Deconcentrating Poverty With Housing Programs

Abstract

Problem: Housing programs of the past have exacerbated the problems of concentrated poverty. Current housing programs serving very low-income households, including homebuyers as well as renters, should be examined to determine the extent to which they help households make entry into neighborhoods with low concentrations of poverty. Purpose: This research is designed to assist planners in understanding how well various approaches to resolving housing affordability problems can facilitate the poverty deconcentration process. Methods: Administrative data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development are used to assess the degree to which federal housing programs help lowincome homebuyers and renters locate in neighborhoods where less than 10% of the population is below poverty. Results and conclusions: Subsidizing households ought to be more effective than subsidizing housing units at helping lowincome households locate in low-poverty areas, and whether a household rents or buys should not matter to whether a program succeeds at deconcentration of the poor. Yet, analysis of national datasets across several housing programs finds neither of the previous propositions to be true. Housing vouchers suppliedto households are not helping renters locate in low-poverty areas any more effectively than are current project-based subsidies. It also turns out that tenure matters; a disproportionately higher share of low-income homebuyers are locating in low-poverty neighborhoods than are lowincome renters. Takeaway for practice: I recommend that housing planners seeking to make poverty deconcentration more effective use housing placement counselors, administer programs at the metropolitan scale, lease and broker market-rate housing directly, promote mixed-income LIHTC developments, practice inclusionary zoning, and monitor the impacts of these efforts. Research support: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.