This paper shows that boomerang moves (returning to live with one's parents) are more likely to bring young adults to labor markets with higher unemployment and lower wages and the likelihood of a non-boomerang location being chosen by a young adult increases with local wages.
Author(s): Katherine O'Regan; Sewin Chan; Wei You
Research Area(s): Neighborhood Conditions; Economic Development; Employment
Publication: Forthcoming: SSRN
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This paper examines whether—and to what extent—housing vouchers improve educational outcomes for students whose families receive them. Using data from New York City, the nation's largest school district, the authors match over 88,000 school‐age voucher recipients to longitudinal public school records. Results indicate that students in voucher households perform better in both English Language Arts and Mathematics in the years after they receive a voucher.
Author(s): Amy Ellen Schwartz; Ingrid Gould Ellen; Keren Horn; Sarah Cordes
Date: December 2019
Research Area(s): Affordable & Subsidized Housing; Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8); Neighborhood Conditions; Schools & Education
Publication: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
Do Housing Vouchers Improve Academic Performance? Evidence from New York City (PDF: 325 KB)
The Effects of Small Area Fair Market Rents on the Neighborhood Choices of Families with Children
This paper reports and extends the quantitative findings of the Small Area Fair Market Rent Demonstration Evaluation, focusing on the important subgroup of families with children. The authors test whether varying housing assistance subsidy caps with ZIP Code rent levels (that is, introducing Small Area Fair Market Rents or SAFMRs) increases the likelihood that voucher-holder families with children locate in higher opportunity neighborhoods, as proxied by poverty rates, the proficiency levels of local elementary schools, jobs proximity, and environmental hazards. Five years after implementation, Small Area FMRs do not appear to affect overall move rates, but they meaningfully affect the locational outcomes among families with children who move.
Author(s): Samuel Dastrup; Ingrid Gould Ellen
Research Area(s): Affordable & Subsidized Housing; Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8); Neighborhood Conditions
Publication: Cityscape (Department of Housing and Urban Development)
The Effects of Small Area Fair Market Rents on the Neighborhood Choices of Families with Children (pdf: 439 KB)
Read the article in Cityscape
Do Vouchers Protect Low-Income Households from Rising Rents?
Using restricted administrative data on the voucher program, the authors examine the experience of voucher holders in metropolitan areas with rising rents. While some of the authors' models suggest that rising rents in metropolitan areas are associated with a slight increase in rent-to-income ratios among voucher holders, poor renters in general see significantly larger increases in rent-to-income ratios. The authors see little evidence that rising rents push voucher holders to worse neighborhoods, with voucher holders in central cities ending up in lower-poverty neighborhoods as rents rise. It appears that vouchers may help low-income households remain in neighborhoods as they gentrify.
Author(s): Ingrid Gould Ellen; Gerard Torrats-Espinosa
Date: November 2019
Research Area(s): Affordable & Subsidized Housing; Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8); Neighborhood Conditions; Economic Development; Employment; Gentrification; Racial/Ethnic Segregation; Schools & Education
Publication: Eastern Economic Journal (Palgrave Macmillan UK)
Do Vouchers Protect Low-Income Households from Rising Rents? (pdf: 720 KB)
Trends in New York City Housing Court Eviction Filings
This data brief provides a descriptive overview of residential evictions filed in New York City from 2010-2017. The data show the prevalence and location of eviction filings, the types of cases, and changes over time. This analysis pro-vides a baseline to better understand the scale of eviction cases in New York City and to provide a benchmark for tenant protection efforts going forward.
Research Area(s): Housing Court
Publication Type: Data Briefs
Trends in New York City Housing Court Eviction Filings (pdf: 4 MB)
Updating CRA Geography: It's Not Just About Assessment Areas
In his recent paper, "Updating CRA Geography: It's Not Just About Assessment Areas," NYU Furman Center Senior Policy Fellow Mark A. Willis offers his suggestions on how to effectively modernize one crucial regulation authorized under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Published by the Penn Institute for Urban Research, the paper proposes a method to evaluate the CRA performance of large retail internet banks.
The core of the proposal involves separately weighing a bank's CRA activity both within its AA from its CRA activities beyond the AA, with the latter evaluation consisting of tests for both the bank's retail products and community development activities to ensure they are meeting the needs of Low and Moderate Income Households. By combining these evaluations together, the paper asserts that banks will be more confident in their ability to get CRA credit for conducting CRA activities in areas of high need that may be outside their AA.
Author(s): Mark Willis
Research Area(s): Housing Finance; Neighborhood Conditions; Economic Development
Publication: Urban Link (Penn Institute of Urban Research)
Updating CRA Geography: It's Not Just About Assessment Areas (pdf: 505 KB)
Gentrification And The Health Of Low-Income Children In New York City
Although the pace of gentrification has accelerated in cities across the US, little is known about the health consequences of growing up in gentrifying neighborhoods. This study used New York State Medicaid claims data to track a cohort of low-income children born in the period 2006–08 for the nine years between January 2009 and December 2017. It compared the 2017 health outcomes of children who started out in low-income neighborhoods that gentrified in the period 2009–15 with those of children who started out in other low-income neighborhoods, controlling for individual child demographic characteristics, baseline neighborhood characteristics, and preexisting trends in neighborhood socioeconomic status.
Author(s): Ingrid Gould Ellen; Sherry Glied; Kacie Dragan
Research Area(s): Neighborhood Conditions; Gentrification; Health
Publication: Health Affairs
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HUD's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule: A Contribution and Challenge to Equity Planning for Mixed Income Communities
"What Works to Promote Inclusive, Equitable Mixed-Income Communities" is the fifth volume in the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's What Works series. This essay by Faculty Director Katherine O'Regan and Distinguished Fellow Ken Zimmerman provides a brief background on the legal basis of HUD's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, explains the framework and theory behind the rule, and describes how a rule aimed at overcoming racial segregation can support the creation and preservation of mixed-income communities. The essay lay out key details of the rule and how they connect to more equitable and inclusive planning, and highlights potential connections and tensions for mixed-income strategies within the context of the rule. It then assesses the early experience of the AFFH approach, and the threat posed by HUD's current suspension of the rule. The piece concludes with a discussion of implications for action (or at least attention) with respect to the rule, particularly with respect to mixed-income strategies.
Author(s): Katherine O'Regan; Ken Zimmerman
Research Area(s): Neighborhood Conditions; Racial/Ethnic Segregation
HUD's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule: A Contribution and Challenge to Equity Planning for Mixed Income Communities (pdf: 625 KB)
Read What Works published by the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank
NYCHA's Road Ahead: Capital and Operating Budget Needs, Shortfalls, and Plans
This brief contextualizes NYCHA's budget and its plans to address budget shortfalls. First, we focus on the capital budget, describing NYCHA's new plan and the barriers that exist to implementing NYCHA 2.0. Next, we turn to the operating budget, and describe and assess the budget deficit, as well as NYCHA's existing plans to address the shortfall.
Research Area(s): Affordable & Subsidized Housing; Public Housing/NYCHA
NYCHA's Road Ahead: Capital and Operating Budget Needs, Shortfalls, and Plans (pdf: 280 KB)
Has Falling Crime Invited Gentrification?
Since the early 1990s, central city crime has fallen dramatically in the United States. This study explores the extent to which this trend may have contributed to gentrification. Using confidential census microdata, the authors show that reductions in central city violent crime are associated with increases in the probability that high-income and college-educated households move into central city neighborhoods, including low-income neighborhoods, instead of the suburbs. The authors then use neighborhood-level crime and home purchase data for five major U.S. cities and find that falling neighborhood crime is associated with increasing numbers and shares of high-income movers to low-income central city neighborhoods.
Author(s): Ingrid Gould Ellen; Davin Reed; Keren Horn
Research Area(s): Neighborhood Conditions; Crime; Economic Development; Gentrification
Publication Type: Data Briefs; White Papers
Has Falling Crime Invited Gentrification? (pdf: 1 MB)