View Research by Author - Molly M. Scott

Publications

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program provides low income households the ability to affordably rent decent housing practically anywhere in the United States. And yet, voucher holders largely live in a relatively small number of low opportunity neighborhoods. In order to fully exercise their housing choice, program participants need quality information about the housing options available and tools to overcome real and perceived barriers in the private rental market. Drawing on the best available research and model programs from across the country, this toolkit provides practical advice on how to plan and implement a housing mobility program to overcome these challenges.

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), $1 billion was provided to the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) network to supplement existing CSBG funds to alleviate the causes and conditions of poverty in local areas and develop strong, healthy, and supportive communities. This report presents the findings of an extensive evaluation to document the services, promising practices, and challenges that emerged during the CSBG ARRA initiative. ARRA represented an unprecedented infusion of funding, accompanied by increased monitoring and accountability. The lessons learned have valuable implications for CSBG and the CSBG network. Fieldwork was conducted in California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Washington.

Since its inception in 1996, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program has been subject to much study. Some of this work has involved linking TANF administrative data to other administrative data sources, either to improve program administration or to answer program and research questions. Researchers, program administrators, and policy makers considering similar linkages to address research, programmatic, and operational questions can learn from past efforts. This report describes the use of administrative data for program administration and provides a bibliography of TANF research involving linked administrative data.

The multisite Housing Opportunity and Services Together (HOST) demonstration is an ambitious effort to test strategies that use housing as a platform for services to improve the life chances of vulnerable children, youth, and adults. This brief provides an overview of the project's early challenges and successes to offer practitioners insights on the planning and design of "dual generation" interventions and to inform policy supporting comprehensive place-based initiatives.

The U.S. Department of Education's Promise Neighborhood Initiative is one of the Obama administration's major antipoverty initiatives and a core strategy of the White House's Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative. It is intended to improve educational outcomes by creating a continuum of school readiness, academic services, and family and community support for children from early childhood through college. The DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) received one of the U.S. Department of Education's 21 Promise Neighborhood planning grants in October 2010. This policy brief summarizes DCPNI's planning year and how DCPNI intends to improve the educational outcomes of youth in the years to come.

In October 2010, the DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) became one of 21 recipients of a US Department of Education Promise Neighborhood planning grant. The Urban Institute partnered with DCPNI to act as the data analyst and local evaluator of this ambitious initiative. The Needs Assessment and Segmentation Analysis are intended to provide a timely understanding of the needs of the community and to inform the continuum of strategies developed by DCPNI and their workgroups.

This research report presents the findings from a qualitative study of the child care choices of low-income working families in two urban communities. Participants included 86 parents with young children, many of whom were immigrants, English language learners, or parents of children with special needs. We discuss the key themes and variations in family experiences, giving particular attention to parental preferences and the factors that influenced their decisions, within the contexts of their employment and the early care and education programs in their communities. We conclude with policy recommendations that can promote parental access to affordable and high quality care.

This paper provides findings from a rapid scan of mobility programs, including interviews with program staff, from across the country. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research, including suggestions on how to design a demonstration program that tests the impact of mobility assistance program.

This commentary shares insights from Urban Institute research into the resident choice option for families living in public housing under HUD's new draft legislation, the Preservation, Enhancement, and Transformation of Rental Assistance Act of 2010.

Immigration policy and reform debates test our ability to think about what's at stake when we open (and close) our doors to a diverse range of newcomers, and how ongoing immigration affects our future. As the debate on how immigrant workers and families continue to reshape the country gathers steam, the public is often misled about the challenges and opportunities stemming from policies about who can come to (and stay in) the US.

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