A Research Focus of the Urban Institute

For 35 years, Urban Institute researchers have examined how well federal housing policies serve needy families and the communities in which they live.

• About the Research
• Recent Findings
• The Research Team
• Publications

About the Research

The stated goal of federal housing policy is "a decent home in a suitable living environment for every American family." But as a nation, we have never come close to achieving this goal; federal spending has always fallen far short of what would be needed to serve all in need of assistance. And historically, U.S. housing policies have paid more attention to bricks and mortar than to neighborhood health. As a consequence, many subsidized apartments have been clustered in poor inner-city neighborhoods, actually raising their rates of poverty and accompanying woes.

During the 1990s, federal housing policies changed course, putting greater emphasis on creating healthy mixed-income communities and assisting poor families who wanted to move to private housing in low-poverty communities. But daunting policy challenges and choices remain. When local housing agencies replace crumbling housing projects with mixed-income developments, the total pool of units available for the poorest families may shrink. Attempts to construct new subsidized housing in non-poor communities are often vehemently opposed. Racial and ethnic discrimination may limit families' options as they search for affordable housing in the private market. In this era of social program devolution, states and localities are chafing under federal housing dictates, but shrinking federal resources make it harder for local communities to craft policies that respond to local circumstances and needs.

Recent Findings

Seven decades of federal housing policy experience offer many lessons—both positive and negative—that can help inform future choices. Exciting new insights can be gained from research on innovative programs launched throughout the 1990s, including HOPE VI, Moving to Work, and Moving to Opportunity. Urban Institute research on the design, implementation, and impacts of federal housing policy contributes to the ongoing debate about how best to serve low-income families and the communities in which they live. Below are results from our latest studies, briefs, books, testimony, and journal articles.

Affordable housing strategies must respond to local market conditions, but still serve the families who are in greatest need.

Just about everyone interested in federal housing policy today recognizes that the same strategies don't make sense for every community. Variations in housing market conditions, history, and political realities call for more tailored solutions. For example, producing new assisted housing makes sense where the population is booming and affordable housing is scarce. But in weaker markets, a combination of vouchers and subsidies for housing rehabilitation may offer the better answer.

As the federal government's commitment of resources for housing assistance shrinks, more responsibility has shifted to states and localities—and to the nonprofit organizations and private developers with whom they work. A growing number of federal housing programs provide considerable flexibility to states and cities about how to use federal dollars, and HUD's consolidated planning process requires that they routinely assess housing needs and articulate strategies for meeting them. The 1990s saw significant growth in the capacity of nonprofit community-based developers, including community development corporations (CDCs). But most localities are struggling to design and fund programs that effectively respond to their residents' complex and changing housing needs, and few have been able to join effectively with neighboring jurisdictions to craft regional strategies.

In communities across the country, lack of income remains the principal barrier to affordable housing. HUD's most recent analysis of worst-case housing needs finds that about 80 percent of the housing problem is not inadequacy or overcrowding, but affordability. And there is evidence to suggest that stable, affordable housing can help families build their incomes. Although only one-third of former or current welfare recipients with incomes below the poverty line had housing assistance in 1999, those with housing help had higher employment rates and incomes than those without it. Despite the clear connections between income policy and housing policy, questions about federal housing assistance barely entered the mid-1990s debate over welfare reform, and many local housing policy discussions are divorced from critical questions about job readiness, the Earned Income Tax Credit, child care, and health insurance.

For more information:

• Abravanel, Martin D., and Jennifer E.H. Johnson. 2000. The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program: A National Survey of Property Owners. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
• Katz, Bruce, Margery Austin Turner, Karen Destorel Brown, Mary Cunningham, and Noah Sawyer. 2003. Rethinking Local Affordable Housing Strategies: Lessons from 70 Years of Policy and Practice. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
• Kingsley, Thomas G. 1997. "Federal Housing Assistance and Welfare Reform: Uncharted Territory." Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. New Federalism Issues and Options for States.
• Turner, Margery Austin, G. Thomas Kingsley, Monte L. Franke, Patrick A. Corvington, and Elizabeth C. Cove. 2002. Planning to Meet Local Housing Needs: The Role of HUD's Consolidated Planning Requirements in the 1990s. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
• Gustafson, Jeremy, and Christopher Walker. 2002. Analysis of State Qualified Allocation Plans for the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
• Walker, Christopher, Jeremy Gustafson, and Christopher Snow. 2002. National Support for Local System Change: The Effect of the National Community Development Initiative on Community Development Systems. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Zedlewski, Sheila Rafferty. 2002. The Importance of Housing Benefits to Welfare Success. The Urban Institute Survey Series

The HOPE VI program should be continued, but with more attention to the challenge of relocating former residents.

The $5 billion HOPE VI program is one of the most ambitious urban redevelopment efforts in the nation's history. It has replaced severely distressed public housing projects with well-designed mixed-income housing. It also provides housing vouchers so some of the original residents can rent apartments in the private market.

Since 1992, HUD has awarded 446 HOPE VI grants in 166 cities. To date, 63,100 severely distressed units have been demolished and another 20,300 units are slated for redevelopment. By the end of 2002, 15 of 165 HOPE VI programs were fully complete. The billions of federal dollars spent on this reconstruction have leveraged billions more in other public, private, and philanthropic investments. Although not every HOPE VI project has been fully successful, the program as a whole has transformed the way public housing is designed, financed, and managed. Many of the new developments offer high-quality, mixed-income living environments and are contributing to the health and vitality of surrounding neighborhoods.

What happens to the former residents of the demolished HOPE VI projects has been at the crux of ongoing Urban Institute research. Our HOPE VI Panel Study tracks the living conditions and well-being of residents from five public housing developments where revitalization activities began in mid- to late 2001. The sites are Shore Park/Shore Terrace (Atlantic City, New Jersey); Ida B. Wells Homes (Chicago, Illinois); Few Gardens (Durham, North Carolina); Easter Hill (Richmond, California); and East Capitol Dwellings (Washington, D.C.)

For more information:

• "Five Questions for Susan Popkin." An Urban Institute Interview, October 2004.
• "Metropolitan Housing and Communities: A Roof Over Their Heads." An Urban Institute Policy Brief series. Using findings from a new research initiative, "A Roof Over Their Heads: Changes and Challenges for Public Housing Residents," this 2004 series examines the impact of the radical changes in public housing policy over the past decade.
• Buron, Larry, Susan Popkin, Diane Levy, Laura Harris, and Jill Khadduri. 2002. The HOPE VI Resident Tracking Study: A Snapshot of the Current Living Situation of Original Residents from Eight Sites. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Kingsley, G. Thomas, Martin D. Abravanel, Mary Cunningham, Jeremy Gustafson, Arthur J. Naparstek, Margery Austin Turner. 2003. Lessons from HOPE VI for the Future of Public Housing. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Naparstek, Arthur J., Susan R. Freis, and G. Thomas Kingsley. 2000. HOPE VI: Community Building Makes a Difference. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Popkin, Susan J., Bruce Katz, Mary K. Cunningham, Karen D. Brown, Jeremy Gustafson, and Margery A. Turner. 2004. A Decade of Hope VI: Research Findings and Policy Challenges. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Popkin, Susan J. 2002. The HOPE VI Program—What About the Residents? Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Popkin, Susan J. Testimony on H.R. 1614 HOPE VI Reauthorization and Small Community Mainstreet Revitalization and Housing Act for the Committee on Financial Services, April 29, 2003.
• Popkin, Susan J., Mary K. Cunningham, and William T. Woodley. 2003. Residents At Risk: A Profile of Ida B. Wells and Madden Park. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Popkin, Susan J., Diane K. Levy, Larry Buron, Laura E. Harris. 2002. HOPE VI Panel Study: Baseline Report. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Smith, Robin E., Arthur Naparstek, Susan Popkin, Lesley Barlett, Lisa Banes, Jessica Cigna, Russell Crane, Elisa Vinson. 2002. Housing Choice for HOPE VI Relocatees. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.

Housing voucher recipients are more likely than residents of public and assisted housing to live in low-poverty and racially-mixed neighborhoods.

The federal housing voucher program supplements rent payments for about 1.7 million low-income families and individuals, making it the nation's largest housing assistance program. Recipients choose a house or apartment available in the private market and contribute about 30 percent of their incomes toward rent; the federal government pays the difference—up to a locally defined "payment standard."

Because the voucher program relies upon existing housing, rather than building new developments, it is the least costly strategy for making housing affordable to low-income families and it has the added advantage of giving recipients a wide range of choices about what kind of house or apartment and what location is best for them. Unlike federal housing construction programs, which often cluster low-income families in a few distressed neighborhoods, vouchers generally allow recipients to disperse more widely and to live in healthier neighborhoods.

In most communities around the country, however, the performance of the federal voucher program falls far short of its potential. As currently administered, vouchers do not provide equal access to low-poverty and low-minority neighborhoods for all poor households. Vouchers produce better locational outcomes in suburban areas than in central cities, for white recipients than for African Americans and Hispanics, and for the elderly than for non-elderly families and disabled people. Vouchers still consistently outperform public housing, even in central cities, even among African Americans and Hispanics, and even among families and disabled recipients. But vouchers clearly have the potential to offer better neighborhood outcomes for minority families.

The single biggest problem with housing vouchers is underfunding. Only about one in every three eligible families gets assistance. Although vouchers work well for those lucky enough to receive them, 6.1 million low-income renters still face severe housing hardship—paying more than half their monthly income for housing or living in seriously run-down or overcrowded housing.

For more information:

• Popkin, Susan J., and Mary K. Cunningham. 2000. Searching for Rental Housing with Section 8 in the Chicago Region. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Popkin, Susan J. 2002. "Families Need CHA Escape Plan." Commentary in the Chicago Sun Times. August 17.
• Popkin, Susan J., and Mary K. Cunningham. 2002. CHA Relocation Counseling Assessment. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Turner, Margery Austin. "Strengths and Weaknesses of the Housing Voucher Program." Congressional Testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, June 17, 2003.
• Turner, Margery Austin, with Bruce J. Katz. 2001. "Who Should Run the Housing Voucher Program? A Reform Proposal." Housing Policy Debate, volume 12, issue 2.
• Turner, Margery Austin. 1998. "Moving Out of Poverty: Expanding Mobility and Choice through Tenant-Based Housing Assistance," Housing Policy Debate, 9:2.
• Turner, Margery Austin, Susan Popkin, and Mary Cunningham. 2000. Section 8 Mobility and Neighborhood Health: Emerging Issues and Policy Challenges. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Turner, Margery Austin and Susan Popkin. 2003 "Comment" on 'Should the Housing Voucher Program Become a Block Grant?'" Housing Policy Debate 14(3), 2003.
• Turner, Margery Austin and Kale Williams. 1998. Housing Mobility: Realizing the Promise. Report from the Second National Conference on Assisted Housing Mobility. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• Turner, Margery Austin and Charlene Wilson. 1998. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing: Neighborhood Outcomes for Tenant-Based Assistance in Six Metropolitan Areas. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
• "Housing Vouchers: How Well Do They Work?" An Urban Institute First Tuesday Forum, May 2, 2000.

Federal deregulation reforms and proposals are unlikely to hold the solution to today's housing policy challenges.

The devolution of the nation's welfare system in the 1990s set the stage for similar housing reforms. Although a number of local housing agencies advocated for a comparable overhaul of the public housing system, Congress authorized a much more limited demonstration initiative in 1996, entitled Moving to Work (MTW). This demonstration has given a small number of housing authorities the opportunity and flexibility to design and test their own approaches to (a) reducing program costs and achieving greater cost effectiveness; (b) giving incentives to residents to work and become more self-sufficient; and (c) increasing housing choices. The MTW experience to date offers fascinating insights on alternative housing subsidy formulas, local administrative efficiencies, and the responsiveness of local housing authorities to local housing needs and priorities. Some have argued that the MTW experience supports greater devolution and deregulation. But the Urban Institute's recent assessment of the demonstration found it too limited to demonstrate convincingly either the benefits—or pitfalls—of federal deregulation.

Likewise, giving housing authorities more autonomy by converting housing vouchers to a block grant doesn't promise to be any panacea. In fact, this approach could exacerbate the program's major problem—lack of resources relative to needs. Under a block grant, funding for the voucher program would no longer be tied to actual program costs and rents. As a consequence, the gap between needs and resources would almost certainly widen.

For more information:

• Abravanel, Martin D., Robin E. Smith, Margery A. Turner, Elizabeth C. Cove, Laura E. Harris, and Carlos A. Manjarrez. 2004. Housing Agency Responses to Federal Deregulation: An Assessment of HUD's "Moving to Work" Demonstration. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
• Abravanel, Martin D. 2004 "Is Public Housing Ready for Freedom?"
• Turner, Margery Austin. "Strengths and Weaknesses of the Housing Voucher Program." Congressional Testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, June 17, 2003.
• Turner, Margery Austin, and Susan Popkin. 2003 "Comment on 'Should the Housing Voucher Program Become a Block Grant?'" Housing Policy Debate 14(3), 2003.

The Research Team

The Urban Institute's Housing Policy Research team features seasoned experts in housing policy as well as younger scholars who are focusing on the issues of the future. They are:

• Margery Austin Turner, center director, an expert in housing market discrimination and segregation, housing choice and residential mobility, and housing needs and market assessments;
• Martin D. Abravanel, senior research associate, an expert in federal housing programs and policies, housing needs, and market assessments;
• Susan J. Popkin, principal research associate, an expert in public housing, housing vouchers and mobility, and the needs of vulnerable families;
• G. Thomas Kingsley, principal research associate, an expert in regional housing markets, housing policy and planning, and indicators of community health and change;
• Christopher Walker, senior research associate, an expert in federal housing programs and policies, nonprofit organizations, and community development initiatives.
• Mary Cunningham, research associate, an expert in performance of the federal housing voucher program and barriers to residential mobility;
• Laura Harris, research associate, an expert in residential mobility and the impacts of community environment on family well-being;
• Diane K. Levy, research associate, an expert in resident relocation, affordable housing finance, and housing and lending discrimination;
• Robin E. Smith, research associate, an expert in resident relocation, affordable housing finance, and housing and lending discrimination; and
• Peter A. Tatian, senior research associate, an expert in census data, housing and economic development, and neighborhood indicators.

Publications

The Urban Institute disseminates myriad publications related to the issue of housing America's low-income families.

• See all UI Publications on Housing.
• See all UI Publications on Federal Programs & Policies.
• See all UI Publications on Homelessness.
• See all UI Publications on Housing Markets & Choice.
• See all UI Publications on Racial Segregation.
• See all UI Publications on Section 8 Vouchers & Mobility.