Government housing programs have grown far larger than programs involving cash welfare, yet unlike the latter, they impose no time limits or work requirements on beneficiaries. They thus ignore the lessons learned from cash-welfare reform in recent decades and suffer from the same problems such programs once exhibited. With new data showing that most non-elderly, non-disabled tenants remain in housing programs for more than a decade, policymakers should look to cash-welfare-inspired reforms — including time limits, flat rent shares, and subletting flexibility — that could encourage upward mobility while making better use of scarce housing resources.