View Research by Author - Mary K. Cunningham

Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/MaryKCunningham

This brief, a companion to the Housing in the Nation's Capital 2009 report, describes the impact of the foreclosure crisis on the Washington metropolitan region, examining the level and trends of foreclosures, outlining potential secondary effects for families and neighborhoods, and looking towards the future of the region's housing market. It concludes with policy implications in four areas: foreclosure prevention, neighborhood stabilization, recovery assistance for displaced households, and services for children in foreclosed homes.

This is the seventh in a series of annual reports about housing in the Washington metropolitan region. It assembles and analyzes the most current data on housing conditions in the District of Columbia and the surrounding suburbs. This year's report focuses on the impact of the foreclosure crisis on the region, examining the level and trends of foreclosures, outlining potential secondary effects for families and neighborhoods, and looking towards the future of the region's housing market. It concludes with policy implications in four areas: foreclosure prevention, neighborhood stabilization, recovery assistance for displaced households, and services for children in foreclosed homes.

Testimony from Mary Cunningham on H.R. 3073 for the United States House of Representatives, the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. H.R. 3073 would create a homelessness prevention program for low-income veterans.

In this testimony, Mary Cunningham discusses different housing-based interventions that policymakers could adopt to end homelessness among veterans. Increasing HUD-VASH vouchers and tightly targeting them to high need veterans, as well as increasing rapid rehousing programs and affordable housing programs for low-income veterans who are homeless primarily for economic reasons are discussed.

Mary Cunningham, author of "Preventing and Ending Homelessness—Next Steps," answers five questions about how to combat homelessness. Evidence-based approaches have cut homelessness among chronically homeless single adults and new strategies are now being adopted to help homeless families. Investing in proven strategies is crucial as the economic crisis puts more people at risk of ending up in shelters and threatens to reverse the progress communities have made toward ending and preventing homelessness.

Across the country, communities are working to end homelessness by investing in Housing First approaches that help families and single adults get back into permanent housing. Until recently, many of these communities were reducing homelessness. Today, the housing crisis and economic recession threatens progress and puts millions of Americans at risk of homelessness. Many expect the homeless numbers to swell-and some communities are already reporting sharp increases, particularly among families. This brief examines the current state of homelessness, how community responses are changing, what is working, and, most important, what policymakers should be doing to move forward, not backward.

This brief focuses on the neighborhoods available to voucher recipients in Chicago. It examines the location of units with rents below Fair Market Rents, neighborhood quality where voucher holders are located, and the quality of neighborhoods with the most affordable housing. Our findings indicate that mobility efforts that do not include larger policies to curb discrimination, including stricter enforcement of fair housing policies and enforcement of local ordinances that make refusing to rent to vouchers holders illegal, are doomed to fail.

Public housing transformation has largely failed to address the more complex needs of "hard-to-house" residents who have relied on public housing as a source of stable, if less than ideal, housing. The hard-to-house such as high-need households, grandparents caring for grandchildren, families with disabled members, very large households, and multiple-barrier families. For these vulnerable families, the same public housing transformation that may offer better housing and new opportunities for other tenants can be just one more blow. This brief lays out a strategy for serving hard-to-house residents who remain in distressed public housing or who are experiencing hardship as a result of HOPE VI-related relocation.

The authors review the policy implications of "The State and Local Housing Flexibility Act of 2005," which was recently introduced in the Senate and House. Drawing on Urban Institute research, they discuss significant limitations on housing choice for families with housing vouchers and the possibility that many may end in high-poverty neighborhoods.

This brief examines the efficacy of providing housing mobility assistance to families with vouchers by examining the Housing Opportunity Program in Chicago. To help families move to opportunity neighborhoods, HOP provides housing search counseling and unit referrals, free credit reports and budget counseling, transportation to view units, expedited housing inspections, workshops on landlord-tenant law, and post-move support. The authors find that voucher holders who enroll in HOP and receive mobility services are significantly more likely to move to opportunity neighborhoods. Vulnerable households, large families, black households and public housing relocatees are less likely to move to opportunity neighborhoods. [View the corresponding press release]

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