Subsidized Housing and the Concentration of Poverty, 1977–2008: A Comparison of Eight U.S. Metropolitan Areas

This paper examines the link between subsidized housing and the concentration of poverty. I use newly available data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development that extends from the earliest years of subsidized housing reform to the present day. I find that substantial changes in the poverty rate of neighborhoods occurred predominantly in census tracts that experienced more than a 5 percent increase or decrease in their share of subsidized units, indicating that more subsidized housing is associated with greater poverty. However, the increase in the poverty rate of neighborhoods that experienced more than a 5 percent increase in either building–based or voucher units was due to the movement of poor subsidized individuals into those neighborhoods rather than changes in the poverty rate of individuals who do not live in subsidized housing.