Integrating State Rental Housing with the Private Market: Designing Housing Allowances for Hungary, Urban Institute Report 91-7

This report contributes to the Hungarian government's imminent decisions regarding reform of that country's rental housing market by describing and analyzing a proposed housing allowance system for Hungary. This system represents a plan to reform the rental sector along market lines while protecting lower income families from high rent payments through the implementation of a housing allowance program. The research is based on a dataset developed especially for this study by the Hungarian government. The study simulates a large number of alternative housing allowance designs, one set undertaken for the first year in which housing allowances would be introduced and one for the third year, the point at which rents paid on state rentals should be approaching market levels.