Intervening in the residential mobility process: Neighborhood outcomes for low-income populations

Abstract

Neighborhoods have become the focus of questions about how they affect the families that live within them. A current working assumption of some federal policies is that, with help, households can escape poverty neighborhoods and change their spatial context. How true is this, especially for low-income households, and does changing neighborhoods have measurable benefits? The study uses data from the Moving to Opportunity program, initiated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to test whether policy interventions by means of housing vouchers have aided moves away from low-poverty areas and into integrated residential settings. By examining the neighborhood demography of the initial and subsequent locations of the samples, it is possible to assess the success of the objectives of decreasing poverty and increasing integration. Although the program has shown some success in assisting households to live in lower-poverty neighborhoods, the findings here emphasize just how difficult it is to intervene in dynamic processes such as housing choice and mobility to create policy outcomes.