How does living in subsidized housing change the academic forecast for low-income kids? Previous research suggests: not much at all.
But a new study published in the American Journal of Community Psychology presents a new and nuanced answer.The effect of living in subsidized housing isn’t the same for all kids: Those who are already flourishing at school benefit, while the ones who’re struggling actually do worse compared to peers from similarly low-income families without housing assistance.
“Studies have shown assisted housing has no effect on children, but what we found, looking at subgroups, is that this is not a one-size-fits-all situation,” said Sandra J. Newman, a public policy professor at Johns Hopkins University who co-authored the study, in a release. (Note: housing assistance in this study includes voucher-assisted market rate housing, public housing, and affordable housing units built using tax credits and government concessions.)
Newman and her colleague Scott Holupka dug into information from an extensive household survey that’s been tracking American families over decades in addition to government housing and socioeconomic datasets. Using these, they analyzed the educational performance of kids who were 13 to 17 years of age between 2002 and 2007. Of them, 194 had received rental assistance in the form of vouchers or lived in public housing around a decade prior. Another 215 were eligible for subsidies, but did not receive them. (The total sample size of the analysis is small, but the researchers have put it through additional statistical wringers to show that the results have basis.)
[For more of this story, written by Tanvi Misra, go to http://www.citylab.com/housing...ized-housing/508982/]
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