-
Research & Policy
Do Housing Vouchers Improve Academic Performance? Evidence from New York City
While many of the benefits associated with the Housing Choice Voucher Program may help children succeed in school, there is little evidence to date showing impacts on children’s educational outcomes. A new study by NYU Furman Center Faculty Director Ingrid Gould Ellen, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Keren Mertens Horn, and Sarah A. Cordes fills this gap. Titled “Do Housing Vouchers Improve Academic Performance? Evidence from New York City” and published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, the paper analyzes whether, and to what extent, vouchers improve educational outcomes for children.
-
Research & Policy
Getting Low-Income Families to High-Opportunity Neighborhoods: Results from Small Area FMR
In The Effects of Small Area Fair Market Rents on the Neighborhood Choices of Families with Children , NYU Furman Center Faculty Director Ingrid Gould Ellen together with Samuel Dastrup and Meryl Finkel of Abt Associates Inc. evaluate how subsidy caps that vary according to ZIP Code alter the pool of affordable units, and whether they influence where families with vouchers live.
-
Research & Policy
Reforming Housing Assistance
NYU Furman Center Faculty Director Ingrid Gould Ellen, along with co-authors Robert Collinson and Jens Ludwig, recently published Reforming Housing Assistance in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In the article, the authors review current federal housing assistance policies and the research evidence supporting each policy. They subsequently identify and propose strategies to address three key challenges these programs face in meeting their stated objectives.
-
Research & Policy
Understanding Trends in New York City’s Evictions Data
The NYU Furman Center’s new data brief, “Trends in Housing Court Eviction Filings,” shows that citywide, the total number of eviction filings is decreasing. In 2017, private landlords initiated 176,590 eviction filings, down 4.6 percent from 2016 and 7.8 percent from 2010. Overall, the trends from this study indicate an increase in rental stability from 2010 to 2017, though this stability is not felt evenly throughout the five boroughs.
-
News & Events
Understanding HUD’s Proposed Changes to the Disparate Impact Standard
Courts have long recognized that “disparate impacts” constitute a violation of protected rights under the Fair Housing Act. Together with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at U.C. Berkeley, the NYU Furman Center submitted public comments last week arguing against a new rule proposed by HUD on three main grounds.
-
Research & Policy
Updating CRA Geography: It’s Not Just About Assessment Areas
NYU Furman Center Senior Policy Fellow Mark A. Willis offers his suggestions on how to effectively modernize one crucial regulation authorized under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Published by the Penn Institute for Urban Research, the paper proposes a method to evaluate the CRA performance of large retail banks that use the internet to serve customers located beyond their branch network.
-
Research & Policy
Gentrification And The Health Of Low-Income Children In New York City
Gentrification is one of the most loaded terms in urbanism—its very definition subject to intense analysis and variation. While many agree that community reinvestment and revitalization may bring certain benefits—increased safety, greater access to high-quality schools, and enhanced economic opportunity—critics fear that rapidly-changing neighborhoods erode local cultures, hike rents, and displace long-time residents. As debate continues to grow about gentrification and its consequences, it is critical to examine the evidence about the relationship of rapid neighborhood change to the well-being of residents.
-
Research & Policy
Policy Minute: New York City Public Housing
As New York works to preserve and stabilize its public housing, this Policy Minute explores related research, recent developments, and viewpoints.
-
Research & Policy
Proposed Legislation Expands Private Activity Bond Recycling
As the nation grapples with an affordable housing crisis, a recently proposed bipartisan bill aims to address the shortage of affordable housing by expanding and strengthening the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). The Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2019 will reportedly create 1.9 million additional affordable housing units over the next decade. The new proposal includes a simple tweak that the NYU Furman Center wrote about previously which has the potential to significantly expand financing for affordable housing in New York and across the country.
-
_200_200_80_c1.jpg)
Research & Policy
Does Gentrification Displace Poor Children? New Evidence from New York City Medicaid Data
A new working paper, “Does Gentrification Displace Poor Children? New Evidence from New York City Medicaid Data” helps to determine gentrification’s impact on the frequency and distance of low-income families’ residential moves, as well as the housing and neighborhood conditions in which they live. Using longitudinal New York City Medicaid records, the authors track the movement and compare the outcomes of low-income children from 2009 through 2015, a seven-year period in which the city experienced high levels of gentrification.
