WASHINGTON, D.C., December 2, 2002—A local effort that uses housing-search counseling to assist low-income Chicagoans in moving to lower-poverty neighborhoods "has made significant progress," according to a new analysis of the city's Housing Choice Voucher Program by the nonpartisan Urban Institute.
CHAC Inc., the private corporation that has administered Chicago's program since 1996, offers participants in its Mobility Counseling Program housing-search assistance, budget management and other training, referrals for help with drug addiction and domestic violence, landlord negotiation seminars, neighborhood tours, and security deposit loans.
"CHAC has made significant progress in transforming a small mobility program into one of the largest programs in the country," researcher Mary Cunningham notes in "CHAC Mobility Counseling Assessment: Final Report." About 1,000 households are in the program.
Almost half of the study's respondents moved to low-poverty areas. "Compared with other voluntary mobility programs, Chicago's success rate and CHAC's willingness to improve its services suggest substantial promise," she says.
Under the Housing Choice Voucher Program, commonly known as Section 8, participants typically pay 30 percent of their monthly income toward rent, with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds making up the difference. With about 26,000 vouchers, Chicago's program is one of America's biggest. Section 8, created by Congress in 1974, serves approximately 1.7 million low-income households nationally.
To assess the counseling segment's effectiveness, researchers from the Urban Institute and the University of Illinois at Chicago surveyed 203 voucher recipients between April 2000 and September 2001. This was supplemented by 2002 interviews with CHAC staff, observations of program activities, and analysis of CHAC data.
Who Is Using Mobility Counseling?
A typical household in the survey was a single African-American parent with one or two children and annual income of $10,000. Forty percent were employed, 43 percent had not graduated from high school, 42 percent were receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and 42 percent were receiving Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Income. Fifty-six percent of the sample were 36-49 years old; only 3 percent were 60 or more years old.
More respondents reported needing services related to long-term self-sufficiency than with such immediate problems as domestic violence and substance abuse. Thirty-one percent wanted help obtaining a GED diploma, 40 percent mentioned college counseling, and 58 percent cited computer training. Sixty-two percent wanted help rebuilding their credit.
After One Year in the Mobility Counseling Program
A year into the mobility counseling program, 74 percent of the respondent pool had moved to new rental units. Forty-three percent of the movers went to an "opportunity neighborhood," which CHAC defines as having a poverty rate of less than 24 percent (20 percent moved from a high-poverty neighborhood and 23 percent from another opportunity neighborhood). The remainder moved to high-poverty neighborhoods (38 percent from another high-poverty area and 19 percent from an opportunity neighborhood).
"These outcomes show substantial promise for a voluntary mobility program," Cunningham notes, adding that the figures are comparable to other voluntary programs. A Dallas program, for example, saw 40 percent of its participants move to low-poverty neighborhoods.
While neighborhood poverty rates improved for many respondents in Chicago, 72 percent of all households moved to racially segregated areas that are more than 90 percent African American. At the six-month follow-up survey, almost half of the respondents said they wanted to live in an area with a mix of African-American, Hispanic, and white residents.
Although some progress has been made, Cunningham says, in encouraging voucher holders to consider other low-poverty neighborhoods, CHAC, the Chicago Housing Authority, and housing advocates must devise creative strategies to prevent the clustering of low-income households.
"CHAC's mobility program is very much a work in progress," she says. "During the study period, CHAC continued to adopt new policies intended to strengthen the program; many of these changes were in response to the recommendations outlined in our interim report" issued in February 2001. These changes include expanded monitoring and tracking, an improved security deposit loan program, follow-up client services, and assistance with discrimination complaints.
"CHAC Mobility Counseling Assessment: Final Report," by Susan Popkin and Mary Cunningham, was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The study, part of a multiyear study of public housing and related services in Chicago, is available at http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=410588.
The Urban Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization that examines the social, economic, and governance challenges facing the nation.
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