Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Devolution of authority is politically acclaimed as a way to promote public engagement in policy-making process. Locally-fragmented administration of the HCV program, however, creates much uncertainty, if not a coordination problem, for the federal initiative to end homelessness. This paper examines challenges facing the federal initiative to end homelessness in the era of devolution by documenting how increased discretionary power by local public housing authorities results in the entrenchment of homeless-exclusionary preference systems in the HCV program. Using the HCV administrative plans of local PHAs in Michigan, I document two dominant forms of a local preference system: non-preference system that promotes the selective attrition of the homeless from regular purging and the local preference system with a heavily-weighted residency preference that disadvantages the homeless applicants whose residential history is extremely volatile. Afterward, while conceptualizing a local preference system as a redistributive policy-making process where multiple, hierarchical actors participate in, I examine how homeless-exclusionary local preference systems have become entrenched in the HCV program among local PHAs in the metropolitan area. Preliminary results suggest that locally-fragmented HCV program administration results in political capturing of HCV resources by local municipalities for locally-exclusive use; this impedes the concerted efforts of nationally-well represented non-profits with the federal agency to develop homeless-inclusive local preference systems. The author suggests that it is critical to evade metropolitan politics in reconstructing HCV service delivery system to be more homeless-inclusive.