Top 10 Largest US Public Housing Agencies by Section 8 Voucher Units
PlainVoucher ranks Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) by total administered Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher units.
Research
Original data research from the PlainVoucher. Every figure updates automatically as our source data refreshes; no numbers are hand-typed.
What can you learn from PlainVoucher research?
What this research covers
PlainVoucher research ranks HUD Housing Choice Voucher administration across 3,780 Public Housing Authorities in 51 states and territories (2.8M authorized HCV units; 4,764 tracked 2-BR payment standards across 406 metros).
- 3,780
- PHAs in extract
- 2.8M
- authorized HCV units
- 406
- FMR metros
- 5
- published voucher studies
Studies below answer one ranking question each from the live HUD HCV / FMR mirror; they are descriptive housing-administration statistics, not eligibility advice or application guidance.
What does the research show?
Top 10 US States by Total Section 8 Voucher Allocation
PlainVoucher ranks US states by total administered Section 8 voucher units across all in-state PHAs, aggregated live by state.
Top 10 US Metros by Highest Section 8 Payment Standards
PlainVoucher ranks metro Fair Market Rent areas by the HUD-published 2-bedroom payment standard, computed live from our source data.
How Section 8 Payment Standards Compare to Median 2-BR Market Rent
A ranking of the metros where the 2-bedroom median gross rent comes closest to (or exceeds) HUD's payment standard, joining HUD Fair Market Rent with Census ACS median gross rent.
US States Ranked by Number of Public Housing Authorities
How the nation's Public Housing Authorities are distributed across the states, and why a state's count of authorities shapes how many waitlists a renter can join.
Download the metro voucher-vs-market extract cited on this page: hud-hcv-metro-gaps.csv (CC BY 4.0).
Source and method. PlainVoucher compiles public HUD and U.S. Census release data into a searchable reference. Release periods and source boundaries are identified on each data surface; PlainVoucher does not determine eligibility, waitlist status, payment standards, or local PHA rules. Read our editorial standards and corrections policy, methodology, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-09-02.