Housing Assistance and Residential Satisfaction among Single-Parent Women

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to identify the variables that predict residential satisfaction among non metropolitan and metropolitan single-parent women. A model was tested in which residential satisfaction was divided into two components, housing and neighborhood satisfaction. The role of housing subsidy assistance in attenuating neighborhood and housing problems also was investigated. The model explained 30% of the variance in housing satisfaction among metropolitan single-parent women and 21% for nonmetropolitan respondents. The relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variables differed by location, nonmetropolitan compared to metropolitan. Furthermore, there were some important differences in the bundle of independent variables that were associated with neighborhood compared to housing satisfaction. The findings showed that housing and income assistance played a role, albeit small, in helping to explain neighborhood and housing satisfaction, but only for metropolitan single mothers.