the problem with section 8 housing currently is so much money is tied to a single person or group of persons. this means it becomes a lottery if you are lucky enough to get assistance. the program should be shifted to following the house that the government rents, not the person. and then all houses are expected to be filled, so mandatory roommates would be a thing.
here is my back of the envelope math. HUD currently spends thirty billion on section 8. tenants are expected to chip in a third of their income and HUD covers the rest of the rent. the bottom quintile of households average about 13k in income. that means, they would be chipping in 333 per month in rent on average. there are 66 million people in these households, with a 330 million total population. there are 2.6 people per household in the USA. that means, (66million divided by 2.6) there are twenty five million households. 25 million times 333 equals 8 billion. that means the total that HUD can spend on housing is 38 billion, 30 billion from the government and 8 billion from the individuals.
now we take the 38 billion and have the government rent a bunch of three bedroom houses. the average rent for these is 1500 per month. 38 billion divided by 1500 is twenty five million households that the government rents. at three rooms per household, that's a potential of 75 million people that can get a subsidized room, if each person gets a room. the thing is, it is actually higher than this, cause some children and some couples will double up in their rooms.
75 million people is a quarter of the population, all with the current revenue that the government currently spends. people will just be forced to get roommate situations, and landlord will have to deal with the different personalities living in one roof.