Neighborhood Quality Neutrality of Unrestricted Vouchers
Standard tenant-based housing vouchers are hypothesized to improve labor outcomes by enabling low-income families to move to safer, higher-opportunity neighborhoods with stronger employment networks.
Picture this
Giving someone a general coupon to rent an apartment anywhere does not guarantee they will move to a wealthier neighborhood if social ties and search barriers keep them local, leaving their neighborhood quality and job access virtually unchanged.
What the evidence says
Voucher usage produced no statistically significant changes in total address changes (0.119 difference, p > 0.05), census tract poverty rates (-0.009), collective efficacy scores (-0.000), or violent crime arrest rates (-0.047 per 1,000 residents).
- Who
- N = 4,187 households (10 percent random subsample of Chicago housing voucher lottery applicants tracked via national credit bureau and change-of-address registries); Chicago, Illinois.
- How
- Longitudinal address tracking merged with 2000 Census block group poverty data, Chicago Police Department crime statistics, and Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods survey scores.
What to do
Combine tenant-based vouchers with targeted mobility counseling or neighborhood location restrictions if policy objectives require neighborhood de-concentration or reduced poverty exposure.
From the source
"We find no evidence that the housing-specific mechanisms hypothesized to promote work, such as neighborhood quality or residential stability, are important empirically."
The Effects of Housing Assistance on Labor Supply: Evidence from a Voucher Lottery
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