Publications
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Breaking Barriers, Boosting Supply
The Urban Institute’s "Opportunity for All" project aims to promote federal strategies that support strong and inclusive neighborhoods. In one of the project’s briefs, “Breaking Barriers, Boosting Supply,” Furman Center Faculty Director Ingrid Gould Ellen and the Urban Institute’s Solomon Greene advocate for the federal government to tie state funding opportunities to local affordable housing goals. They highlight the potential for national policy reform to incentivize communities to take action in improving land use and zoning regulations, ultimately allowing for more affordable housing and healthier, more diverse neighborhoods.
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Gentrification and the Health of Legacy Residents
This health policy brief reviews research about gentrification and its effects on the health of long-term, or legacy, residents, with a focus on renters, exploring gentrification's effects on residential mobility, neighborhood environments, and the health and well-being of both neighborhood stayers and movers. Given the
robust evidence that neighborhoods and residential mobility affect health, there is good reason to believe that gentrification would shape the health of residents. -
Allocation of the Limited Subsidies for Public Housing
This brief analyzes the effects of public housing preference categories in the allocation of federal housing assistance. By simulating waiting list scenarios at housing authorities in three different cities, researchers demonstrate the limits of preference categories to change the allocation of units between different types of households (i.e. families, non-disabled elderly, and disabled). Income-based preferences are far more effective in changing the concentration of poverty within developments and, in certain conditions, exposure to poverty at the neighborhood level.
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Housing Justice in the Pandemic Age: Recommendations for Safe and Effective Courts During COVID-19
This brief outlines recommendations to inform the “reopening” of New York City housing courts, a term we will use to describe the incremental process of reopening court buildings, permitting new eviction filings, expanding the courts’ dockets, and other aspects of returning to full operations.
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How Can Historic Preservation Be More Inclusive? Learning From New York City’s Historic Districts
Historic preservation policies uphold the cultural heritage of a city while also impacting the social and economic landscape of the neighborhoods preserved. This chapter describes findings from analyses that compare New York City neighborhoods which received historic designations with comparable ones that did not. To broaden the agenda of the preservation community, the authors describe effects seen in work done by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission ever since it was created in 1965. They advocate for a closer look at the impact historic preservation has on equity, diversity, and inclusion.
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Renovating Subsidized Housing: The Impact On Tenants’ Health
Many public and subsidized housing developments in the US are aging and in need of significant repairs. Some observers worry that their poor condition threatens the health of residents. This study evaluated a recent renovation of public housing that was undertaken through the transfer of six housing developments from the New York City Housing Authority to a public-private partnership. It examined whether the renovation and transfer to private managers led to improvements in tenants’ health over three years, as measured by Medicaid claims. While it did not find significant improvements in individual health outcomes, it found significant relative improvements in overall disease burden when measured using an index of housing-sensitive conditions.
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Migration Choices of the Boomerang Generation: Does Returning Home Dampen Labor Market Adjustment?
This paper shows that boomerang moves (returning to live with one's parents) are more likely to bring young adults to labor markets with higher unemployment and lower wages and the likelihood of a non-boomerang location being chosen by a young adult increases with local wages.
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Do Housing Vouchers Improve Academic Performance? Evidence from New York City
This paper examines whether—and to what extent—housing vouchers improve educational outcomes for students whose families receive them. Using data from New York City, the nation's largest school district, the authors match over 88,000 school‐age voucher recipients to longitudinal public school records. Results indicate that students in voucher households perform better in both English Language Arts and Mathematics in the years after they receive a voucher.
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The Effects of Small Area Fair Market Rents on the Neighborhood Choices of Families with Children
This paper reports and extends the quantitative findings of the Small Area Fair Market Rent Demonstration Evaluation, focusing on the important subgroup of families with children. The authors test whether varying housing assistance subsidy caps with ZIP Code rent levels (that is, introducing Small Area Fair Market Rents or SAFMRs) increases the likelihood that voucher-holder families with children locate in higher opportunity neighborhoods, as proxied by poverty rates, the proficiency levels of local elementary schools, jobs proximity, and environmental hazards. Five years after implementation, Small Area FMRs do not appear to affect overall move rates, but they meaningfully affect the locational outcomes among families with children who move.
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Do Vouchers Protect Low-Income Households from Rising Rents?
Using restricted administrative data on the voucher program, the authors examine the experience of voucher holders in metropolitan areas with rising rents. While some of the authors' models suggest that rising rents in metropolitan areas are associated with a slight increase in rent-to-income ratios among voucher holders, poor renters in general see significantly larger increases in rent-to-income ratios. The authors see little evidence that rising rents push voucher holders to worse neighborhoods, with voucher holders in central cities ending up in lower-poverty neighborhoods as rents rise. It appears that vouchers may help low-income households remain in neighborhoods as they gentrify.
