Early Impacts on Moves to Opportunity Areas from the Community Choice Demonstration Rapid Cycle Evaluation

• In Event: Housing Mobility Programs for Families with Housing Choice Vouchers: Impact Findings

Abstract

This presentation will share early impact results from the Community Choice Demonstration (CCD). CCD is a large, randomized controlled trial funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that is examining the effects of offering housing mobility-related services to families with Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs) in eight metropolitan areas across the United States.

CCD builds on several earlier studies of mobility-related services. Research on the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program identified comprehensive services as key to facilitating residential mobility. The Creating Moves to Opportunity (CMTO) Demonstration, a randomized controlled trial in Seattle and King County, Washington, demonstrated that a comprehensive approach to mobility services could have a large impact in facilitating voluntary moves to high opportunity neighborhoods.

CMTO provided mobility-related services only to families selected off of the waitlist to newly receive a voucher (waiting list families). CCD, by contrast, examines the effects of providing mobility-related services to both existing HCV program participants (existing voucher families) and waiting list families. CCD will be the largest study to date to assess the effects of providing mobility-related services to HCV families, and had enrolled 2,311 families through February 2024.

This presentation will summarize findings regarding the impact of being offered Comprehensive Mobility-Related Services (CMRS) on study outcomes measured for the Rapid Cycle Evaluation. CMRS provides a comprehensive set of services that aims to address all of the principal obstacles that HCV participants experience accessing lower-poverty areas, including financial barriers, knowledge and skill gaps, hesitancy on the part of families to move to opportunity areas, hesitancy on the part of property owners in opportunity areas to participate in the HCV program, and challenges that affect families’ ability to stay in opportunity areas once there.

Findings from the Rapid Cycle Evaluation indicate that the offer of CMRS services has had a favorable, statistically significant impact on moves to opportunity areas. Among families offered CMRS, 23.7 percent had moved to an opportunity area within 12 months of study enrollment, compared to 4.1 percent of families assigned to the control group. This represents a 19.6 percentage point increase in the share of families moving to an opportunity area within 12 months of study enrollment.

This presentation will be based on:

Data compiled from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development administrative records that captures information about the neighborhood(s) of residence and residential move histories of study participants.

Authors

• Adam Silver Travis, Abt Global
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Daniel B Gubits, Abt Global
  Presenting Author