Vouchers and Neighborhood Distress: The Unrealized Potential for Families with Housing Choice Vouchers to Reside in Neighborhoods with Low Levels of Distress
Issue Date
2016Author
McClure, Kirk
Schwartz, Alex
Taghavi, Lydia B.
Publisher
Office of Policy Development and Research of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program seeks to help poor households locate in
high-opportunity neighborhoods, but experts have reached little agreement on how to
define high opportunity. Using low poverty as the sole criterion has proven ineffective.
We offer an alternative metric to assess the level of distress in neighborhoods using multiple
measures of neighborhood condition. With this new metric, we examine the extent to which
female-headed families with children who have housing choice vouchers reside in census
tracts with varying levels of distress by comparison with the availability of affordable
rental housing. We find that HCV families are underrepresented in the least-distressed
neighborhoods. The problem is especially acute among Black and Hispanic households.
Collections
Citation
Schwartz, A. F., McClure, K., & Taghavi, L. B. (2016). Vouchers and Neighborhood Distress: The Unrealized Potential for Families with Housing Choice Vouchers to Reside in Neighborhoods with Low Levels of Distress. Cityscape, 18(3), 207-227.
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