to high participation costs.  The Housing Choice Voucher Program involves a complex, multi-step take-up process and coordination with the private rental market, creating considerable barriers to entry for participants.  Potential voucher recipients also must navigate an increasingly difficult housing search process in a limited amount of time, making it even more challenging to use their vouchers at all, and to find a home that meets their preferences.  In this paper, I evaluate the effects of two unique features of the voucher program: the timing of voucher issuance, and variation in how long voucher recipients are given to search.  In the aggregate, the timing of voucher issuance causes a decline in the likelihood of using a voucher within a certain time frame, and but has no effect on the chance of a participant ever using their voucher.  However, housing authorities vary in their time restrictions on voucher use and their leniency in granting extensions.  At housing authorities that do not offer extensions, end-of-month issuance results in a 6 percentage point decline in voucher success rates.  Households at these PHAs see shorter search times, and are more likely to end up in over-crowded housing situations.

Despite the significant benefits the Housing Choice Voucher program provides, recent estimates show that only 60% of households that receive vouchers use them successfully within one year (Ellen et al., 2025). Landlord discrimination against voucher holders is a key barrier. In this paper, we provide the first direct estimates of the impact of Source of Income Discrimination laws, which prohibit this discrimination, on the ability of new voucher recipients to use their vouchers to lease a home. Using a staggered difference-in-differences and matching approach, we find that the enactment of an SOI law leads to a three percentage point increase in the likelihood of new voucher holders using their vouchers in the four years after enactment. Effects grow over time and appear to be largest for laws enacted at the state rather than local level, for laws with fewer exemptions, and for households with children.