Local response to federal changes in the housing voucher program: A case study of intraregional cooperation

Abstract

The desire to increase residential choice for Section 8 voucher clients resulted in the adoption of portability by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Portability allows voucher holders to move between the jurisdictions of local housing authorities (HAs). InterHA cooperation could ease the administrative and financial burdens imposed by portability and improve service to voucher recipients. However, voluntary regional cooperation is rare.

This article presents a case study of a successful, voluntary, intraregional cooperative agreement among HAs. Theoretical and empirical analyses suggest that a cooperative agreement is more likely to develop voluntarily if two conditions are present: rational self‐interest and shared norms and trust among the managers. Agreements can ease the burdens associated with portability, but it is important for the parties to regularly assess implementation issues to ensure the agreement's continuing effectiveness. The article concludes with policy implications based on the findings from this research.     

Brown kids in white suburbs: Housing mobility and the many faces of social capital

Abstract

Social capital has many faces in the geography of urban opportunity, and as such, particular housing policies might have positive effects on some forms of social capital and negative effects on others. The author defines social support and social leverage as two key dimensions of social capital that can be accessed by individuals. A sample of 132 low‐income African‐American and Latino adolescents is used to examine the early impacts of a Yonkers, NY, housing mobility program on social capital.¹

Overall, program participants (^‘’movers^‘’) appear to be no more cut off from social support than a control group of “stayer” youth. On the other hand, movers are also no more likely to report access to good sources of job information or school advice— to leverage that might enhance opportunity. Adding just one steadily employed adult to an adolescent's circle of significant ties has dramatic effects on perceived access to such leverage.     

The grapes of rent: A history of renting in a country of owners

Abstract

In a recent study of neighborhood development, Goetz and Sidney (1994) found an “ideology of property” separating the interests of homeowners from the interests of lower‐income tenants. According to this ideology, owners are better citizens than renters, and therefore public policy should benefit owners at the expense of renters. In spite of continuing research that shows this allegation to be false, a widespread bias against renters persists. Why is this so?

A deliberate bias favoring property owners and harming renters has been prominent in American public policy from colonial times to the present, although its exact form has varied over time—property requirements for suffrage, land redistribution schemes promising ownership but delivering tenancy and poverty, and tax policies that privilege ownership and punish tenancy. Public policy that stigmatizes renters represents a bias as pernicious as other biases of gender, race, religion, and nationality.     

No Home for Housing: The Situation of the Commonwealth's Housing Policy Advisory Function

The Commonwealth's policy capacity with regard to housing policy and provision has been erratic and patchy. Partly this is because housing was not traditionally a formal Commonwealth responsibility but something in which Commonwealth governments episodically intervened, and partly it was because Commonwealth ministers often did not exercise demand for policy advice in this area. When policy capacity was exercised it tended to define housing narrowly as a welfare initiative, thereby limiting its conception and excluding other important questions and problems involved with housing as a policy domain. This trajectory meant that the advisory deficiencies of the Commonwealth were often exposed at exactly those times when they were most needed. It also meant that the Commonwealth lacked the detailed knowledge and understanding of housing issues when it was called upon to deliver various programs. The article argues that the Commonwealth needs to adopt a more strategic housing policy that addresses longer term needs as well as the economic, social and environmental consequences of its housing policy.     

Mitigating apprehension about section 8 vouchers: The positive role of housing specialists in search and placement

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has found that Section 8 voucher recipients are often unable to secure apartments outside of high‐poverty areas in tight urban rental markets. However, intensive housing placement services greatly improve the success and mobility of voucher holders. Drawing on ethnographic research in the housing placement department of a private, nonprofit community‐based organization, I first describe how fundamental problems in implementing the public subsidy program in a tight private rental market generate apprehension among landlords and voucher recipients that can prevent the successful use of vouchers. Second, I demonstrate how housing placement specialists can dispel and overcome this apprehension through a variety of tactics that require extensive soft skills and a deep commitment to the mission of housing poor families.

These findings provide support for the increased use of housing placement services to improve success and mobility rates for Section 8 vouchers.     

The new demographics of housing

Abstract

During the 1990s, minorities played an increasing role in population growth throughout the United States. Fueled by international migration and by high natural increase, Asians and Hispanics have joined with blacks to greatly elevate minority contributions to population and household growth at almost every geographic level. In addition to racial and ethnic turnover, households have been changing compositionally because of the aging of the population and because of the increase in the number of unmarried adults.

This article surveys these and other demographic changes and examines their implications for household growth and housing consumption. A clearer understanding of both white and minority roles in owner and renter housing trends is developed through tracking changing consumption patterns. Distinct patterns of cohort turnover have taken place in different vintage housing stock. These trends, which have led to large net gains for minorities, are expected to continue over the next decade and beyond.     

授课式法学学习模式初探——以研究性学习能力培养为视角

授课式法学学习模式是指在法学学习过程中充分发挥学生的主体作用,在教师的辅助下由学生自主选题、备课、面向师生授课的一种法学学习方法。它是一种法学学习模式而不单纯是一种法学教学模式。它贯彻了研究性学习理论的价值精髓,能够激发学生自主学习法学的积极性,培养综合的法学学科能力和团体协作意识。同时,该模式也有自身的局限性,适用时应力求扬长避短。     

Introduction to session 2: Magnitude of the crisis: The fiscal and human costs

Abstract

Many are looking to California and its state housing law for advice on how to deal with the affordability challenges affecting many metropolitan areas throughout the nation. It is thus critically important to go beyond the laws themselves and examine how state and municipal governance structure affects affordability, supply, and production. Some states give broad freedom to localities to develop policies that can potentially meet a range of goals and objectives. Others directly undermine those efforts by limiting local ability to pursue policy reforms while simultaneously failing to engage on the state level.

The redefinition of federalism on the national level, coupled with continued resistance to growth from some localities, establishes the state as at least an equal partner in dealing with housing supply and affordability issues. Understanding these distinctions is important, and the housing community needs to take them into account as it moves on the state front.     

Housing vouchers in the United States,great Britain,and the Netherlands: Current issues and future perspectives

Abstract

We compare the current U.S. housing voucher program with the British housing benefit and the Dutch housing allowance programs. After presenting the theory behind income‐related housing support, which underpins both the U.S. and European systems, we compare the three programs with respect to their scope (the budgeted versus the entitlement approach), the relationship between housing support and rent levels, the poverty trap, moral hazards, and administrative problems.

The United States can learn from Great Britain and the Netherlands that a full entitlement program can best promote equity, but given the present political and economic climate, it is unlikely that Congress will adopt such a program anytime soon. Great Britain and the Netherlands can learn from the United States how to design a more efficient tenant subsidy program, one that provides incentives to find less expensive units and promotes family self‐sufficiency through enhanced job‐seeking behavior.     

国外住房问题和住房政策研究——回顾及启示

以文献资料法和比较分析法为基础,对国外住房问题和住房政策的研究进行了回顾——主要包括住房问题的产生、公共住房与住房福利、住房政策的比较和划分以及住房问题的主要研究方法。通过国外文献回顾有助于进一步认识和理解住房问题和住房政策。在全球化的进程中,当中国必须面对和住房问题相关的危机和困境时,一方面需要以全球视角不断借鉴国外解决住房问题以及制定和执行住房政策的经验,另外一方面也需要认清国内外形式,选择属于自己发展模式。     

Policy and power: A conceptual framework between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ policy idioms

During the last few decades, both policy practices and policy idioms have drastically changed. Concepts such as interactive planning, network management, stakeholder dialogue, deliberative democracy, policy discourses, governance, etc. have replaced older ones such as public administration, policy programmes, interest groups, institutions, power, and the like. Although we recognise the relevance and importance of this shift in vocabulary, we also regret related ‘losses’. We particularly regret that the concept of power has – in our view – become an ‘endangered species’ in the field of public policy analysis. We therefore will develop a framework to analyse power – being a multi-layered concept – in policy practices in this article. We will do so on the basis of the so-called policy arrangement approach, which combines elements of the old and new policy vocabularies. In addition, we draw upon different power theories in developing our argument and model. As a result, we hope to combine the best of two worlds, of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ idioms in policy studies, and to achieve our two aims: to bring back in the concept of power in current policy analysis and to expand the policy arrangement approach from a power perspective.     

新一轮减税降费促进民营企业发展研究

民营企业是我国市场经济的主体,激发民营企业的积极性和创造性有利于推动供给侧结构性改革、夯实实体经济基础、推动经济转向高质量发展。改革开放以来,我国实施了多次减税降费政策,对降低企业成本、减轻企业负担、增强企业竞争力发挥了重要作用。2019年以来,我国实施的新一轮减税降费政策的规模和强度都是空前的,全方位、多层次地支持民营企业发展,有力提振了民营企业发展的信心,极大提升了民营企业科技创新能力,大大增强了民营企业参与国际市场竞争底气,有效地巩固了民营企业市场主体地位。未来我国减税降费政策将更加注重引导民营企业把减税降费红利投向技术创新领域,加强对减税降费政策的评估和动态调整,着力克服伴随的负面影响以及做好配套改革等,使减税降费从扶持性政策向制度化长效机制转变。     

Where the homeless come from: A study of the prior address distribution of families admitted to public shelters in New York City and Philadelphia

Abstract

This study investigates hypotheses regarding the association of census tract variables with the risk for homelessness. We used prior address information reported by families entering emergency shelters in two large U.S. cities to characterize the nature ofthat distribution.

Three dense clusters of homeless origins were found in Philadelphia and three in New York City, accounting for 67 percent and 61 percent of shelter admissions and revealing that homeless families’ prior addresses are more highly concentrated than the poverty distribution in both cities. The rate of shelter admission is strongly and positively related to the concentration of poor, African‐American, and female‐headed households with young children in a neighborhood. It is also correlated with fewer youth, elderly, and immigrants. Such areas have higher rates of unemployment and labor force nonpartici‐pation, more housing crowding, more abandonment, higher rates of vacancy, and higher rent‐to‐income ratios than other areas.     

Beneficiaries of federal housing programs: A data reconnaissance

Abstract

This article reports on a reconnaissance of information systems containing data on the beneficiaries of direct and indirect federal housing expenditures. It covers data in the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, and the Treasury; the Resolution Trust Corporation; financial regulatory agencies; and secondary mortgage market actors.

Data varied widely across agencies in availability, accessibility, and quality. Data are more systematically collected for low‐income beneficiaries of housing programs than for the more affluent beneficiaries of indirect housing expenditures. The systems need improvements in data quality and coverage and database format, though they have improved recently. Many research topics can be explored with new and underused data systems: the characteristics of beneficiaries of rural housing programs, urban rental housing programs, low‐income homeownership programs, and mortgage guarantee and insurance programs. But the lack of information on the systems themselves makes data difficult to locate and access.     

That obscure object of desire: A new electoral law for Italy

This article analyses the most important reasons that might make it necessary to revise the Italian electoral system. The type of proportional representation utilised in the Italian system (imperiali with the highest remainder) has allowed the fragmentation of the party system and produced a privileged situation for some parties, preventing alternation in power. The major reform proposals are reviewed and evaluated according to their partisan objectives and systemic consequences. Few proposals seem to pass this test. The issue of an electoral reform is on the political agenda, and although scepticism as to its feasibility is in order, the time for institutional and electoral reform seems to be approaching.     

试论社会资本在建设社会主义新农村中的作用

社会资本是促进社会良性发展的一种积极因素,它在构建社会主义新农村中起着不可或缺的作用。具体来说,网络社会资本可以促进农村良好治理和管理民主局面的实现,互惠规范这种社会资本可以促进农村的团结互助和乡风文明的水平,信任社会资本可以促进农民的良性互动和农村的社会和谐的水平。     

The ‘third way’ and the politics of law and order: Explaining differences in law and order policies between Blair's New Labour and Schröder's SPD

Advocating more repressive law and order policies along the slogan ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ in their election manifesto, Tony Blair in the United Kingdom and Gerhard Schröder in Germany were elected in the late 1990s. Once in power, however, only New Labour substantially toughened law and order policies, whereas the German Social Democrats did not change the legal status quo, to a similar extent, during their mandate. This article tackles this puzzle, arguing that the preferences of the ministers and the formal and informal rules shaping the balance of power in government are crucial to understanding why two governments that initially advocated similar policies adopted a rather different policy stance. The results are based on meticulous process tracing and a series of elite interviews concerning two major topics in the realm of law and order during the 1990s: policies directed at sexual offenders, and policies responding to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.     

Brownfield redevelopment and affordable housing: A case study of New Jersey

Abstract

A total of 779 New Jersey residents were surveyed to determine the number of people who during the next five years would be willing to move to housing built on brownfield sites that have been remediated to the extent that they pose no plausible brownfield‐related health risk to residents.

Fourteen percent of the respondents said they would be willing to move to and live in housing built on cleaned‐up brownfields. These respondents were disproportionately relatively poor and young and resided in apartments and cities, especially cities where the city government was actively promoting brownfields. These respondents also did not like their current neighborhoods, did not feel threatened by the idea of living on a cleaned‐up brownfield site, and trusted experts to advise them on the health risks involved.     

Islands of decay in seas of renewal: Housing policy and the resurgence of gentrification

Abstract

For many observers, the recession of the early 1990s signaled the end of what Berry called islands of renewal in seas of decay. In the past decade, however, shifts in mortgage finance have intersected with developments in assisted housing to alter the links between gentrification and housing policy. In this article, we use field observation, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, and HOPE VI plans to analyze the resurgence of gentrification in eight U.S. cities.

Between 1992 and 1997, gentrified neighborhoods attracted conventional homepurchase mortgage capital at a rate that grew at more than 2.3 times the suburban rate. Logit models confirm that mortgage capital favors gentrified neighborhoods even after controlling for applicant and loan characteristics, suggesting a new relationship between mortgage lending and neighborhood change. In some cities, gentrification has surrounded islands of decay and poverty with landscapes of renewal     

Local effects of the new land rush: How capital inflows transformed rural Russia

Rising global prices for agricultural commodities have led to the inflow of capital to rural economies and to transfers of land ownership to new agricultural operators (NAOs) in developing and post‐Soviet countries. How capital inflows affect rural communities is often explained with the variable of institutional strength, an explanation aligned with the good governance approach to economic development: Capital inflows have positive developmental effects, if strong domestic institutions vet land deals and regulate NAOs. Contra the focus on institutional parameters as exogenous variables, this article highlights the role of political projects in shaping local outcomes and driving institutional change. Evolving political priorities are important to understand domestic rural transformations because they lead to interventions that privilege some actors as agents of change, while others are sidelined—hence transforming local economies. This theoretical suggestion is based on a study of Russia's rural transformation that followed a significant influx of capital.