Public Housing Assistance Research Articles

DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM DETERMINING RECIPIENTS OF THE PEOPLE'S HOUSING ASSISTANCE PROGRAM USING THE ELIMINATION AND CHOICE TRANSLATION REALITY METHOD (ELECTRE)

In this era, the need for technology is indispensable in various fields of need, inseparable from the economic field in the field of community welfare, one of which is work programs to facilitate achieving goals, one of which is the work carried out by the Ministry of PUPR, namely the program for flats, special houses, and stimulant assistance for self-help housing. based on pre-determined criteria. Electre is one of the methods used to rank and determine the best alternative. The basic concept of the electre method is to deal with outranking relationships by using pairwise comparisons between alternatives under each criterion separately. Which produces a computerized system that can automatically determine people who are eligible to receive public housing assistance, based on the criteria values entered. This decision support system is designed using the PHP programming language

Housing conditions in social housing stock vs. marginalisation risk – evidence from Poland

Low-income households in the Polish public housing stock sometimes encounter the risk of housing exclusion, yet this experience is relatively more frequent among the tenants of council flats. The aim of this paper is to present the results of research on housing standards in the public housing stock in Poland. Pursuant to Polish law, social housing is part of public housing assistance (Przymeński 2016), addressed to very-low- and low-income households which are not capable of satisfying their housing needs on their own. The paper uses desk research, statistical data analysis and questionnaire interviews with dwellers of council flats in Poland. Furthermore, the achievements of international housing policy are taken into account. The results show that the standard in the public stock, especially in council flats, in Poland is poor and hinders low-income households in addressing their hous- ing needs. Small areas of dwellings, overcrowding, low quality of building materials are all identified as significant determinants increasing the risk of housing exclusion in council flats.

Housing Subsidies and Early Childhood Development: A Comprehensive Review of Policies and Demonstration Projects

ABSTRACTIn this article, we ask how housing subsidies might influence young children. We examine two national housing policies – public housing assistance and the Section 8 vouchers program – and two demonstration projects that aimed to improve the administration of providing housing subsidies – HOPE (Homeownership Opportunities for People Everywhere) VI and Moving to Opportunity. This article is a critical examination of these policies and demonstration projects in relation to the following housing dimensions that promote the healthy development of young children: income supplements residential stability, physical environment, access to services and amenities, housing choice, neighborhood safety, and social capital. We compared advantages and limitations of each of these national housing policies and demonstration projects and examined ways in which they might influence children in these housing dimensions. The article concludes with implications and future research directions for U.S. housing policy by discussing its most recent U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) initiative, Rental Assistance Demonstration, in addressing limitations of housing policies and demonstration projects we examined.

Housing Relocation Policy and Violence

This article summarizes and reviews the cross-discipline literature on violent crime in destination neighborhoods postrelocation in order to build a more comprehensive picture of risk factors for violence, as well as how and why housing policies influence risk of violence. High rates of violent crime continue to be a persistent problem in areas of concentrated poverty and public housing. Modern housing programs such as Moving to Opportunity and Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere are popular interventions for reducing the density of low-income people receiving public housing assistance by relocating residents of distressed housing projects. However, evidence suggests that relocated residents may not experience less violence or improved safety in their new communities.

Collateral Damage: A Public Housing Consequences of the 'War on Drugs'

Often automatic upon a conviction, collateral consequences work to relegate individuals to the status of second-class citizen by the systematic deprivation of opportunity in all aspects of life. Shockingly, these penalties are not aimed solely at ex-offenders. Individuals arrested frequently are denied access to opportunity by virtue of their interaction with the criminal justice system. In the context of public housing, even an arrest is not required for the imposition of collateral consequences. Instead, a public housing agency employee, without having to satisfy any statutorily mandated burden of proof, may make a determination that a household member or guest has engaged in “drug-related criminal activity,” terminate the household from public housing assistance, and subsequently evict the family.This Article hopes to add to the existing scholarship and advocacy regarding exclusionary federal housing policies. It is meant not only to supplement the collateral-consequences literature by identifying and examining additional issues in the administration of federal housing policy, but also to draw attention to the inequities inherent in the current system. More specifically, this Article explores federal termination policies and the way in which they are administered by local public housing authorities (PHAs). I argue that federal law grants an unwarranted amount of discretion to PHAs in assessing cause for exclusion from the program and also fails to provide sufficient statutory and regulatory guidance in the enforcement of PHA lease agreements. Reviewing alleged “drug-related criminal activity” lease violations through a criminal law lens may assist PHAs in making appropriate termination decisions. With this, I recommend that a framework be established requiring PHAs to meet a statutorily mandated burden of proof prior to a “drug-related criminal activity” termination. This standard ought to focus on such activity through a criminal law frame.

Individual Development Accounts and Homeownership among Low-income Adults with Disabilities

We examined the long-term effects of Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), savings accounts that match funds deposited by participants for qualified purposes, on homeownership rates among study participants with disabilities in a randomized experiment. Results from a 10-year follow-up of the IDAs indicate that rates of homeownership were nearly 10 percentage points higher for treatment participants with disabilities than for control-group members with disabilities ( p < .10). The impacts of IDAs seem to vary with the baseline socioeconomic characteristics of participants—particularly with homeownership, bank account ownership, and public housing assistance. We conclude by discussing policy implications of using asset-building programs to support people with disabilities.

From responsible users to recalcitrant dope fiends: Mapping modes of engagement with harm reduction

This article considers individuals' diverse modes of engagement with an increasingly medicalised strain of harm reduction that emphasises individual accountability for personal health and welfare. Drawing upon 1 year of ethnographic research at a New York City-based syringe exchange (“NYC Harm Reduction”, a pseudonym), I describe how drug users themselves made sense of harm reduction, negotiated its discourses of risk and responsibility, and incorporated its behavioural directives into their own body projects – or did not. While suggesting some participants' apparent absorption of risk reduction into a dominant, and enabling identity, I focus mainly upon individuals' “on-stage” performances and apparent depth of service use and acceptance while at NYC Harm Reduction. Building upon recent critiques of contemporary harm reduction's de-contextualised neoliberal subject, I discuss the crucial roles of public housing assistance and peer worker employment in incentivising participants' uptake of pro-risk reduction attitudes, and (presumably) practices. Ultimately, participants' multiplicity of approaches to harm reduction hinged upon differences in not only personality or stage of drug use, but also current living circumstances; moreover, individuals' differential engagement with NYC Harm Reduction reflected the ways in which the organisation and its government funders prioritised the material investment of certain “risky” bodies – namely, HIV-positive drug users.

Post-Sidr public housing assistance in Bangladesh: a case study

Housing is not only a structure, but also a process tied up with social, cultural, psychological and economic attributes. Following Cyclone Sidr, the Government of Bangladesh has been using ‘build back better’ as a colloquial slogan to push forward the idea of resilience in post-disaster interventions, especially with regard to rebuilding houses. This paper examines how and whether the idea is reflected through the government's post-Sidr housing project at Gabtola. It problematizes the slogan from the accounts of community participation, local practicalities, culture, weather and potential future risks. Based on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork at Gabtola, this research found that the basic attributes of the ‘build back better’ slogan are absent with regard to the housing scheme's cost efficiency, management, livelihoods, public health aspects and tolerance against a super-cyclone. These findings will provide valuable insights into the problems associated with the implementation of post-cyclone public housing programmes in Bangladesh. Such insights can assist public authorities and other relevant organizations and donor agencies in revising and improving their post-disaster housing programmes in the wake of future disasters.

Housing experiences of former foster youth: How do they fare in comparison to other youth?

Research indicates that foster youth tend to fare poorly in a number of domains in the transition to adulthood, and the shift to independent living may be particularly challenging. However, it is unclear whether negative housing outcomes are attributable to foster care history or if they are due to other risk factors. This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to compare housing outcomes for foster youth to a matched sample of youth who share similar risk factors and to an unmatched sample. Results indicate that foster youth struggle more in the transition to independent living in comparison to both groups, showing higher rates of homelessness, less housing stability, poorer neighborhood quality, and more reliance on public housing assistance. The paper explores how factors related to foster care and confounding risk factors that tend to have higher prevalence among foster youth may contribute to these outcomes.

Building and validating an administrative records database for the United States

The Statistical Administrative Records System (StARS) is a database built from national administrative records sources selected to maximize coverage of the population. Many people file an income tax return for themselves and their dependents or have wage or interest income reported to the government, providing a data source for people involved in the Federal tax system. But there are segments of the population that do not file tax returns or that have unreported income, so we attempt to fill in coverage gaps with targeted files. The Medicare file includes data for much of the elderly population. The Selective Service file provides nearly complete coverage of young males, who are required to register should a military draft be necessary. The Indian Health Service file includes many American Indians, and two public housing assistance files target the poor population.

Enhancing the Affordability of Rental Housing in the U.S.: Demand-Side Subsidy or Supply-Side Subsidy?

The purpose of this paper is to assist policy makers in their decisions as regards housing assistance by examining which alternative (demand-side such as rent certificate and housing vouchers, supply-side subsidy such as public housing, or rent control) is more effective in enhancing rental housing affordability. The arguments on the price effects of three alternatives are empirically examined using data on 39 metropolitan areas from American Housing Survey. Multiple regression analysis is the principal means of analysis. The results of the empirical tests show that the supply-side subsidy is most important to enhance housing affordability of rental housing through decreasing the overall rent level, while demand-side subsidy does not have a significant relationship with rent level and rent control turns out not working for decreasing rent level. These findings imply that as far as affordability problem is concerned, the governments preference on the demand-side subsidy as the scheme of public housing assistance since Nixon Administration should be reexamined, and the supply-side subsidy should be reemphasized.

Shaping a Racially Divided Society: State Housing Policy in South Africa, 1920–50

Public housing assistance for poor whites in South Africa was introduced to ensure social and geographical isolation for the voting minority. The policy of relative advantage of housing needs of whites over those of the rest of the working class remained unchallenged until the consummation of residential segregation was achieved under the Group Areas Act of 1950. Although endorsed as an instrument for social and residential cleavage, efforts by the state to give residential assistance to working-class whites prior to the imposition of separate group areas are shown to have been restricted by wider political and economic considerations. Efforts to upgrade and separate the housing of working-class whites from the black urban community met with limited success in the interwar years. After World War 2, fiscal restrictions and the politics that surrounded the rapid urbanisation of Africans challenged the practice, if not the policy, of housing advantage for whites.