Publications
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Overview of Affirmative Marketing and Implications for the Westchester Fair Housing Settlement
This report summarizes a Feb. 14, 2011 Institute for Affordable Housing Policy roundtable on affirmative marketing of affordable housing in Westchester County. The Furman Center received grant funding to provide independent research and expert assistance on implementation of a federal housing settlement. Under the terms of the settlement, Westchester must develop at least 750 affordable housing units in municipalities with overwhelmingly white populations, and must affirmatively market this housing in geographic areas with significant non-white populations. The roundtable and this review explores strategies to identify and reach potential residents, with an aim of providing insight for Westchester County in the implementation of its obligations under the settlement, as well as to provide guidance to other municipalities that share the obligation to affirmatively further fair housing.
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Points for Place: Can State Governments Shape Siting Patterns of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Developments?
There is considerable controversy about the allocation of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). Some charge that credits are disproportionately allocated to developments in poor, minority neighborhoods without additional investments and thereby reinforcing patterns of poverty concentration and racial segregation. We examine whether Qualified Allocation Plans, which outline the selection criteria states use when awarding credits, can serve as an effective tool for directing credits to higher opportunity neighborhoods (or neighborhoods that offer a rich set of resources, such as high-performing schools and access to jobs) for states wishing to do so.
To answer this question, we study changes in the location criteria outlined in allocation plans for 20 different states across the country between 2002 and 2010, and observe the degree to which those modifications are associated with changes in the poverty rates and racial composition of the neighborhoods where developments awarded tax credits are located. We find evidence that changes to allocation plans that prioritize higher opportunity neighborhoods are associated with increases in the share of credits allocated to housing units in lower poverty neighborhoods and reductions in the share allocated to those in predominantly minority neighborhoods. This analysis provides the first source of empirical evidence that state allocation plans can shape LIHTC siting patterns.
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Polarisation, Public Housing and Racial Minorities
Cities in the US have become home to an increasing concentration of poor households, disproportionately composed of racial and ethnic minorities. In the US, poor and minority populations are overrepresented in public housing, mostly located in central cities. Racial and ethnic minorities in American public housing are, for the most part, composed of native-born households whereas in Europe they are more likely to be foreign-born. After a description of this concentration of poor and minority populations in public housing, we examine the effect of public housing on neighbourhood poverty rates in central cities. We construct a longitudinal database (1950-90) for four large cities-Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia—and examine the relationship between the location of public housing and changes in neighborhood poverty rates. We find that in each city, one or more of the variables relating to the existence of public housing is significantly related to increases in neighbourhood poverty rates in succeeding decades.
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Policy Brief: 21st Century SROs: Can Small Housing Units Help Meet the Need for Affordable Housing in New York City?
This brief explores the potential demand for smaller, cheaper units to help address New York City’s affordable housing need. It considers the feasibility of self-contained micro units as well as efficiency units with shared kitchens and/or baths. The report considers the economics of building and operating small units and models their financial feasibility. It concludes by analyzing the main barriers to the creation of small units that exist in New York City and suggesting possible reforms that New York City can make to address these barriers.
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Preserving History or Hindering Growth? The Heterogeneous Effects of Historic Districts on Local Housing Markets in New York City
Historic district designation has long been a topic of considerable debate. This report, conducted in collaboration with the National Bureau of Economic Research, provides new evidence to inform one aspect of this discussion—the effect that historic district designation has on housing. The report considers how designation of historic districts in New York City affects property values both within district boundaries and in the buffer areas just outside district boundaries, and explores how these effects vary across neighborhoods. Read the full report, the research brief, or view the press release.
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Profile of Rent-Stabilized Units and Tenants in New York City
In 2011, rent stabilized units comprised nearly one million units of housing in New York City--roughly 45 percent the city's rental housing stock. This report details the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the tenants who live in NYC's stabilized housing. It is an update to a 2012 brief, Rent Stabilization in New York City. It has been slightly expanded and re-released to inform the ongoing discussions about rent stabilization in New York City in advance of the June 23, 2014 Rent Guidelines Board vote to set the allowable increase for 2015 lease renewals.
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Public Housing and Public Schools: How Do Students Living in NYC Public Housing Fare in School?
This report examines the school performance of children living in NYCHA housing and finds that children living in NYCHA housing perform less well on standardized math and reading tests than other students, even after controlling for the characteristics of the individual students and the schools they attend.
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Reducing the Cost of New Housing Construction in New York City: 2005 Update
As was the case in 1999, the major housing problem facing residents of New York City in 2005 is the affordability of housing. More than one out of every five renters in the city pay over half their incomes in rent. It is especially problematic that the vast majority of households who experience these severe housing affordability problems earn low incomes. Nevertheless, high housing costs are a significant problem for households throughout the income spectrum. While limited data suggest that housing affordability problems may have moderated a tiny bit for renters from 1999 to 2004, they worsened for owners.
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Reforming Housing Assistance to Better Respond to Recipient Needs
This paper reviews evidence on the effectiveness of the three main federal vehicles for providing housing assistance to low-income families, lays out current challenges and potential improvements to each program, and proposes further research to fully inform future policy initiatives. Changes are recommended for current federal housing assistance programs to more effectively serve people living in poverty. These include improving how programs take into account regional and state-level variations in the cost and availability of housing, reassessing the level and duration of assistance and to whom it should be targeted, and broadening the set of homes available to recipients of housing assistance beyond those located in areas that are low-income and predominantly Black or Hispanic.
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Removing Regulatory Barriers: One City’s Experience
The difficulty of developing housing in New York City is as legendary as its cost. The city has had a vacancy rate under 5% — the legislative threshold defining a housing “emergency”—for more than 55 years. More than one commission or blue ribbon panel has identified government regulation as one of the primary causes of the housing problem. Since 2000, however, an opportunity presented itself to finally make some progress in reducing the cost of housing construction. Removing regulatory barriers to housing development caught the interest of two mayors—Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg—and their respective housing commissioners.