Housing Programs Fail to Deliver on Neighborhood Quality,Reexamined

This article revisits the relative performance of housing programs in terms of delivering on neighborhood quality. Newman and Schnare examined this issue in 1997, and this article updates their work more than a decade later. Both efforts examine the neighborhood characteristics surrounding assisted rental housing and assess the direction of assisted-housing policy. The analysis is performed by exploring census data at the tract level for the tenant-based Housing Choice Voucher program plus a set of project-based programs, including public housing, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, and other HUD multifamily programs. We conclude that Newman and Schnare remain correct that rental housing assistance does little to improve the quality of the recipients' neighborhoods relative to those of welfare households and can make things worse. However, things have improved. The Housing Choice Voucher and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit programs have grown in importance over the intervening years and have improved their performance by moving more households into low-poverty, less distressed areas. Importantly, these active programs for assisted housing are beginning to find ways to overcome the barriers preventing entry into the suburbs, although more needs to be done.     

A different lens: administrative perspectives on portability in Illinois' Housing Choice Voucher Program

Over the last decade, the Housing Choice Voucher Program has grown to become the USA's primary strategy for providing safe, decent, and affordable housing. Annually serving more than 2 million low-income households, the program is designed to help low-income households afford private market rental housing. The program also allows for the “portability” of vouchers nationally between housing authority jurisdictions. Both features aim to mitigate the effects of concentrated poverty. Research on the Moving to Opportunity Program and the Gautreaux consent decree have produced data confirming that residential mobility can at times lead to positive opportunities for assisted households. This past research has been conducted on specific programs occurring outside of the general Housing Choice Voucher Program framework and has focused on household-level outcomes, paying little attention to the ways in which program administration may affect outcomes for voucher households. This article aims to understand voucher portability from the perspective of housing authority executive directors and program administrators, in order to better understand how program administration impacts the types of household outcomes observed in prior research. The results reveal that housing authority administrative practices and inter-housing authority relationships play a significant role in shaping the types of outcomes realized by porting voucher households. These findings suggest several changes to program administrative design and policy that may improve support for voucher households as they make portability moves.     

Does mobility matter? The neighborhood conditions of housing voucher holders by race and ethnicity

Abstract

Mobility is one mechanism used to address the federal goals of deconcen‐trating poverty and minorities. The Housing Choice Voucher Program relies on participants to make residential location decisions consistent with these goals. Our research investigates the level and impact of mobility on the neighborhood quality of voucher holders, their neighborhood conditions by race and ethnicity, and perceived obstacles to mobility within the jurisdiction of a Southern California housing authority.

About one‐third of the sample moved during the study, and moving resulted in improved neighborhoods for only one subset of movers. Minorities live in more impoverished, overcrowded neighborhoods than nonminorities, even when controlling for mobility status, contract rent, and other factors. Further, most voucher holders see the lack of rental units as a major obstacle to mobility. These findings suggest that current policy is not uniformly achieving deconcentration and that real and perceived barriers to mobility exist, especially for minorities.     

“Living Here has Changed My Whole Perspective”: How Escaping Inner‐City Poverty Shapes Neighborhood and Housing Choice

Research on the housing choice voucher program and housing mobility interventions shows that even with assistance, it is difficult for poor minority families to relocate to, and remain in, low‐poverty neighborhoods. Scholars suggest that both structural forces and individual preferences help explain these residential patterns. However, less attention is paid to where preferences come from, and how they respond to policies and social structure to shape residential decisionmaking. In this paper, we use data from fieldwork with 110 participants in the Baltimore Mobility Program (BMP), an assisted mobility voucher program, to demonstrate how residential preferences can shift over time as a function of living in higher opportunity neighborhoods. Since 2003, BMP has helped over 2,000 low‐income African American families move from high‐poverty, highly segregated neighborhoods in Baltimore City to low‐poverty, racially mixed neighborhoods throughout the Baltimore region. Along with intensive counseling and unique program administration, these new neighborhood contexts helped many women to shift what we term residential choice frameworks: the criteria that families use to assess housing and neighborhoods. Parents who participated in the mobility program raised their expectations for what neighborhoods, homes, and schools can provide for their children and themselves. Parents report new preferences for the “quiet” of suburban locations, and strong consideration of school quality and neighborhood diversity when thinking about where to live. Our findings suggest that housing policies should employ counseling to ensure relocation to and sustained residence in low‐poverty communities. Our work also underscores how social structure, experience, and policy opportunities influence preferences, and how these preferences, in turn, affect policy outcomes.     

Comment on Victoria Basolo and Mai Thi Nguyen's “Does mobility matter? The neighborhood conditions of housing voucher holders by race and ethnicity”

Abstract

Creating the opportunity for minorities to move away from poor, racially concentrated neighborhoods to better ones is an important goal of the Housing Choice Voucher Program. However, mobility is not its only—or even its primary—objective. Rather, it aims to reduce severe rent burdens for very low income families and individuals.

Basolo and Nguyen imply that the voucher program by itself can overcome entrenched patterns of racial discrimination. This is unrealistic, even when families receive search assistance. Instead, the test is whether a minority family with a voucher is more likely to live in a low‐poverty, low‐minority neighborhood than the same family without a voucher. The program passes that test. However, Basolo and Nguyen's analysis points to the need for more research on voucher use in localities like Santa Ana where overcrowded housing is an issue, in neighborhoods with a mixed minority population, and in specific metropolitan areas.     

“… And a suitable living environment”: The failure of housing programs to deliver on neighborhood quality

Abstract

This article evaluates the relative performance of housing programs in terms of neighborhood quality. We profile neighborhood characteristics surrounding assisted housing units and assess the direction of assisted housing policy in light of this information. The analysis relies on a housing census database we developed that identifies the type and census tract location of assisted housing units—that is, public housing, developments assisted under the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Section 515 Rural Rental Housing Direct Loan Program, the low‐income housing tax credit, certificates and vouchers, and state rental assistance programs.

We conclude that project‐based assistance programs do little to improve the quality of recipients’ neighborhoods relative to those of welfare households and, in the case of public housing, appear to make things significantly worse. The certificate and voucher programs, however, appear to reduce the probability that families will live in the most economically and socially distressed areas.     

Transportation Access,Rental Vouchers,and Neighborhood Satisfaction: Evidence From the Moving to Opportunity Experiment

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is designed in part to expand the neighborhood choices of assisted households, thereby enabling assisted households to find a living environment that simultaneously meets their housing and neighborhood preferences. While several studies have examined the impact of rental subsidies on neighborhood satisfaction, few have examined whether access to adequate transportation enables HCV recipients to locate housing in more desirable locations. This article relies on data from the Moving to Opportunity experiment to examine the impact of transportation access, rental housing vouchers, and geographic constraints on neighborhood satisfaction. We find that access to both vehicles and public transit positively influences neighborhood satisfaction, and the influence of vehicle access varies with transit proximity. These findings point to the importance of transportation in helping low-income assisted renter households locate housing in more desirable neighborhoods.     

Section 8: The time for fundamental program change?

Abstract

We argue that Section 8 low‐income rental assistance—now called the Housing Choice Voucher Program—needs to be restructured and integrated with the other elements of the federal safety net for low‐income households. Since the program was introduced in 1974, the quality of the nation's housing stock has continued to improve, to the point that only a very small percentage of it is severely inadequate. Yet low‐income households continue to face problems such as affordability, neighborhood decline, limited access to economic opportunity, and involuntary mobility.

While the Section 8 program has partially addressed some of these problems, it has a number of shortcomings, primarily the fact that it does not materially improve housing conditions for most recipients. Instead, it is little more than a poorly disguised income supplement. Housing vouchers should be directly integrated into the federal safety net as an entitlement to households that qualify for assistance.     

Do Housing Vouchers Improve Academic Performance? Evidence from New York City

The Housing Choice Voucher program is currently the largest federally funded housing assistance program. Although the program aims to provide housing assistance, it also could affect children's educational outcomes by stabilizing their families, enabling them to move to better homes, neighborhoods, and schools, and increasing their disposable incomes. Using data from New York City, the nation's largest school district, we examine whether—and to what extent—housing vouchers improve educational outcomes for students whose families receive them. We match over 88,000 school-age voucher recipients to longitudinal public school records and estimate the impact of vouchers on academic performance through a comparison of students’ performance on standardized tests after voucher receipt to their pre-voucher performance. We exploit the conditionally random timing of voucher receipt to estimate a causal model. Results indicate that students in voucher households perform 0.05 standard deviations better in both English Language Arts and Mathematics in the years after they receive a voucher. We see significant racial differences in impacts, with small or no gains for black students but significant gains for Hispanic, Asian, and white students. Impacts appear to be driven largely by reduced rent burdens, increased disposable income, or a greater sense of residential security.     

Encouraging Residential Moves to Opportunity Neighborhoods: An Experiment Testing Incentives Offered to Housing Voucher Recipients

Substantial benefits can accrue from living in low-poverty neighborhoods, yet approximately 80% of the 2.2 million Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) recipients rent homes in moderate- or high-poverty census tracts. The Chicago Regional Housing Choice Initiative tested several ways to promote opportunity moves. It included the first experiment that tests whether two types of light-touch incentives induce opportunity moves for HCV recipients who had requested a moving voucher. Based on the 2,005 HCV recipients in the study, we found that neither the offer of a $500 grant nor the offer of a $500 grant coupled with free mobility counseling induced opportunity moves. The receipt of mobility counseling also did not boost opportunity moves. Regardless of the type of offer, 11%–12% of participants moved to opportunity neighborhoods. Despite requesting a moving voucher, half of the study participants remained in place, indicating significant barriers to moving. We offer potential reasons for the results and conclude with two recommended pilots to increase opportunity moves.     

Comment on Jill Khadduri's “should the housing voucher program become a state‐administered block grant?”

Abstract

The stated goal of the Housing Act of 1949 is “a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family.” It is time that we delivered on that commitment. Contrary to popular opinion, this does not require spending more money on housing assistance. It can be achieved without additional funds by shifting all funds from less cost‐effective methods for delivering housing assistance to choice‐based vouchers as soon as current contractual commitments permit and by gradually reducing the large subsidies to current voucher recipients. The proposal to replace the Housing Choice Voucher Program with a block grant to states can contribute to this goal by precluding the use of the block grant funds for project‐based assistance, increasing the targeting of assistance to the poorest families, and including the fraction of recipients with extremely low incomes in the formula for determining the performance rating of state programs.     

Housing Choice Voucher Location Patterns a Decade Later

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) prepared a study of the location patterns of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. This study became an important baseline for the evaluation of the HCV program and its ability to serve the goal of poverty deconcentration. The study examined the ability of HCV households in the 50 largest metropolitan areas to make entry to a broad array of neighborhoods and to locate in high-opportunity neighborhoods with low levels of poverty.

New data from HUD and the American Community Survey permit the study to be replicated. We find that vouchers continue to consume only a small portion of the housing stock, with relatively small amounts of spatial concentration. Unfortunately, only about one in five voucher households locate in low-poverty neighborhoods, and this share is rising only very slowly. If the nation wants to pursue poverty deconcentration through the HCV program, we cannot rely on the program, as it is now structured, to accomplish this goal. Additional incentives and constraints will be needed, similar to those that were part of the Gautreaux and Moving to Opportunity programs.     

Moving to Location Affordability? Housing Choice Vouchers and Residential Relocation in the Portland,Oregon, Region

Abstract

Location affordability measures a household’s combined cost of housing and transportation. Low-income households have the most to gain from housing with lower transportation costs. This research analyzes whether Housing Choice Voucher Program households—participants in a program designed to provide low-income households with a greater degree of housing choice—are able to choose housing that lowers their transportation costs in a metropolitan region with a compact, vital urban core. A mixed-methods approach is used to investigate the differences in location affordability and efficiency among 2,026 voucher recipients who moved within the Portland, Oregon, region during 2012–2013. Location mattered to movers, but in some unexpected ways. Urban movers relocated to less location efficient areas, whereas suburban movers’ location efficiency remained stable. In tight housing markets, voucher holders may be edged out of location-efficient neighborhoods and thus incur increased transportation costs.     

Moving out of poverty: Expanding mobility and choice through tenant‐based housing assistance

Abstract

Historically, federal housing policy has contributed to the concentration of poverty in urban America. Moving out of poverty is not the right answer for every low‐income family, but tenant‐based housing assistance (Section 8 certificates and vouchers) has tremendous potential to help families move to healthier neighborhoods. This article explores the role of tenant‐based housing assistance in addressing the problem of concentrated inner‐city poverty.

The Section 8 program by itself does not ensure access to low‐poverty neighborhoods, particularly for minority families. Supplementing certificates and vouchers with housing counseling and search assistance can improve their performance; a growing number of assisted housing mobility initiatives are now in place across the country. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) should continue to fund these initiatives and increase their number over time. HUD should also strengthen incentives for all housing authorities to improve locational outcomes in their Section 8 programs.     

How Do People-Based Housing Policies Affect People (and Place)?

Assisted housing programs in the United States aim to provide decent, safe, and affordable housing for low-income households. Increasingly, policymakers have also considered how assisted housing can provide access to lower poverty, income-diverse, and higher opportunity neighborhoods. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development currently balances two strategies. First, place-based programs—immoveable subsidies linked to particular units—can both revitalize distressed neighborhoods and provide access to higher opportunity neighborhoods. Second, people-based assistance—housing vouchers for use on the private rental market—can facilitate moves out of high-poverty, low-opportunity neighborhoods. During this policy moment with fair housing priorities receiving national attention, understanding the efficacy of each approach is critically important. This article synthesizes past research on housing vouchers to identify the impact of people-based assistance on four outcomes: residents’ neighborhood attainment, education, economic outcomes, and health. I also review the scant literature examining how vouchers affect place rather than people. I conclude by identifying aspects of special voucher programs that promote positive outcomes that could potentially be scaled up.     

The Effects of a Housing Mobility Experiment on Participants’ Residential Environments

We used the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) housing experiment to inform how Housing Choice Vouchers and housing mobility policies can assist families living in high-poverty areas to make opportunity moves to higher quality neighborhoods, across a wide range of neighborhood attributes. We compared the neighborhood attainment of the three randomly assigned MTO treatment groups (low-poverty voucher, Section 8 voucher, control group) at 1997 and 2002 locations (4–7 years after baseline), using survey reports, and by linking residential histories to numerous different administrative and population-based data sets. Compared with controls, families in low-poverty and Section 8 groups experienced substantial improvements in neighborhood conditions across diverse measures, including economic conditions, social systems (e.g., collective efficacy), physical features of the environment (e.g., tree cover) and health outcomes. The low-poverty voucher group, moreover, achieved better neighborhood attainment compared with Section 8. Treatment effects were largest for New York, New York, and Los Angeles, California. We discuss the implications of our findings for expanding affordable housing policy.     

Why Don't Housing Choice Voucher Recipients Live Near Better Schools? Insights from Big Data

Housing choice vouchers provide low‐income households with additional income to spend on rental housing in the private market. The assistance vouchers provide is substantial, offering the potential to dramatically expand the neighborhoods—and associated public schools—that low‐income households can reach. However, existing research on the program suggests that housing choice voucher holders live in neighborhoods with schools that are no better than those accessible to other households with similar incomes. Households, in other words, do not seem to spend the additional income provided by the voucher to access better schools. In this analysis we rely on a large‐scale administrative data set to explore why voucher households typically do not live near to better schools, as measured by school‐level proficiency rates. We combine confidential administrative data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development on 1.4 million housing choice voucher holders in 15 states, with school‐level data from 5,841 different school districts, to examine why the average housing voucher holder does not live near to higher‐performing schools than otherwise similar households without vouchers. Specifically, we use the large‐scale administrative data set to test whether voucher holders living in areas with good schools nearby and slack housing markets move toward better schools when schools become salient for them—that is, when their oldest child becomes school eligible. We take advantage of the thick sample of households with young children provided through our administrative data to implement both a household fixed effects and a regression discontinuity design. Together these analyses shed light on whether voucher households are more likely to move toward better schools when schools are most relevant, and how market conditions shape that response. We find that families with vouchers are more likely to move toward a better school in the year before their oldest child meets the eligibility cutoff for kindergarten, suggesting salience matters. Further, the magnitude of the effect is larger in metropolitan areas with a relatively high share of affordable rental units located near high‐performing schools and in neighborhoods in close proximity to higher‐performing schools. Results suggest that, if given the appropriate information and opportunities, more voucher families would move to better schools when their children reach school age.     

Taking Stock: What Drives Landlord Participation in the Housing Choice Voucher Program

ABSTRACT

To succeed, the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program must be attractive to rental property owners. When landlords refuse to accept subsidized renters, lease-up rates decline, administrative costs increase, and options become limited to high-poverty neighborhoods where owners are most desperate. This article examines what motivates landlords’ decisions to accept subsidized tenants. We use 127 interviews with a random and field sample of landlords, combined with administrative data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on property ownership in Baltimore, Maryland, Dallas, Texas, and Cleveland, Ohio. We find that landlords’ perspectives on the HCV program, including rents, tenants, and inspections, are highly dependent on context; landlords weigh the costs and benefits of program participation against the counterfactual tenant that a landlord might otherwise rent to in the open market. We argue that policymakers can boost landlord participation by better understanding how landlords think about their alternatives within each local context. Finally, we consider what drives nonparticipation in the program. Our results show that the majority of landlords who refuse voucher holders had accepted them previously. We suggest that policy reform should be dually focused on improving bureaucratic inefficiencies that deter landlord participation, and providing training and education to landlords.     

Searching for Affordability and Opportunity: A Framework for the Housing Choice Voucher Program

Abstract

Affordability, a key factor in the housing search process, becomes critical when locating rental housing in opportunity-rich areas. The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program accommodates low-income households searching for housing and encourages recipients to reside in low-poverty areas. Affordable neighborhoods that are accessible to public transportation are often found in distressed areas, and not all HCV recipients succeed in locating qualified housing. To address these challenges, a housing search framework is developed to assist HCV households in the housing search process. This framework builds on the methodology of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the Location Affordability Index and Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing assessment tool by creating multivariate indices that incorporate housing supply, accessibility to opportunity, and neighborhood conditions. The framework serves as a foundation for an online housing search application for public housing authorities to further fair housing goals, HCV recipients to locate qualified housing units, and local governments to assess affordability and opportunity.     

The low‐income housing tax credit program goes mainstream and moves to the suburbs

Abstract

The Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program is now 20 years old. With the maturing of the program, the use of tax credits has become commonplace in the development of rental housing across the nation. This article examines how the program has changed both financially and spatially. Specifically, the article asks whether it provides a mechanism that can help deconcentrate impoverished renters by providing access to low‐poverty neighborhoods.

This research finds that as the price for tax credits rises, the program becomes increasingly popular with developers who are helping it make inroads in low‐poverty suburbs. By entering the suburbs, the LIHTC program is meeting and even exceeding the performance of the Housing Choice Voucher Program in terms of offering opportunities to live in low‐poverty settings.