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Low-Income Housing Policy

Robert Collinson, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Jens Ludwig

in Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume II

The United States government devotes about $40 billion each year to means-tested housing programs, plus another $6 billion or so in tax expenditures on the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). What ... More

The United States government devotes about $40 billion each year to means-tested housing programs, plus another $6 billion or so in tax expenditures on the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). What exactly do we spend this money on, why, and what does it accomplish? We focus on these questions. We begin by reviewing the history of low-income housing programs in the U.S., and then summarize the characteristics of participants in means-tested housing programs and how programs have changed over time. We consider important conceptual issues surrounding the design of and rationale for means-tested housing programs in the U.S. and review existing empirical evidence, which is limited in important ways. Finally, we conclude with thoughts about the most pressing questions that might be addressed in future research in this area.Less

Homeownership as Investment

Nancy H. Kwak

in A World of Homeowners: American Power and the Politics of Housing Aid

In Latin America, US private interests played a large role in moving housing aid away from support for improved low-income housing, to an emphasis on low-cost housing from the 1960s to the 1990s. By ... More

In Latin America, US private interests played a large role in moving housing aid away from support for improved low-income housing, to an emphasis on low-cost housing from the 1960s to the 1990s. By looking at issues of production and finance instead of distribution, American builders and bankers successfully refocused foreign aid programs on homeownership support for small middle classes in countries like Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico. In so doing, investors—with the sanction of host governments and the praise of prospective homeowners—helped construct a global middle-class pattern of housing that divided those who could afford to live in formal housing from those who had to make do in the informal sector.Less

Low-Income Housing in Crisis

Benjamin Holtzman

in The Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism

During the late 1960s and 1970s, extensive disinvestment and an eviscerated real estate market led landlords of low-income housing to walk away from their real estate holdings, leaving thousands of ... More

During the late 1960s and 1970s, extensive disinvestment and an eviscerated real estate market led landlords of low-income housing to walk away from their real estate holdings, leaving thousands of buildings unoccupied and often city-owned due to nonpayment of taxes. In response, Latinx, African American, and some white residents protested the blight these buildings brought to their neighborhoods by directly occupying and seeking ownership of abandoned buildings through a process they called urban homesteading. Activists framed homesteading as a self-help initiative, often emphasizing their own ingenuity over state resources as the key to solving the problems of low-income urban neighborhoods. Such framing was understandable given the unstable economic terrain of the 1970s and won activists support not just from the political left, but also the right. But it also positioned homesteading as demonstrating the superiority of private-citizen and private sector–led revitalization in ways that left homesteading projects vulnerable as it became clear how necessary government resources would be to their success.Less

Quantitative Data Analysis in a Collaboration Research Project: Low-Income Home Repair in Philadelphia

Corey S. Shdaimah, Roland W. Stahl, and Sanford F. Schram

in Change Research: A Case Study on Collaborative Methods for Social Workers and Advocates

This chapter discusses the results of collaborative research conducted by social workers as part of the Women's Community Revitalization Project (WCRP) regarding the state of low-income housing in ... More

This chapter discusses the results of collaborative research conducted by social workers as part of the Women's Community Revitalization Project (WCRP) regarding the state of low-income housing in Philadelphia. The advocates were interested in low-income home repair as part of WCRP's affordable-housing campaign not necessarily because they bought into the asset-building approach that had become increasingly popular in city and federal government. Instead, they were interested in helping low-income homeowners stay in the homes they already owned. This chapter shows that the social work researchers' methods of data collection and analysis were credible according to conventional social scientific standards—in other words, that researchers need not compromise on the quality of the research in the name of advocacy for a cause. The chapter also explains how community partners' concerns can be addressed through quantitative data analysis in a way that enhances their ability to advocate for desired changes.Less

Innovative Finance in Communities Across the United States

Georgia Levenson Keohane

in Capital and the Common Good: How Innovative Finance is Tackling the World's Most Urgent Problems

examine whether some of the place-based investment strategies, like the Community Reinvestment Act and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit—which have unlocked billions of dollars in private capital for ... More

examine whether some of the place-based investment strategies, like the Community Reinvestment Act and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit—which have unlocked billions of dollars in private capital for real estate, affordable housing and enterprise development—lend themselves to more people-centric services. We look at innovations in financial inclusion and asset building, approaches intended to create wealth for the poor, often by simply connecting them to resources they are already eligible for, like the Earned Income Tax Credit. We also investigate the U.S. experience with social impact bonds (SIBs), pay-for-success contracts between local government, nonprofit service providers, and private investors whose capital underwrites preventive services. The idea is that if the interventions succeed, the investors will be repaid out of the social savings. The SIB industry is still new in the US and the track record is mixed. However, the larger lessons about good governance, evidence-based policy-making, and blended capital are relevant for innovative finance in U.S. communities for a growing set of capital investments that fuse the place and people lenses. Like development projects that link affordable housing with community health centers. In this paradigm, mobility is critical to economic opportunity, and investments in physical and social infrastructure are mutually reinforcing.Less

Who Deserves Housing?: The Battle for East Thirteenth Street

Amy Starecheski

in Ours to Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City

Chapter Two also opens with the first-person voices of squatters, this time not the founders but the later occupants of the six squatted buildings on East 13th Street. It is clear from their stories ... More

Chapter Two also opens with the first-person voices of squatters, this time not the founders but the later occupants of the six squatted buildings on East 13th Street. It is clear from their stories that the almost utopic vision of the original occupants had, as all utopic visions do, become complicated when made real in practice. When the squatters’ occupation was pitted directly against the potential for low-income housing development in the mid-1990s conflicting discourses of deservingness, rights, and urban citizenship came into focus. Squatters, many not originally from the neighborhood, struggled to legitimate their claims to city-owned housing. The core of this legal anthropology chapter uses a precedent-setting adverse possession lawsuit brought by the squatters in the mid-1990s as an extended case study to show how claims on urban space are articulated as narrative property claims in a court of law and in the court of public opinion. As they sought legal title by virtue of their ten years of labor and occupation, the squatters’ ideal vision and the messy, sometimes violent reality of life on East 13th Street dramatically clashed, both in court and, finally, in the streets as they resisted eviction through direct action.Less

Enabling More Families with Housing Vouchers to Access Higher-Opportunity Neighborhoods

Barbara Sard

in Facing Segregation: Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society

This chapter discusses the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, which helps more than two million low-income households—nearly half with minor children in the home—to pay for modestly priced, ... More

This chapter discusses the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, which helps more than two million low-income households—nearly half with minor children in the home—to pay for modestly priced, decent-quality homes in the private market. The program has reduced housing cost burdens, decreased homelessness, and increased housing stability, but vouchers currently do less than they could to help families live in low-poverty, high-opportunity neighborhoods. Public housing agencies have flexibility to implement strategies to improve location outcomes in their HCV programs. But unless changes in federal policy encourage them to take such steps and to modify counterproductive policies—and reliable funding is available to maintain the number of families receiving HCV assistance and to administer the program effectively—there is little reason to expect better results. Federal, state, and local agencies can make four sets of interrelated policy changes that will help families in the HCV program to live in better locations.Less

Making the Deal: Debating the Values of Housing

Amy Starecheski

in Ours to Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City

Squatters’ legal and physical resistance to eviction on East 13th Street and elsewhere became a powerful bargaining chip. In Chapter Three the book transitions from a historical study of squatting to ... More

Squatters’ legal and physical resistance to eviction on East 13th Street and elsewhere became a powerful bargaining chip. In Chapter Three the book transitions from a historical study of squatting to an ethnographic study of legalization, with an analysis of how extended negotiations to craft the legalization deal forced the squatters, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, and local politicians like Margarita Lopez to wrestle with the meaning of homeownership. As the costs of renovations mounted, they debated whether legalization was a good idea at all, and then if and how they could keep the buildings affordable as limited-equity co-operatives for themselves and their successors. How exactly could they translate the value of their labor and the values of their movement into a legal agreement that set a price on their homes? The squatters had always been diverse and decentralized, and the negotiations brought out latent disagreements that sometimes became bitter arguments. Had they been part of a movement to secure permanent low-income housing? Or had they been building shelter and equity for themselves and their families? Did they want stability or freedom or both, and how could they get them?Less

Introducing our Collaborative Research Case Study: Working with the Women’s Community Revitalization Project

Corey S. Shdaimah, Roland W. Stahl, and Sanford F. Schram

in Change Research: A Case Study on Collaborative Methods for Social Workers and Advocates

This chapter introduces the partners in the collaborative, community-based effort to research the state of low-income housing in Philadelphia: the Women's Community Revitalization Project (WCRP). It ... More

This chapter introduces the partners in the collaborative, community-based effort to research the state of low-income housing in Philadelphia: the Women's Community Revitalization Project (WCRP). It explains how these partners resisted neoliberal standards of evaluating the lack of affordable housing in Philadelphia as a problem to be understood according to strict market logic. Instead, they sought to adopt alternative community standards that included market considerations as well as deeply held community values such as neighborhood stability, fairness, and community cohesion. This chapter provides context for understanding the insights gained from the experiences of those behind WCRP. It also shows how social work researchers can conduct competent and professional research while working with community advocates who are pushing for social change. It argues that, under the right conditions, neither the integrity of the research nor the effectiveness of the advocacy need be short-changed.Less

Introduction

in Extending Themselves: User Initiated Transformations of Government-built Housing in Developing Countries

This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to argue that transformations are a valid activity in housing supply and should be supported as part of a country's housing ... More

This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to argue that transformations are a valid activity in housing supply and should be supported as part of a country's housing policy. It then describes the structure of the book; the presentation of the data; space syntax diagrams; sampling and sub-samples; and government-built housing in developing countries. The chapter also discusses government-built housing in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Medinet Nasr, Cairo and Workers' City, Helwan, Greater Cairo, Egypt; Asawasi and Suntreso, Kumasi, Ghana; and Mbare and Highfield, Harare, Zimbabwe.Less

The financial element: transformation as an investment

in Extending Themselves: User Initiated Transformations of Government-built Housing in Developing Countries

This chapter examines the issue of income, since housing investment hinges on the financial resources of the households. It discusses whether transformers' households are low income; the income of ... More

This chapter examines the issue of income, since housing investment hinges on the financial resources of the households. It discusses whether transformers' households are low income; the income of subsequent households; spending on transformations; house value; house cost; relationship between house value/cost and income; the impact of transformations on housing supply and demand; increases in house cost to income ratios; the concept of filtering; and filtering through transformation.Less

Upgrading Squatter Settlements into City Neighborhoods: The Favela-Bairro Program in Rio de Janeiro

Cristiane Rose Duarte and Fernanda Magalhães

in Contemporary Urbanism Brazil: Beyond Brasilia

This chapter examines the Favela-Bairro Program, an urban intervention program launched in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1994 to upgrade squatter settlements into city neighborhoods. It evaluates the ... More

This chapter examines the Favela-Bairro Program, an urban intervention program launched in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1994 to upgrade squatter settlements into city neighborhoods. It evaluates the effects of the program on its communities and the city as a whole and describes the primary urban design of some specific favela projects. The findings reveal that through Favela-Bairro alone cannot fix the housing problem in Rio de Janeiro, it was successful in consolidating a new type of governmental policy toward the favela, one that considers it a legitimate housing and urban alternative. In addition, it has also introduced into the Brazilian public arena several steps toward better low-income housing policies and actions.Less

The Siting Dilemma: Race and the Location of Federal Housing Projects

Lance Freeman

in Facing Segregation: Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society

From the Great Depression until the 1970s, project-based housing assistance, in the form of the Public Housing Program, was planned and developed in a way that reinforced existing patterns of ... More

From the Great Depression until the 1970s, project-based housing assistance, in the form of the Public Housing Program, was planned and developed in a way that reinforced existing patterns of residential segregation by race. As the victims of public policy that promoted segregation, African Americans decried the way that public housing was used to expand and maintain the ghetto. The dire and persistent need for decent affordable housing and the concomitant resources that develop and maintain such housing, however, have complicated the African American response to segregated affordable housing. This complex and multifaceted stance toward segregated affordable housing has had implications for affordable housing policy from the Public Housing Program through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. This chapter chronicles the African American response and considers the implications of this response for past, present, and future public policy.Less

More than just a dwelling

in Extending Themselves: User Initiated Transformations of Government-built Housing in Developing Countries

A house is more than just a dwelling. It is a source and reflection of identity and status, and may also be a location for the business that provides the basic necessities of life or for one which ... More

A house is more than just a dwelling. It is a source and reflection of identity and status, and may also be a location for the business that provides the basic necessities of life or for one which augments a main income. This chapter discusses how transformations assist in turning a simple dwelling into a structure that can fulfil some or all of these functions. It covers transformation as occupant participation; the importance of ownership; home ownership and extension in mature years; the needs of the next generation; accommodating extra households; characteristics of subsequent households; household shares of the houses; and home-based enterprises.Less

“Better Housing Makes Better Citizens”: Slum Clearance and Low-Cost Housing

Karen R. Miller

in Managing Inequality: Northern Racial Liberalism in Interwar Detroit

This chapter examines debates about race, slum clearance, and low-income housing during the 1930s, wherein both white racial liberals and black residents were testing the federal promise that “better ... More

This chapter examines debates about race, slum clearance, and low-income housing during the 1930s, wherein both white racial liberals and black residents were testing the federal promise that “better housing makes better citizens.” Public administrators were interested in uplifting white as well as black working-class families. However, for them, the project of producing better citizens was connected to white, not black, tenants of the new buildings in subtle yet clear terms. This distinction between housing all members of the American working class, making “better citizens” out of white families and state recipients out of black residents, began well before publicly funded housing programs opened their doors.Less

The case for transformations

in Extending Themselves: User Initiated Transformations of Government-built Housing in Developing Countries

Transformation is extremely popular among residents, so much so that it may be reasonable to ask whether transformation is a universal phenomenon wherever it is allowed either actively or passively. ... More

Transformation is extremely popular among residents, so much so that it may be reasonable to ask whether transformation is a universal phenomenon wherever it is allowed either actively or passively. This chapter reviews a study in Malaysia by Azizah Salim, and one in New Delhi by Alok Dasgupta, and draws out some preliminary findings or observations. It also considers the Israeli experience of positive policy towards transformations.Less

Energy Efficiency: From Buildings to Districts and Neighborhoods

Joan Fitzgerald

in Greenovation: Urban Leadership on Climate Change

This chapter presents a continuum of building-level actions cities are taking in light of the political and economic constraints they face. It begins by explaining the continuum of ... More

This chapter presents a continuum of building-level actions cities are taking in light of the political and economic constraints they face. It begins by explaining the continuum of building-efficiency standards cities are using as well as a continuum of action that runs from individual buildings to all buildings in a defined district. It examines two categories of standards: those for constructing new buildings and those for retrofitting existing buildings. The chapter also considers the question of who gets to occupy green buildings—with the reduced energy costs they make possible—highlighting how some cities are building green low-income housing using methods that are then taken statewide. Finally, it examines how cities, in collaboration with the private and nonprofit sectors, are serving as test beds for technical, financing, and equity greenovations that can be scaled for policy in larger political geographies and for private market participation.Less

The Community Reinvestment Act as a Catalyst for Integration and an Antidote to Concentrated Poverty

John Taylor and Josh Silver

in Facing Segregation: Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society

Policymakers tend to focus on federal programs as remedies to poverty. While important, the largest of these programs do not combat poverty’s geographic aspects. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) ... More

Policymakers tend to focus on federal programs as remedies to poverty. While important, the largest of these programs do not combat poverty’s geographic aspects. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) imposes an affirmative obligation on banks to meet the credit needs of low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods. The act is designed to promote affordable housing and economic development by combating lending discrimination, thereby alleviating poverty and building wealth in LMI areas. Federal CRA exams rate banks on their loans and investments in LMI neighborhoods. By promoting responsible lending, the CRA has increased homeownership and small-business ownership in those neighborhoods. However, the act’s full potential to combat concentrations of poverty has not been realized. This chapter explores how improved examination procedures can make the CRA more effective in promoting integration in gentrifying and distressed neighborhoods and how the CRA can be combined with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s recent fair housing rule and other anti-poverty programs to combat concentrations of poverty.Less

Poor

Caroline Field Levander and Matthew Pratt Guterl

in Hotel Life: The Story of a Place Where Anything Can Happen

This chapter discusses how the plethora of hotels that have sprung up to accommodate the world’s poor and indigent create new ways to imagine the minimal amount of space that bodies can take up. In ... More

This chapter discusses how the plethora of hotels that have sprung up to accommodate the world’s poor and indigent create new ways to imagine the minimal amount of space that bodies can take up. In contrast to the ever-expansive hotel spaces provided for the rich—as discussed in the previous chapter—the poor occupy increasingly minuscule scales of space that encroach on human life at the most basic level. The dramatic reallocation of space in which the hotel trades seems to mirror and help to enforce the growing gap between rich and poor—the upper one percent versus the rapidly expanding rest. The number of cheap rooms for rent in the United States has decreased even as the number of working poor has dramatically increased, creating a low-income short-term housing shortage of unprecedented proportions.Less