How Well Can Alternative Policies Reduce Rural Substandard Housing?

Over 2 million of the Nation's 5.1 million substandard housing units were located in rural areas in 1981, with over half of them in the South. This report examines where substandard housing is concentrated and compares two approaches to reduce substandard housing in rural areas: building new housing or subsidizing existing housing. Programs to subsidize existing housing would reduce rural substandard housing more per dollar spent than would programs to construct new housing. A combined program that targets money toward housing construction in low-vacancy areas and toward subsidies of existing housing in high-vacancy areas would be the most cost-effective of the programs considered to reduce rural substandard conditions.