Low-income urban adolescents face constraints and opportunities across numerous contexts of their lives, with important consequences for their well-being.  Housing and neighborhoods are two policy amenable contexts that have the potential to shape low-income youth’s life-altering decisions with long-term ramifications (Leventhal, Dupere, & Brooks-Gunn, 2009; Leventhal & Newman, 2010).  Although extant research on housing is limited compared with neighborhoods, previous research suggests that the role of housing and neighborhoods for adolescent functioning are likely to vary by both gender and parental monitoring (Browning, Brooks-Gunn, & Leventhal, 2005; Kling, Liebman, & Katz, 2007).  Accordingly, this study examines how housing quality and neighborhood disorder are associated with adolescents’ emotional and behavioral functioning, and how associations differ as a function of gender and parental monitoring.        

This study uses data from low-income families from low-income neighborhoods (>20% below poverty line) participating in the first two waves (1999, 2001) of the Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio.  The sample consists of 1,170 youth, first seen at ages 10-15.5 and again at 11-17, and their mothers.  Nearly half (47%) of the participants were Hispanic, 41% were African American, and 12% were European American.  Housing quality was based on maternal report and interviewer observations of physical housing problems (e.g., mice/rats, broken windows) at Wave 1 (Coley et al., in press).  Mothers also reported on aspects of neighborhood disorder (e.g., abandoned houses, gangs) at Wave 1, which were aggregated to the census tract level (Roche & Leventhal, 2009).  Adolescents reported on various features of parental monitoring (e.g., knowledge of adolescent’s whereabouts, curfew; Roche & Leventhal, 2009).  Outcomes measured at Wave 2 included adolescent-reported psychosocial adjustment (anxious symptoms, depressive symptoms, and somatization; Derogatis, 2000), and delinquency (Borus et al., 1983; Gold, 1970).  

To address our research question, analyses entailed 2-level (individuals nested in neighborhoods) hierarchical regression models (HLM), controlling for individual and family-level covariates and prior outcome measures, and employing multiple imputation to address potential selection.  We first examined direct associations between housing quality and neighborhood disorder with each outcome, followed by tests for interactions between housing/neighborhood conditions with gender and parental monitoring.

Results suggest that for girls, poorer quality housing was associated with more depressive and somatic symptoms and higher delinquency.  For boys, higher neighborhood disorder was associated with more anxious and depressive symptoms.  Our results indicate that housing contexts may matter more for girls’ adjustment, whereas neighborhood contexts may matter for more boys’ adjustment.

These findings have broad policy implications.  Policies aimed at improving low-income housing, such as subsidies for heating and electricity to keep the quality of housing high or enforcement of housing code standards in subsidized and rental housing, and at improving neighborhood conditions, such as community policing, may contribute to the well-being of low-income adolescents.  Moreover, the indication that low housing quality may be more detrimental for girls and neighborhood disorder for boys suggests that there are gender differences in how adolescents experience low-income neighborhoods and housing, and thus policy interventions may have gender-specific ramifications.