Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Susan J. Popkin on Housing Markets and Choice

The Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration is an innovative initiative designed to meet the challenges of serving the Chicago Housing Authority's (CHA) "hard to house"; residents. It involves a unique partnership of city agencies, service providers, researchers, and private foundations, all with a deep commitment to finding solutions for the most vulnerable families affected by the CHA's Plan for Transformation. The rigorous evaluation allows for continuous learning and mid-course corrections, and helped the team develop a validated model that other housing authorities can use. This report highlights the lessons learned during the first year implementation of the Demonstration.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) launched the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) demonstration in 1994 in five cities: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. MTO targeted families living in some of the nation’s poorest, highest-crime communities and used housing subsidies to offer them a chance to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods. Research on the families conducted in 2002 raised some important questions about the impact of the program. Findings from the follow up Three-City Study of MTO, in 2004 and 2005, answer some of the questions but also highlight the complexity of the MTO experience and the limitations of a relocation-only strategy in being able to bring about fundamental changes in the lives of very low income families.

The Moving to Opportunity program targeted families living in some of the nation's poorest, highest-crime neighborhoods and offered them a chance to move to lower poverty areas. One hope was that, away from concentrated poverty and the risks associated with it–including poor physical and mental health, risky sexual behavior and delinquency–families would fare better. This brief examines how adolescent girls benefited from moving out of high poverty and discusses why girls might have fared so much better than boys.

One expected benefit of moving poor families from the concentrated poverty of some inner city neighborhoods to better, less poor neighborhoods, was that the children would attend better schools, with more resources and more advantaged peers who might be models for hard work and higher achievement. This brief looks at the schools MTO children attended after their move, how they did or did not differ from the schools in their pre-move neighborhoods, and what factors mattered to families choosing schools for their children.

The HOPE VI program has invested over $6 billion in federal funds for the redevelopment of severely distressed public housing. Drawing on the existing research evidence, this study systematically compares the costs (both monetary and nonmonetary) of maintaining severely distressed public housing developments to the potential costs and benefits of effectively revitalizing them. An effective redevelopment strategy can dramatically improve living conditions for families, resulting in better physical and mental health and increased employment and earnings. Moreover, redevelopment can trigger the revitalization of previously blighted communities. These outcomes also save public resources. In fact, for a typical distressed public housing project, mixed-income redevelopment can save the public more than $20 million over 20 years.

Fear of crime has profound implications for residents, causing stress and social isolation; relocation has brought about a dramatic positive impact on residents’ life circumstances. Those residents who left traditional public housing—voucher holders and unassisted renters and homeowners—are now living in neighborhoods that are dramatically safer than their original public housing developments. These improvements in safety have had a profound impact on their quality of life; they can let their children play outside, they are sleeping better, and are feeling less worried and anxious overall. However, those who remain in traditional public housing developments are still living in extremely dangerous circumstances, little better than where they started.

At every age level, HOPE VI Panel Study respondents are much more likely than other adults overall to describe their health as fair or poor; the rates are even higher than those of black women, a group with higher-than-average rates of poor health. HOPE VI Panel Study respondents suffer many serious conditions including arthritis, asthma, depression, diabetes, hypertension, and stroke at rates twice as high as black women nationally; a significant number of HOPE VI Panel Study respondents also face the burden of multiple serious health problems. And the death rate of HOPE VI residents far exceeds the national average of black women, with the gap increasing dramatically at older ages. These findings imply an urgent need for better and more comprehensive support for families as they undergo the stress of involuntary relocation.

A main criticism of the HOPE VI program is that intentionally relocating residents—even temporarily—increases the likelihood that some residents will end up homeless. Housing authorities have been accused of "losing" residents and not providing them with the relocation assistance to which they were entitled; critics in some cities have claimed increases in shelter populations. However, most of the evidence has been anecdotal, and while there has been much rhetoric on both sides, there has been no hard evidence to support or disprove critics' claims that HOPE VI increases homelessness.

The HOPE VI program targets dilapidated public housing developments that have failed to deliver on the promise of decent housing for the poor. The program goal is to improve the living environment for residents of severely distressed public housing and provide housing that will avoid or decrease the concentration of very poor families. The HOPE VI Panel Study is the only national study of outcomes for HOPE VI families and addresses basic questions about where residents move and how HOPE VI affects their overall well-being. After tracking residents through the relocation process, the Panel Study is able to effectively address the question of whether HOPE VI has succeeded in improving residents' life circumstances.

New Orleans urgently needs to rebuild affordable rental housing in order to recover fully and fairly. However, neither low-income families nor the communities in which they live will be well served if affordable housing is rebuilt according to the patterns of the past. Models are emerging in other cities that integrate affordable housing into healthy, mixed-income neighborhoods. New Orleans can also look to experience from other cities for examples of how to rebuild low-income communities in ways that are respectful of the original residents but do not concentrate and isolate them yet again. Although local political, civic, and community leaders must all have a voice in decision-making, federal leadership and support is essential.