Largest PHAs by Section 8 units

PlainVoucher ranks Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) by total administered Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher units.

Research period:

Compiled by PlainVoucher on 2026-05-17

Research question

Across the 3,780 Public Housing Agencies in the HUD PHA Contact List, which agencies administer the largest Section 8 / Housing Choice Voucher portfolios, and how does the largest-PHA concentration in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles reflect the underlying voucher-funding allocation tied to urban-core poverty populations?

Methodology

This ranking is generated automatically from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's published dataset and reflects the most recently reported figures for each entity. The page updates whenever we refresh our copy of the source data, so the numbers always match the latest release we have ingested.

Coverage and exclusions: entities with no reported value for this metric are left out of the ranking rather than shown as zero, since a missing figure is not the same as an actual zero. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development occasionally withholds a value for confidentiality, small-sample, or quality-control reasons, and those withheld entries are excluded the same way.

Data provenance: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes this dataset on its own release schedule, and we pull each new release as it becomes publicly available. If a later release revises a prior figure, the revised number will appear here automatically the next time we refresh our copy, no part of this page is hand-edited.

Editorial governance: PlainVoucher maintains an editorial standards process covering how rankings are built, how outliers are handled, and how corrections are processed if an entity disputes a figure attributed to it. A named editor reviews this page before publication, shown in the byline above. Corrections and clarifications can be requested through the contact channels linked in the site footer.

Transparency: every number on this page traces back to a specific U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development source record, linked from the entity pages reachable from this ranking. See our methodology page for the full source list, update cadence, and how each figure is derived.

See the methodology page for the complete data-update process, source vintage, and field definitions.

Top 10 Largest US Public Housing Agencies by Section 8 Voucher Units

Live data, updated automatically whenever we refresh our copy of the source

Section 8 units
Source U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

The ranked top 10

Every row below reflects the most recent data we have on file. Refresh the page after we update our copy of the source to see the latest values.

#PHAStateSection 8 unitsTotal units
1New York City Housing AuthorityNY122,210146,717
2Chicago Housing AuthorityIL54,08219,576
3Housing Authority of the City of Los AngelesCA53,4286,302
4NYS Housing Trust Fund CorporationNY52,0840
5NYC Dept of Housing Preservation and DevNY42,2580
6Michigan State Housing Development AuthorityMI32,3080
7Los Angeles County Development AuthorityCA27,0582,962
8STATE OF NJ DEPT. OF COMM. AFFAIRSNJ25,1640
9Philadelphia Housing AuthorityPA25,06311,751
10Exec. Office Housing & Livable CommunitiesMA23,0730

Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD PHA Contact List with administered Section 8 voucher unit allocations. Values reflect our most recent copy of the source data.

Findings

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is New York City Housing Authority, with a value of 122,210 on the Section 8 units column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record (122,210) and the 10th-ranked record (23,073) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, specifically the HUD PHA Contact List with administered Section 8 voucher unit allocations. PlainVoucher ingests the source vintage published by the agency and republishes it here in a clear, browsable format. Every page reflects our most recent copy of the data, there is no stale cached export, and an update from the source agency propagates to this page within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and how each figure is derived.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.

What this analysis cannot tell us

Section 8 unit counts reflect HUD-allocated Housing Choice Voucher units administered by each PHA per the HUD PHA Contact List. The numbers reflect the agency's authorized voucher allocation, not the count of vouchers currently in tenants' hands, agencies routinely operate at less than 100% lease-up because of search-failure timeouts, market rejections by landlords, and budget-authority constraints. New York City Housing Authority dominates the ranking because the NYC consolidated PHA structure administers Section 8 for the entire city, while many other metros split vouchers across multiple county and municipal PHAs. Total-unit figures combine Section 8 with the PHA's Low Rent (project-based public housing) portfolio where applicable; agencies designated 'Section 8 Only' have zero total-unit count beyond their voucher portfolio. Voucher portfolios change with HUD annual funding cycles and Congressional appropriations; major reallocations are infrequent but possible. This ranking is administrative-capacity reporting, not a measure of agency performance, wait-list length, or current voucher availability. Prospective applicants should contact the PHA directly for wait-list status, eligibility documentation requirements, and current intake schedule.

PHAs with the largest combined Section 8 and Low Rent portfolios

Top 10 PHAs by combined Section 8 + Low Rent unit portfolio

total units
Source U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Related data

Sources

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.