QAP – Qualified Allocation Plans

More than a million U.S. households need supportive housing to avoid falling into homelessness. By leveraging Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTCs) and prioritizing supportive housing in their Qualified Allocation Plans (QAPs), state leaders can advance supportive housing development and promote thriving communities.

A comprehensive approach to addressing homelessness requires an investment in supportive housing. Housing Finance Agencies (HFAs) and state leaders can leverage LIHTCs alongside other federal resources, like Housing Choice Vouchers and Medicaid, to fund supportive housing development. They can also appropriate state resources to close funding gaps and meet the need for supportive housing in their communities.

A hand holding a set of keys in front of a wooden house structure.

HFAs can use LIHTCs to create more robust supportive housing pipelines by mandating a minimum number of units per development or establishing a supportive housing set-aside using a portion of the tax credit allocation. This brief examines these approaches and offers additional guidelines that housing finance agencies and state leaders can use to begin closing the supportive housing gap across the country.

To analyze how QAPs drive supportive housing pipelines, we reviewed eight metrics across three methods used to mandate or incentivize development. HFAs, state leaders, and advocates can download the data to see how their state’s QAP performed across the metrics. They can use it to determine how to adjust future QAPs to increase supportive housing development.

A male office worker views data on an Ipad in front of him.
3 model homes over two sheets of paper that have charts on them

Our Supportive Housing Needs Assessment and Racial Disparities and Disproportionality Index (RDDI) quantifies the housing need in your community.

If you have questions on how to leverage QAPs to create more supportive housing, reach out to us.