public housing

Residential facilities that are built, maintained, and administered by a local or federal government to provide low- rent or no-rent homes for needy people. In the United States, most of these programs are under the authority of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (DHUD) and local housing agencies. "Public housing" is a term that could theoretically apply to many additional federally subsidized programs designed to help people obtain residences, such as the Rent Supplement Program, Lower Income Housing Assistance, Rural Housing Loans, Farm Labor Housing Loans and Grants, and the Indian Housing Improvement Program, as well as the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) homeowners' loans and the home loan programs of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.