Baltimore Housing Mobility Program Study
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Abell Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation
Background
This study capitalizes on a unique housing assistance program to explore whether and how improvements in housing access translate into gains in educational opportunities for poor minority children. As a result of a class action housing desegregation lawsuit (Thompson v. HUD, MJG-95-309; Thompson hereafter), over 3,000 African American children relocated from Baltimore’s public housing communities into mostly white, non-poor neighborhoods across the metropolitan region, starting in 2003 and continuing through the present day through the Baltimore Mobility Program (BMP), an assisted mobility voucher program.
Research on the housing choice voucher program and housing mobility interventions shows that even with assistance, it is difficult for poor minority families to relocate to, and remain in, low‐poverty neighborhoods. Scholars suggest that both structural forces and individual preferences help explain these residential patterns. However, less attention is paid to where preferences come from, and how they respond to policies and social structure to shape residential decisionmaking.
Methodology
We examine how a radical improvement in housing and neighborhood opportunity affects access to better school opportunities, how families respond to the chance to relocate to these communities and school districts, and how their children adjust to their new schools. Using in-depth interviews, we examine how families respond to this policy intervention, and identify the mechanisms behind how new schools and new communities affect opportunities to learn and other social and developmental outcomes.
Fieldwork with 110 participants in BMP demonstrate how residential preferences can shift over time as a function of living in higher opportunity neighborhoods. Since 2003, BMP has helped over 2,000 low‐income African American families move from high‐poverty, highly segregated neighborhoods in Baltimore City to low‐poverty, racially mixed neighborhoods throughout the Baltimore region.
Findings
Our findings suggest that housing policies should employ counseling to ensure relocation to and sustained residence in low‐poverty communities. Our work also underscores how social structure, experience, and policy opportunities influence preferences, and how these preferences, in turn, affect policy outcomes.
News Coverage
Midday with Dan Rodricks, WYPR Baltimore Public Radio
Publications
DeLuca, Stefanie, and Jang‐Trettien, Christine. September 3, 2020. “Not Just a Lateral Move”: Residential Decisions and the Reproduction of Urban Inequality. City & Community, Volume 19, Issue 3, Pages 451-488. https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12515
Pollack Craig, Blackford Amanda, Du Shawn, DeLuca Stefanie, Thornton Rachel, Herring Brad. In press. “Association of receipt of a housing voucher with subsequent hospital utilization and spending." Journal of the American Medical Association, 322(21):2115-2124, doi:10.1001/jama.2019.17432.
DeLuca, Stefanie and Peter Rosenblatt. 2017. “Walking Away from The Wire: Housing Mobility and Neighborhood Opportunity in Baltimore.” Housing Policy Debate 27: 519-546, DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2017.1282884
Darrah, Jennifer and Stefanie DeLuca. 2014. “‘Living Here Changed My Whole Perspective’: How Escaping Inner City Poverty Shapes Neighborhood and Housing Choice.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 33: 350-384.
DeLuca, Stefanie, Philip Garboden and Peter Rosenblatt*. 2013. “Segregating Shelter: How Housing Policies Shape the Residential Locations of Low Income Minority Families.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 647:268-299.
DeLuca, Stefanie. 2012. “What is the Role of Housing Policy? Considering Choice and Social Science Evidence.” Journal of Urban Affairs 34: 21-28.
Bozick, Robert and Stefanie DeLuca. 2011. “Not Making the Transition to College: School, Work, and Opportunities in the Lives of American Youth.” Social Science Research 40: 1249-1262.
DeLuca, Stefanie, Anna Rhodes, Allison Young. 2020. “How Parents and Children Adapt to New Neighborhoods: Some Considerations for Future Housing Mobility Programs.” Chapter 8 (Pp. 187-218) in Laura Tach, Rachel Dunifon and Douglas L. Miller (Eds.), Confronting Inequality: How Policies and Practices Shape Children’s Opportunities. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.