Neighbourhood opportunity, racial segregation, and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program in the United States

Abstract

Housing policy for low-income renters seeks to deconcentrate poverty by moving the poor to neighborhoods offering opportunities for safety, good education, and gainful employment. Federal law compels communities to take affirmative steps to promote racial and ethnic integration. We argue that it is not possible for a community to effectively deconcentrate poverty unless it actively engages in racial and ethnic integration. This research evaluates the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) in terms of both poverty deconcentration and racial integration. It asks if the LIHTC program is helping move low-income families to neighbourhoods offering high levels of opportunity categorized by the dominant racial and ethnic group. Given the lack of high-opportunity tracts among minority concentrated tracts, there is effectively no mechanism through which the LIHTC program can locate developments in minority dominated high-opportunity tracts and achieve movement to opportunity. If the LIHTC program is to further poverty deconcentration through movement to high-opportunity areas, it must also affirmatively further fair housing.