The purpose of federal housing programs that move families out of urban poverty and into lower-poverty areas is to improve their quality of life, but it doesn’t necessarily work that way.

That was the finding of a study of families from American cities, including Baltimore, and the subject of a lecture last week at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, given by the study’s author.

“The results should cause us to be much more skeptical about social science theory or common sense’s ability to predict the way the world works,” said University of Chicago economist Jens Ludwig.

Ludwig, in partnership with the U.S. Housing and Urban Development, has been looking since 1995 at families offered housing relocation assistance through HUD’s Moving to Opportunity program. He tracked 4,600 families over five years who were given housing vouchers they used to move from impoverished inner cities to other neighborhoods between 1994 and 1998. The families were located in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.

At the core of Ludwig’s research is the question of whether housing subsidies have a measurable impact on quality of life and economic opportunity, especially among children. By tracking variables such as crime, graduation rates, health impacts, unemployment, and income, the study sought to empirically determine the impact environment had upon the families. The study was designed like a randomized control trial in an effort to isolate the variables and thereby give additional weight and causality to the results.

Ludwig said that, despite what many people predicted, moving people out of impoverished inner city neighborhoods and into lower-poverty areas did little to improve most of the major indicators including crime, educational achievement, graduation rates, and unemployment.

The result surprised the researchers who expected more positive impacts because of the findings of another University of Chicago sociologist, Jim Rosenbaum, in the 1970s.  (Rosenbaum tracked 7,000 families who were moved by the Chicago Housing Authority after Dorothy Gautreaux filed a suit claiming racial discrimination and won in the Supreme Court.)

In Ludwig’s study, those who participated in Moving to Opportunity saw little change in unemployment among parents, and also identified no gains in test scores in math and reading among children.

During his Dec. 13 UMBC talk, Ludwig highlighted some statistical surprises regarding children. Boys who were moved to lower-poverty neighborhoods seemed to do worse five years into the study, while girls did better. In particular, the boys showed a decrease in violent crime, but a significant increase in property crime, while drug-related crimes stayed about the same. Given the level of randomization of the study, the difference between boys and girls stood out to Ludwig and he had no theories to explain why there would be such a stark difference.

“Nobody would believe the results if it weren’t randomized,” said Ludwig.

Despite the underwhelming results, two bright spots within the MTO research indicated that the move improved mental health outcomes, especially among girls, as well as led to an increase in positive health behaviors that reduced obesity through diet and exercise. Ludwig was quick to note, however, that the health gains were tied more closely to health behavior change than to health care access.

Given that much of the research being discussed was from the first 5-years of the study, Ludwig was asked to expand on the results from the longer term research data. He quickly declined, citing that the results had been embargoed, but explained that they will be released soon.

Alternatives to housing assistance

A major point of contention for Ludwig was the way that housing assistance is distributed.  He said 28% of income eligible families receive housing assistance that averages about $6-7,000 per year. He described this as an inequitable windfall with limited results, especially considering that a majority of the eligible population is excluded. Reiterating the inequity, an audience member noted that Section 8 funds in Baltimore had an 11 year waiting list.

Ludwig had a few ideas about better ways to spend the $40 billion per year the federal government spends on housing assistance. He recognized that his suggestions might “get him into trouble.”

He argued that since 75% of families interviewed claimed that crime and safety were the top reasons for wanting to move out of the inner city, more money should be spent on policing crime ridden areas. That is  a solution, he said, that focuses on “improving neighborhoods, not housing units.”

For context, Ludwig noted that the U.S. spends roughly $100 billion per year on police enforcement, an amount he believes is woefully low given that research indicates that for every $1 spent on police, a community can see as much as a $3-4 return.

If not policing, Ludwig argued,  the some of the $40 billion should be spent on funding earlier Head Start programs. Through a better funded early Head Start program, Ludwig suggested that the U.S. could possibly improve educational outcomes for poor and minority students.