Where Do They Go? Assessing the Long-Term Locational Outcomes of Housing Choice Voucher Recipients

• In Event: Evaluating and Improving the Housing Choice Voucher Program

Abstract

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program plays a crucial role in shaping exposure to concentrated poverty and racial segregation for millions of low-income households. Although substantial research has been conducted on the mobility behaviors and locational patterns of households within the voucher program, however, less is known about the direct impact of entering and exiting such programs on individual locational outcomes. Employing a unique dataset that links housing program records and microdata from both the decennial census and American Community Survey between 2000 and 2018, this paper examines how entering and exiting housing assistance changes the neighborhood context experienced by voucher recipients. Comparing these long-term trajectories has important implications for the role of the voucher program in the long-term social and residential mobility of low-income households. If participation in the voucher program meaningfully contributes to upward mobility, we might expect to see sustained decreases in the likelihood of living in high-poverty and racially segregated areas when comparing pre-voucher and post-voucher residential locations. By contrast, if participation in the voucher program does not meaningfully alter long-term neighborhood outcomes, it may be viewed more as a source of housing stability independent of neighborhood considerations.

Two-way fixed-effects analysis reveals that entering the housing voucher program has no statistically significant impact on the neighborhood poverty or racial composition experienced by recipients, while exiting the voucher program results in significant decreases in neighborhood poverty rates relative to both pre-voucher and voucher locations. However, there are substantial differences in these trajectories by race: while white households experienced significant post-voucher decreases in poverty relative to both their pre-voucher and voucher locations, nonwhite households did not experience post-voucher changes relative to their pre-voucher locations, and Black households experienced no statistically significant post-voucher poverty decreases at all. By providing a broader longitudinal perspective on households that participate in, enter, and exit the housing voucher program over an extended period, these results suggest that the current impact of the voucher program on locational attainment – although frequently studied and discussed – is often relatively limited. Furthermore, these findings also point to the continued importance of race in shaping neighborhood outcomes: even households participating in the same housing assistance program experience racially disparate outcomes, both during and after their participation in the program.

Author

• Alex Ramiller, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author