Rental Housing
Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 7, 2022 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)
- Chair: Davin Reed, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Is America's Housing Affordability Problem a Housing Problem?
Abstract
We document what fraction of the housing stock in US cities is affordable to different family types. Rather than looking at what fraction of their income people actually pay in rent in each city, we look at the extent to which the housing stock is affordable using discrete housing expenditure share cutoffs and the distribution of rents. We find that housing affordability is largely a problem for single-parent families and, to a lesser extent, single-person households. Several of the least affordable cities by our metrics are not glamour cities in the US Northeast, California, or South Florida but rather cities with both low incomes and low rents. Finally, we show how overcrowding in many high-cost cities leads to an understatement of the extent of affordability problems if affordability is measured using the actual share of income paid toward rent.Do Homelessness Prevention Programs Prevent Homelessness? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial
Abstract
This paper presents results from the first randomized controlled trial of temporary financialassistance for people at risk of losing their housing. Providing an average of $2,000 to people
at imminent risk of homelessness reduces entry into homelessness programs by 3.8 percentage
points from a base rate of 4.7 percentage points. Reductions in emergency shelter use drive
most of this change. Effects are larger for people with a history of homelessness and no children.
The Impact of Public Housing on Student Academic Outcomes
Abstract
Is public housing bad for children? Critics charge that public housing projects concentrate poverty and create neighborhoods with limited opportunities, including low-quality schools. However, whether the net effect is positive or negative is theoretically ambiguous and likely to depend on the characteristics of the neighborhood and their quality compared to origin neighborhoods. In this paper, we draw on detailed individual-level longitudinal data on students who move into New York City public housing and examine their standardized test scores over time. Exploiting plausibly random variation in the precise timing of entry into public housing, we estimate credibly causal effects of public housing using both difference-in-differences and event study designs. Further, we control for school mobility and estimate the effects on the quality of schools attended, to shed light on potential underlying mechanisms. We find credibly causal evidence of positive effects of moving into public housing. Academic performance stalls in the first year in public housing – due, perhaps, to disruptive effects of residential and school moves – but rises in subsequent years. Effects are larger for public housing in higher-income neighborhoods and for students moving out of lower-income neighborhoods. Exploratory analyses suggest results may be driven by school quality.Discussant(s)
Robert Collinson
,
University of Notre Dame
Yichen Su
,
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Elior Cohen
,
University of California-Los Angeles
Winnie Van Dijk
,
Harvard University
JEL Classifications
- R3 - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location