View Research by Author - Kassie Dumlao Bertumen

Kassie D. Bertumen is a Research Assistant with the Metropolitan Housing & Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Since arriving at the Urban Institute in 2009, Ms. Bertumen has co-authored the research report, "Monitoring Success in Choice Neighborhoods: A Proposed Approach to Performance Measurement," published April 2010. Ms. Bertumen is currently working an overlap study of HUD's Section 108 Loan Guarantee program and preparing for an extensive data collection effort for an evaluation of the U.S. Treasury Department's New Markets Tax Credit program, which includes qualitative interviews. She is on the team studying the costs and benefits of inclusionary zoning, where she will provide assistance with data analysis and site visits; as well as a team that is writing a literature review of the effects of living in mixed-income communities. Ms. Bertumen has technical experience with various datasets, including the US Census, ACS, NCES, BL&S, among others; and has contributed to the data collection and analysis portion of the Washington Area Women's Foundation's 2010 Portrait Project.

Prior to joining the Urban Institute, she worked as a Strategic Planning intern for the City of Oakland's Community and Economic Development Agency. There she helped prepare the city's General Plan Housing Element, provided best practices research for the citywide re-zoning plans, and organized and facilitated community meetings. Ms. Bertumen obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration on International Housing and Urban Development from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009.

kDumlao@urban.org

Publications

There continues to be considerable interest in the potential of mixed-income housing and neighborhoods to alleviate poverty, desegregate neighborhoods in terms of household income, and revitalize neighborhoods. This annotated literature review, prepared with support from the Casey Foundation, surveys the research on mixed-income housing that focuses on the impact on low-income children and adults. The review examines definitions of mixed-income, hypothesized benefits for low-income families, evidence of benefits, and viability of mixed-income areas over time. It concludes by identifying research gaps that foundations might consider addressing through the support for future work.

The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative proposed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is intended to transform neighborhoods of extreme poverty and severely distressed housing into revitalized mixed-income communities. This paper considers how to effectively evaluate outcomes and measure success in comprehensive community transformation efforts like Choice Neighborhoods. It is divided into two parts: (1) a general framework for performance management in Choice Neighborhoods, including a logic model, and (2) a detailed, evidence-based approach to Choice Neighborhoods performance measurement, including proposed management reports and performance indicators.

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