Johns Hopkins housing policy researchers Sandra Newman
and Joseph Harkness are the recipients of a two-year
$482,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation to study the effects of affordable housing on
children's well-being. The study will draw on two large
national databases to test the hypothesis that a lack of
affordable housing may have serious adverse effects on
children's development.
The current study builds on prior research by Newman
and Harkness that looks at the impact of housing assistance
on the life chances of children, including their
educational performance, health, employment prospects,
asset accumulation and earnings. While housing is
universally considered, along with food and clothing, one
of the cornerstones of individual and family well-being,
Newman said that there is surprisingly little empirical
evidence about the role of affordable housing in children's
development.
"One of the most striking aspects of this field is
that we actually know very little about the most
fundamental questions," said Newman, director of the Johns
Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies.
"We have developed very sophisticated techniques and
analyses of specialized topics in the housing field, but,
by and large, we cannot answer even the most basic
questions about the effects of housing on its
residents."
Moreover, the evidence that has been gathered
sometimes flies in the face of conventional wisdom about
housing policy. One recent study by Newman and Harkness,
for example, found that adults who lived in public housing
during their youth were more likely to be employed, had
higher earnings and were less likely to be on welfare than
individuals from similar socioeconomic backgrounds who did
not live in public housing.
The research grant awarded to Newman and Harkness is
part of a $50 million 10-year commitment by the MacArthur
Foundation to preserve and improve affordable rental
housing nationwide. The immediate goal of this initiative
is to help nonprofit housing organizations purchase and
maintain 100,000 units of existing affordable rental
housing that might otherwise deteriorate or become too
expensive for low- and moderate-income households.
According to foundation statistics, more than half the
nation's 35 million renter households live on annual
incomes of $30,000 or less, which qualifies most of them
for government-funded housing programs.
However, because federal housing programs are not an
entitlement and funding has remained limited, only about 5
million low-income renter households actually receive
direct housing assistance. And, since 1997, the stock of
affordable rental housing has dropped by 10 percent.
The larger objectives of the initiative, said a
foundation spokesperson, are to demonstrate that preserving
affordable rental housing offers cost-effective benefits
for families, communities and regional economies; encourage
additional public and private investment to preserve
affordable rental housing; and stimulate public policies
that enable a new generation of owners to preserve at least
1 million units of affordable rental housing in the decade
ahead.
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