Assisted Housing and Neighborhood Poverty Dynamics, 1977 to 2008

Abstract

Changes in housing policy have led to the geographic deconcentration of assisted housing, with assisted units now located in more and lower-poverty neighborhoods. Little research examines how the changing location of assisted housing shapes neighborhood poverty rates. I use propensity score matching to estimate how neighborhood poverty rates changed as assisted housing was gained or lost from 1977 to 2008 using a national panel data set. Neighborhood poverty rates increased when neighborhoods gained assisted housing units, with larger impacts when neighborhoods gained many assisted units. Neighborhoods that lost assisted units also became poorer. However, losing assisted units had a negative effect on poverty rates: Poverty rates increased less compared with neighborhoods that did not lose units. Therefore, removing assisted housing from high-poverty neighborhoods slowed, but did not reverse, poverty rate increases. These findings emphasize the durability of neighborhood poverty and inequality even in the face of drastic policy changes.