Segregating Shelter: How Housing Policies Shape the Residential Locations of Low-Income Minority Families. Issue 1 (May 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: DeLuca, Stefanie; Garboden, Philip M. E.; Rosenblatt, Peter
• Editors: Small, Mario L.; Allard, Scott W.
• Is Part Of: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Volume 647:Issue 1(2013)
• Page Start: 268
• Page End: 299
• Publication Date: 2013-05
• Subjects: housing policy -- poverty -- neighborhoods -- Section 8 vouchers -- families; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- United States -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716213479310
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-7162

Abstract

Individuals participating in the HUD Housing Choice Voucher program, formerly Section 8, can rent units in the private market and are not tied to public housing projects in a specific neighborhood. We would expect vouchers to help poor families leave the ghetto and move to more diverse communities with higher socioeconomic opportunity, but many voucher holders remain concentrated in poor, segregated communities. We use longitudinal qualitative data from one hundred low-income African American families in Mobile, Alabama, to explore this phenomenon, finding that tenants' limited housing search resources, involuntary mobility, landlord practices, and several aspects of the voucher program itself limit families' ability to escape disadvantaged areas. We also find that the voucher program's regulations and funding structures do not incentivize housing authorities to promote neighborhood mobility and residential choice. This combination of forces often keeps voucher recipients in neighborhoods with high concentrations of poor and minority residents.