Housing Subsidies Research Articles

Employment Accessibility Among Housing Subsidy Recipients

This article estimates the extent to which different types of subsidized households live near employment, measuring the extent of spatial mismatch between these households and employment. Using census tract–level data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on housing subsidy locations and employment data from the U.S. Census Bureau, this article uses a distance-decay function to estimate job-accessibility indices for census tracts in metropolitan statistical areas with 100,000 people or more. I use these data to create weighted job-accessibility indices for housing subsidy recipients (public housing, Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, Section 8 New Construction, and housing voucher households) and the total population and renter households earning below 50% of area median income as points of comparison. I find that of all these groups, by a large margin, public housing households live in census tracts with the greatest proximity to low-skilled jobs. However, they also live among the greatest concentration of individuals who compete for those jobs, namely, the low-skilled unemployed. These findings suggest that we pay close attention to the trade-offs that public housing residents are making as these units are demolished and replaced with vouchers.

Reprint of “Do Housing Choice Voucher Holders Live Near Good Schools?”

The Housing Choice Voucher program was created, in part, to help low income households reach a broader range of neighborhoods and schools. Rather than concentrating low income households in designated developments, vouchers allow families to choose their housing units and neighborhoods. In this project we explore whether low income households use the flexibility provided by vouchers to reach neighborhoods with high performing schools. Unlike previous experimental work, which has focused on a small sample of voucher holders constrained to live in low-poverty neighborhoods, we look at the voucher population as a whole and explore the broad range of neighborhoods in which they live. Relying on internal data from HUD on the location of assisted households, we link each voucher holder in the country to the closest elementary school within their school district. We compare the characteristics of the schools that voucher holders are likely to attend to the characteristics of those accessible to other households receiving place based housing subsidies, other similar unsubsidized households and fair market rent units within the same state and metropolitan area. These comparisons provide us with a portrait of the schools that children might have attended absent HUD assistance. In comparison to other poor households in the same metropolitan areas, we find that the schools near voucher holders have lower performing students than the schools near other poor households without a housing subsidy. We probe this surprising finding by exploring whether differences between the demographic characteristics of voucher holders and other poor households explain the differences in the characteristics of nearby schools, and whether school characteristics vary with length of time in the voucher program. We also examine variation across metropolitan areas in the relative quality of schools near to voucher holders and whether this variation is explained by economic, socio-demographic or policy differences across cities.

The Mortgage Interest Deduction: An Example of an Upside Down Federal Government Housing Subsidy

Federal housing subsidies overwhelmingly benefit homeowners over renters and wealthier Americans over poorer Americans through the US tax code. A better balance in both areas is needed to encourage equitable economic growth. The mortgage interest deduction is the primary driver of this imbalance and is by far the federal government’s largest investment in housing. Further, no evidence exists that the mortgage interest deduction encourages renters to become owners. Rather, its documented effect has been to encourage those who would purchase homes to buy bigger homes. Modest reforms to the mortgage interest deduction are necessary because of its size and inequitable nature. Any and all savings achieved through reforms must be used to balance housing subsidies by providing more resources for low- and moderate-income renters and owners.

Exploring Multiple Levels of Access to Rental Subsidies and Supportive Housing

Despite the well-documented benefits of stable housing, there are myriad barriers that preclude low-income and homeless individuals from accessing housing support. This article examines which individual characteristics predict greater or more limited access to supportive housing and rental subsidy programs in Hartford, Connecticut. Although individuals with HIV/AIDS are most likely to access housing, options are limited for other vulnerable populations, including those with substance use disorders and mental illness.

Leaving Homelessness Behind: Housing Decisions Among Families Exiting Shelter

Because homelessness assistance programs are designed to help families, it is important for policymakers and practitioners to understand how families experiencing homelessness make housing decisions, particularly when they decide not to use available services. This study explores those decisions using in-depth qualitative interviews with 80 families recruited in shelters across four sites approximately six months after they were assigned to one of four conditions (permanent housing subsidies, project-based transitional housing, community-based rapid re-housing, or usual care). Familiar neighborhoods near children's schools, transportation, family and friends, and stability were important to families across conditions. Program restrictions on eligibility constrained family choices. Subsidized housing was the most desired intervention, and families leased up at higher rates than in other studies of poor families. Respondents were least comfortable in and most likely to leave transitional housing. Uncertainty associated with community-based rapid re-housing generated considerable anxiety. Across interventions, many families had to make unhappy compromises, often leading to further moves. Policy recommendations are offered.

Firm Ownership and Social Insurance Inequality in Transitional China: Evidence from a Large Panel of Firm-Level Data

In dramatic reforms during the past 15 years, China has aimed to create a unified social insurance system across state, collective, and private ownership sectors in urban areas. Despite this nominal equality, a large panel of firm-level data from 2004 to 2007 provides empirical evidence of large disparities between firm ownership sectors in social insurance participation and generosity. We examine three types of social insurance programme: pensions and medical insurance, unemployment insurance, and the housing provident fund and housing subsidies. The results demonstrate that state-owned firms continued to be more compliant in social insurance participation and more generous in their benefit levels than collective and foreign-owned firms. Private domestic firms lagged furthest behind, being at least two thirds less likely to participate in each social insurance programme than the average state-owned firm. These disparities remain substantial and robust even after controlling for various firm characteristics and running multiple sensitivity tests. As China continues to combat evasion of social insurance payments among firms, and as the informal sector expands rapidly, these results suggest that action is required to address ownership-based segmentation in the urban labour markets.

“Dying to get a house?” The health outcomes of the South African low-income housing programme

This paper examines the health impacts of the South African housing subsidy programme. A distinction is made between subsidised housing units, informal settlements (slums), informal housing units and formal urban areas, and the differences and similarities between the various typologies are explored. Binomial logistic and linear regressions are utilised in order to understand the relationships between the different housing typologies and health outcomes. Although subsidised housing units score better in terms of some adult and child health indicators, the binomial logistic and linear regressions show that health outcomes are more impacted by service-related factors than by housing structure. The results suggest that the housing subsidy policy framework should be reconsidered, taking into account the important role of urban services, particularly in regard to the upgrading of informal settlements.

Path Dependence and Critical Junctures in Irish Rental Policy: From Dualist to Unitary Rental Markets?

Ireland is categorised as an example of the dualist rental system in From Public Housing to the Social Market—Kemeny's (1995) landmark comparative study of rented housing. This article, which examines the historical development of public subsidisation of housing and regulation of tenants' occupancy rights in Ireland, argues that contrary to Kemeny's (1996) assumption, the dualist model has recently unravelled in this country and been replaced by an embryonic unitary rental model. This is evidenced by increasing tenure neutrality of government housing subsidies; equalisation of the secure occupancy rights and minimum standards regulations across most of the rented sector and the recent decline of home ownership and expansion of renting for the first time since records began. Using ‘path dependence’ and other concepts from the historical institutionalist literature, the reasons for these developments are explored as are their implications for Kemeny's (1995) thesis.

The impact of housing tenure in supporting ageing in place: exploring the links between housing systems and housing options for the elderly

The aim of paper is to reveal the link between the scope of housing aid designed to support ageing in place and the housing system. The main research question is whether the structure of the housing stock according to housing tenure has an impact on diversity and innovations in the supply of public housing subsidies and the housing options available to the elderly. The research is conducted on a sample of eight European countries that substantially differ in terms of their housing and welfare system: Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Italy. These countries were represented in the international project HELPS that primarily focuses on implementation of innovative pilot actions in selected EU states that would increase the autonomy of vulnerable people. After controlling for the effects of several external factors, the results show that the tenure-based structure of housing stock may have a significant impact on the dependent variable, which is the diversity and innovativeness of housing subsidies and options for the elderly. Specifically, in countries with a lower homeownership rate and a higher share of rental housing there is also a greater probability that the supply of housing subsidies and options available to the elderly will be wider and will involve more innovative features.

Comparing the Incidence of Taxes and Social Spending in Brazil and the United States

We perform the first comprehensive fiscal incidence analyses in Brazil and the US, including direct cash and food transfers, targeted housing and heating subsidies, public spending on education and health, and personal income, payroll, corporate income, property, and expenditure taxes. In both countries, primary spending is close to 40 percent of GDP. The US achieves higher redistribution through direct taxes and transfers, primarily due to underutilization of the personal income tax in Brazil and the fact that Brazil’s highly progressive cash and food transfer programs are small while larger transfer programs are less progressive. However, when health and non-tertiary education spending are added to income using the government cost approach, the two countries achieve similar levels of redistribution. This result may be a reflection of better-off households in Brazil opting out of public services due to quality concerns rather than a result of government effort to make spending more equitable.

Do Housing Choice Voucher holders live near good schools?

The Housing Choice Voucher program was created, in part, to help low income households reach a broader range of neighborhoods and schools. Rather than concentrating low income households in designated developments, vouchers allow families to choose their housing units and neighborhoods. In this project we explore whether low income households use the flexibility provided by vouchers to reach neighborhoods with high performing schools. Unlike previous experimental work, which has focused on a small sample of voucher holders constrained to live in low-poverty neighborhoods, we look at the voucher population as a whole and explore the broad range of neighborhoods in which they live. Relying on internal data from HUD on the location of assisted households, we link each voucher holder in the country to the closest elementary school within their school district. We compare the characteristics of the schools that voucher holders are likely to attend to the characteristics of those accessible to other households receiving place based housing subsidies, other similar unsubsidized households and fair market rent units within the same state and metropolitan area. These comparisons provide us with a portrait of the schools that children might have attended absent HUD assistance. In comparison to other poor households in the same metropolitan areas, we find that the schools near voucher holders have lower performing students than the schools near other poor households without a housing subsidy. We probe this surprising finding by exploring whether differences between the demographic characteristics of voucher holders and other poor households explain the differences in the characteristics of nearby schools, and whether school characteristics vary with length of time in the voucher program. We also examine variation across metropolitan areas in the relative quality of schools near to voucher holders and whether this variation is explained by economic, socio-demographic or policy differences across cities.

The German housing system: fundamentally resilient?

The initial research question was: How can we explain the fact that the German housing system was seemingly unaffected by the financial crisis? The relative macro-economic stability of the German economy is part of the story, but the initial question led to a more fundamental analysis of why there had been no precrisis excesses in the German housing market. The longer term lack of volatility in Germany is just as in need of explanation as the excesses elsewhere. An important part of the explanation may be the particular tenure structure of the German housing market—which is characterized by a low homeownership rate and a large market share for private landlords. This structure was shaped over time by institutional development. In particular, mortgage finance systems and habits did not develop independently of that tenure structure. Equally that tenure structure arises in part from regulation and housing subsidy systems that do not favour homeownership.

BEYOND THE APPEREANCE OF HERITAGE: Reconstruction of Historic Areas Affected by Earthquakes in Chile

Earthquakes have progressively destroyed Chilean built heritage over the years, not only due to the initial devastation they produce but also due to the applied reconstruction approaches that follow, which has been addressed using non-specific instruments such as social housing subsidies. Moreover, it often aims only to recreate the previous built form, dwellings that look ‘as before’, but using contemporary materials and building techniques, losing the progressive and sustainable culture that used to characterize their buildings. This raises the question of authenticity and its social and normative corollaries. The objective of this paper is to explore this issue by discussing reconstruction projects that have been built in heritage areas after the 2010 earthquake, considering their formal coherence in relation to the previous architecture, as well as their applied building techniques and the inhabitants’ perception of the reconstruction process. The results indicate that the sustainability that used to characterize dwellings is not present in their replacements. This paper follows the idea that heritage should be reconsidered as a sustainable way of designing, going beyond formal approaches.

NOVEMBER 2013 PLACEMENT ADS

NOVEMBER 2013 PLACEMENT ADS

Chile: Subsidies, credit and housing deficit

This article has two objectives: to analyse the effects of the housing subsidy on access to credit and on real-estate investment; and to study the influence of those relations in the Chilean experience. Following a review of the financing and subsidy systems in Chile, a theoretical model is put forward to analyse the effect of subsidies on housing credit and on the equilibrium of the real-estate market. The model offers new perspectives on the role played by subsidies policy and the structure on which the empirical research is based. The econometric analysis corroborates the two main theoretical proposals, namely: access to the subsidy increases a family’s chances of obtaining credit and reduces the number of families living in a housing-deficit situation. The econometric results also help to interpret the trend of the housing deficit in Chile.

Randomized Trial of Intensive Housing Placement and Community Transition Services for Episodic and Recidivist Homeless Families

We compared Home to Stay, a pilot of intensive housing placement and community transition services for episodic and recidivist homeless families, with a standard services approach. Using intention-to-treat analyses, we conducted a modified randomized trial of 138 Home to Stay client families and a control group of 192 client families receiving standard shelter services. Home to Stay clients exited shelter more quickly than clients in the control group (Cox regression, P < .001), more commonly exited shelter with housing subsidies (75% vs 56%), stayed out of shelter longer (Cox regression, P = .011), and spent fewer total days in shelter (376 days vs 449 days). Home to Stay performed best with clients who entered shelter within 180 days of the pilot's start date and had less impact on clients entering shelter before that time. Relative to standard services, Home to Stay services can accelerate exit from shelter and reduce return to shelter and total sheltered days for episodic and recidivist homeless families. Standard shelter services may be able to narrow this performance gap by incentivizing work with all episodic and recidivist homeless families.

Housing Assistance and Disconnection from Welfare and Work: Assessing the Impacts of Public Housing and Tenant-based Rental Subsidies

The well-being of families disconnected from welfare and work are of growing concern to policymakers. This article examines the relationship between economic disconnection and housing assistance, a critical source of support that subsidizes what is the largest fixed expense for most households. Results from multilevel logistic models show that the odds of being disconnected are higher for public housing residents and lower for single mothers receiving tenantbased rental assistance in comparison to those in private housing. Findings indicate that housing policies should be considered alongside welfare policy changes aimed at economically disconnected families, and that public housing is a critical site for interventions.

Evidence Matters Summer 2013

The articles in this issue of Evidence Matters explore a range of strategies designed to promote affordable housing preservation at the national, state, and local levels. The lead article, “Preserving Affordable Rental Housing: A Snapshot of Growing Need, Current Threats, and Innovative Solutions,” reviews the economic and demographic trends prompting increasing demand for affordable housing, the threats to the existing housing stock, and the programs and tactics used by governmental and nonprofit organizations to preserve affordable housing. “Research Spotlight: How Research Tools Are Assisting Communities To Preserve, Plan Affordable Housing” considers the efforts of New York University’s Furman Center and the University of Florida’s Shimberg Center to map affordable housing subsidies and availability to better target areas most in need of preservation. And “In Practice: Models for Affordable Housing Preservation” examines the role that preservation compacts and state housing trust funds play in protecting affordable housing and economic diversity.

Severity of Household Food Insecurity Is Sensitive to Change in Household Income and Employment Status among Low-Income Families1–3

Cross-sectional studies have established a relationship between poverty and food insecurity, but little is known about the acute changes within households that lead to changes in food insecurity. This study examined how changes in income, employment status, and receipt of welfare related to change in severity of food insecurity during 1 y among low-income families. In 2005–2007, 501 families living in market and subsidized rental housing were recruited through door-to-door sampling in high-poverty neighborhoods in Toronto. One year later, families were re-interviewed. The final longitudinal analytic sample included 331 families. Within-household change in income, employment, and welfare receipt were examined in relation to change in severity of food insecurity. Severity was denoted by the aggregate raw score on the Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM). Analyses were stratified by housing subsidy status owing to differences in characteristics between households. Food insecurity was a persistent problem among families; 68% were food insecure at both interviews. Severity was dynamic, however, as 73.4% answered more or fewer questions affirmatively on the HFFSM between baseline and follow-up. Among market-rent families, a $2000 gain in income during the year and gain of full-time employment were associated with a 0.29 and 1.33 decrease in raw score, respectively (P < 0.01). This study suggests that improvements in income and employment are related to improvements in families' experiences of food insecurity, highlighting the potential for income- and employment-based policy interventions to affect the severity of household food insecurity for low-income families.

Housing System Transformations in Japan and South Korea: Divergent Responses to Neo-liberal Forces

Despite different pathways and approaches to housing and public provision, considerations of East Asian developmental regimes have tended to categorise Japan and South Korea as different versions of a similar type of welfare regime. This paper addresses the roles housing systems and policies have played in these two societies in both the global context of neo-liberalisation and the regional context of developmental states. In the last decade Japanese and Korean governments have reacted strongly to shifts in global conditions, but ostensibly in contradictory ways. While Japan has deregulated or dissolved housing subsidy frameworks and marketised housing practices, Korea has embarked on a programme of public housing construction and increasingly applied market adjustment measures. This paper evaluates these transformations, and the implications for understanding divergence and the developing role of housing in East Asian contexts.