Abstract
The personal and social costs of concentrating low-income (typically minority) households in neighbourhoods with high proportions of similarly disadvantaged households has long been of concern in the U.S. In this chapter, Galster explores four federal housing programs tasked with reducing poverty concentrations over the last 25 years: (1) scattered-site public housing; (2) tenant-based Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV); (3) private developments subsidized through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC); and (4) mixed-income redevelopment of distressed public housing estates (HOPE VI). Based on a synthesis of the evidence, four conclusions are drawn. Residents of U.S. public housing on average reside in significantly more disadvantaged neighbourhoods compared to participants in any other assisted housing program. Residents of other types of site-based assisted housing programs (particularly LIHTC) do not reside in significantly different residential environments than tenant-based HCV holders. HCV households live in somewhat lower-poverty neighbourhoods than equivalent households who do not receive housing subsidies, but the comparative differences are more modest for residents in LIHTC units. HCV holders typically do not substantially improve their neighbourhood circumstances with subsequent moves. In understanding how these post-public housing policy efforts have not produced more significant deconcentration of poverty the chapter identifies both the scale and structure of the housing programs, characteristics and needs of residents, and structural barriers. In conclusion, an amalgam of supply-side and demand-side housing program reforms is suggested, coupled with non-housing strategies. Importantly, the US experience offers selective lessons for housing policymakers in Western Europe, though there are vast differences in the origins and policy options available for addressing concentrated poverty.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
These new “portability” rules allowed HCV holders to use the assistance outside of the jurisdiction of the local public housing authority issuing the voucher. However, as explained below, local authorities often undermined these rules.
- 3.
During this period there were also several changes to existing housing program rules that encouraged deconcentration. First, the HUD rule that required local housing authorities to replace every demolished public housing unit with another one somewhere in the jurisdiction, was replaced with a rule allowing a HCV to substitute for the lost unit. Second, HUD allowed a wider range of incomes to qualify for public housing, while simultaneously placing more households with very low incomes into the HCV program instead of traditional public housing concentrations. Finally, as HUD’s affordability restrictions on many under-maintained privately owned and operated rental developments originally subsidized under the Section 8 New Construction/Rehab, Section 236, or other site-based federal assistance programs expired they permitted the “vouchering out” of their low-income tenantry instead of rehabilitating the site (Varady and Walker 2000).
- 4.
This paper does not explore other, non-federal programs aimed at deconcentrating poverty that are initiated by some states, counties and cities. These include inclusionary zoning requirements for new, private housing developments and gentrification “circuit-breakers” that provide sustained housing affordability in revitalizing neighborhoods. For more on these options, see Levy et al. (2006), Pendall (2008), and Schuetz et al. (2011).
- 5.
In every study utilized, “neighborhood” is operationalized as a census tract: a census Bureau-defined area of about 4,000 inhabitants that is delineated to be as homogeneous as possible and bounded by clear topographical or human-made features. I therefore use census tract and neighborhood as synonyms here.
- 6.
In other words, they report only “treatment on treated” results, not “intent to treat” results.
- 7.
Nationally about 30 % of all those issued HCVs cannot lease up within the required period and forfeit their vouchers (Grigsby and Bourassa 2004).
- 8.
Finkel and Buron’s (2001) study of 48 housing authorities showed that 21 % of HCV holders leased in place.
- 9.
- 10.
Neither of these findings are surprising given the large share of recipients who did not move after receipt of a HCV.
- 11.
All of these studies’ conclusions must be interpreted carefully because a non-trivial number of HCV holders live in units supplied under the auspices of the LIHTC program (Williamson et al. 2009). The functional overlap between this program and the HCV program and its implications will be described more fully below.
- 12.
A similar finding regarding the superiority of suburban compared to city destinations emerged from Goetz’s (2003) evaluation of HCV users involved in the court-ordered Minneapolis public housing desegregation case. These results must be interpreted with caution, however, as both were based quasi-experimental evaluation designs and thus selection bias affects the results.
- 13.
A similar finding emerged in new analysis of black Baltimore public housing tenants who volunteered to move with HCVs to low-poverty (<10 %), low-minority (<30 %), low assisted housing (<5 %) neighbourhoods pursuant to a recent court-mandated desegregation decree (DeLuca and Rosenblatt 2011). Over a third moved within the first 3 years after the mandated 1-year tenure in such target neighbourhoods, and when they did so their destination neighbourhoods increased on average from 23 to 62 % black-occupied and from 8 to 16 % poverty rates.
- 14.
To be eligible to apply for the program, developments must have a minimum of 20 % of the units renting for no more than 30 % of a figure equaling 50 % of the metropolitan area’s median family income or, equivalently, a minimum of 40 % of the units renting for no more than 30 of 60 % of the metropolitan area’s median family income (Schwartz 2010).
- 15.
For example, Jacob (2004) found that children of CHA relocatees using HCVs did not get substantially improved experiences of school quality.
- 16.
Newman and Schnare (1997) did not consider the LIHTC program that had begun just before the study.
- 17.
Similarly intriguing but ambiguous evidence has been gleaned from other programs as well. Buron (2004) notes that many HOPE VI relocatees moved to public housing that was nearly as distressed as the ones from which they left. He could not attribute the reasons but speculated on a combination of preferences, inability to qualify for private housing, lack of time to find alternatives, housing market constraints, or lack of knowledgeable and conscientious relocation assistance.
- 18.
This is consistent with Fairchild and Tucker (1982), who found that blacks were much more likely than whites to experience events that would trigger involuntary moves, such as evictions, intolerable housing quality breakdowns, and domestic violence.
- 19.
Another policy option here is inclusionary zoning for new, privately developed complexes, though in the U.S. this has been devolved to the state and local governments so I do not list it here among federal reform proposals.
- 20.
As an illustration of these points, see Priemus and colleagues (2005).
- 21.
Because tenants receive the rental allowance directly, landlords do not contract directly with a local housing authority for part of the rent payment as in the U.S. and thus do not have the option of not participating.
- 22.
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Galster, G.C. (2013). U.S. Assisted Housing Programs and Poverty Deconcentration: A Critical Geographic Review. In: Manley, D., van Ham, M., Bailey, N., Simpson, L., Maclennan, D. (eds) Neighbourhood Effects or Neighbourhood Based Problems?. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6695-2_11
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