A Research Focus of the Urban Institute
Because the Washington, D.C., region faces many of the same challenges as other urban areas across the country, researchers at the Institute are working close to home and in partnership with local groups to understand and address these pressing concerns.
About the Research
What ails the Washington, D.C., region—a shortage of affordable housing, unequal access to healthcare, barriers to work, and violent crime—also plagues cities throughout the country. Over the years, Urban Institute's research has given local governments, foundation staff, direct service providers, and advocates a more detailed look at these pressing social issues. Yet, the Institute's work in the region, which is often conducted in partnership with local agencies, does more than document social problems. We have been able to engage local policymakers, serve on expert panels and local advisory committees and provide a wide range of technical assistance to community-based agencies throughout the region. These partnerships ground the research and help us produce work that is at once timely, accessible, and relevant.
Health Housing, and Human Services: Exploring Strategies for the National Capital Region
As part of our First Tuesday series, an expert panel spoke at the Urban Institute on January 3, 2006 on how the Washington, D.C., region is faring. Although the nation's capital city has a strong housing market, better-than-average health insurance coverage, and a wide variety of nonprofit social service providers, many families and individuals face a short supply of affordable housing options, the high cost of health coverage, and increased competition for social services.
UI Senior Researcher Peter Tatian discussed how policies to increase affordable housing would stabilize families and make delivery of social services easier. Barbara Ormond, another UI researcher, said that most District residents without health insurance are working. Various proposals she mentioned would entice employers to offer coverage with affordable premiums.
Senior Researcher Carol DeVita discussed the spatial mismatch between location of programs that serve children and the location of children that require services. For instance, the poverty rate in the district is 2 to 3 times higher than the surrounding jurisdictions. Yet, the District ranks 7 out of 11 jurisdictions across Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia in having available services.
Dave Robinson, executive director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, highlighted the institutions and organizations trying to cobble together regional solutions to the area's housing, health care, and human services problems.
Full Transcript
What's New
Immigrants in the Washington area pay one-fifth of taxes and some—the most educated and highest earners-contribute more to the tax base than natives. This new study on immigrant's civic contributions offers demographics of the region's over 1 million immigrants and shows where they live.
A new quarterly analysis of housing in the District of Columbia tracks changing markets as the city implements affordable housing plans amid still-surging home prices. The first installment looks at the status of subsidized housing and identifies areas that might lose those units. The Fall 2006 monitor shows that the D.C. home sales market is slowing.
The 12th annual report produced by the D.C. Kids Count collaborative — with data and analysis by Urban Institute's NeighborhoodInfo D.C. — offers a key glimpse into the lives of local children and their families. Out of 40 indicators of child well being, 22 changed for the better, 17 changed for the worse, and the remaining indicator (overall poverty rate) did not change at all.
Recent Findings
Below are results from our recent studies, reports, articles, and books.
Flat school enrollment points to city's difficulty attracting families with children.
The disparity between public school enrollment hikes in the suburbs and the flat enrollment in the District defines one of the most pressing challenges facing the city, a challenge defined by the 2006 Housing in the Nation's Capital report. Housing market trends offer some clues.
High levels of new housing construction, rising home sales, and housing stock improvements are rejuvenating neighborhoods in the District of Columbia area after years of decline. Previous annual reports on housing in the District of Columbia and the surrounding region by the Fannie Mae Foundation and the Urban Institute document this resurgence of housing demand.
Drawing on research conducted at the Urban Institute over the past several years, a citywide strategy to promote equitable growth and revitalization was presented to a task force convened in Spring 2004 by the District's mayor and city council. Among other things, the strategy called for zoning ordinances that could require new housing development projects to include some moderately priced units. In a hot housing market, this requirement could substantially boost the affordable housing stock. The city might also target two or three "demonstration" neighborhoods to link housing development to improvements in safety or refurbished parks and public spaces.
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After-school programs offer potential benefits to D.C. youth.
Several important initiatives have started in response to the dead end hit by too many D.C. youth. SAT scores are well below the national average and the juvenile violent death rate is almost three times the average for the largest 50 U.S. cities. Urban Institute researchers have helped to document the high need for additional services in a number of important reports. One initiative, the DC 21st Century Community Learning Center Program, provided enhanced out-of-school-time activities for youth in 10 middle and junior high schools in the District. The program, which ran from the fall of 1999 through the summer of 2002, was supported in part by a $4.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
An Urban Institute evaluation of the DC 21st Century Community Learning Center Program found that the program provided students with a wide variety of learning activities and appeared to increase students' use of computer technology. However, challenges remain: low student enrollment and illicit use of the Internet hampered success. On the plus side, the dedication of those involved was expected to improve results.
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District of Columbia welfare recipients face many barriers to work.
Since the District implemented welfare reform policies in 1997, its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) caseload has fallen by 38 percent. An August 2002 Urban Institute survey found that about one-quarter of the TANF recipients were working and another third had worked within the previous 12 months. Most recipients (86 percent) remain poor and the overwhelming majority (90 percent) faced at least one serious barrier to work.
Welfare recipients who don't work within the prescribed time limits face reduced benefits through sanctions. At that point, social service workers make home visits to try and connect troubled families to necessary services. But welfare recipients with some problems—such as poor mental health, chemical dependence, and domestic violence—may refuse the unsolicited help. For that reason, Urban Institute researchers found, reducing benefits through sanctions probably wouldn't increase compliance.
More than 45,000 households—15 percent of all residents—in the District of Columbia receive food stamps. A new Urban Institute brief profiles the city's food stamp population, examines grocery store locations, and determines whether recipients can easily access markets that accept food stamps.
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Violent crime in Washington, D.C., is overwhelmingly an adult problem.
Despite widespread fears that the District may be witnessing a new epidemic of murder by young people, juvenile violence is significantly lower than a decade ago both in the District and nationally. The number of juvenile arrests for violent crime dropped 52 percent between 1995 and 2003, and though violent crime grew between 2002 and 2003, the juvenile crime level is still low relative to 1995.
The phenomenon of prisoner reentry is the larger problem, mainly because the District's imprisonment rate is so high. In 1999, 1,314 of every 100,000 District residents were incarcerated, compared with the national average of 476. About 2,500 prisoners return to the District each year, a prisoner flow the size of New Mexico's or Oregon's. Responsibility for reintegrating these offenders is shared between the District and the federal government, a complicated arrangement found in no other jurisdiction in the country.
An effective prisoner reentry system in the District requires careful coordination of the local and federal agencies, as well as a shared mission. Reconnecting prisoners to the world of work, to responsible parent-child relationships, to housing, social services, and health care, becomes the joint responsibility of all these agencies.
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An unacceptably high number of District residents lack health insurance.
About 74,000 District residents under age 65 did not have health insurance coverage at some time during the year. Many do not qualify for public health insurance or, if they qualify, do not enroll. The Health Care Coverage Advisory Panel has issued eight recommendations for expanding health insurance in the District. Several urge the District to do better at enrolling eligible public program participants; a couple target the working poor who do not qualify.
An Urban Institute study found that hospitals serving both District and suburban Virginia and Maryland residents compete in an environment marked by both rich health resources and a high rate of uninsured citizens. The District keeps more hospital beds, physicians, and registered nurses relative to its population than does the nation as a whole. Yet, nearly one out of five District residents is uninsured.
Many uninsured residents wind up in emergency rooms for treatment, further stretching District hospitals already hit by strong market pressures. Both private and public insurers, such as Medicaid and Medicare, seek to cut costs by reducing payments to hospitals. For insured patients, this market discipline can lead to more efficient services. But such pressures are also forcing some hospitals, such as D.C. General, to close. As a result, economically depressed sections of the city are now underserved.
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Philanthropic giving exceeds the national average in the Washington region.
The District's wealthy residents are also generous. The average Washington-area contributor gave $2,004, compared with the national average of $1,295, according to UI research done for the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers. Washington-area taxpayers contributed almost 3 percent of the national philanthropic total—or $4.8 billion of the $165 billion given in 1999.
The Washington community mobilized quickly after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, to help survivors and victims' families. Since the devastation also extended to workers in the hotel and tourism industries who lost their jobs because of the blow to local tourism, the Community Capacity Fund was launched in October 2001, spurred by a major investment from the Ford Foundation and supplemented by other funders. Within less than a year, the fund awarded $1,400,055 in grants to organizations advocating for and reemploying dislocated workers, as well as to organizations developing cross-jurisdictional initiatives to respond to future disasters.
Urban Institute researchers have also examined the capacity of faith-based and community organizations to reach the needy in the District's low-income neighborhoods. In 2001, President Bush encouraged more partnership between government and religious groups to address the nation's social ills. But the political fanfare surrounding these initiatives has not been matched by a monetary commitment, according to UI findings. Also, government agencies have not streamlined the application process nor defined appropriate boundaries between sacred and secular.
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The vital signs are not good for the nonprofit organizations in the Washington, D.C., region that serve children and youth.
A snapshot of the region's thousand-plus child-serving nonprofits can be framed in many different ways. Our ranking shows the ratio of nonprofits to the number of children in the jurisdiction. The concentration ranges from six groups for every 1,000 kids in Falls Church to less than one group for every 2,000 kids in Prince William County. But with fiscal stress on area nonprofits, the baseline of one organization for every 1,000 kids may slip.
Organizations serving children and youth are diverse, generally long-lived, and unequally distributed throughout the Washington metropolitan area, according to data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics and several local grantmakers. With fewer financial resources than the rest of the region's nonprofit sector, local child- and youth providers raised more than $1.5 billion in 2000, but spent $1.3 billion. These nonprofit providers face difficult challenges. From rising demand for social services to state and local budget shortfalls, they confront tough choices about how to maintain service levels, with enough money left to fund raise and administrate.
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Publications
The Urban Institute disseminates many D.C.-related research publications.
