Panel:
How Housing Matters: The Effects of Housing Subsidies on Families and Children
(Housing and Community Development)
Thursday, November 3, 2016: 3:00 PM-4:30 PM
Cardozo (Washington Hilton)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Panel Organizers: Ingrid Gould Ellen, New York University
Panel Chairs: Todd M. Richardson, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Discussants: Lisa Gennetian, The National Bureau of Economic Research and Christopher Herbert, Harvard University
As housing costs mount across the country, and many families struggle to pay rents, federal support for housing subsidies has remained steady, leaving three out of four income eligible households without any assistance. In this environment, it is more critical than ever to understand how subsidized housing affects the well-being of recipients. The four papers in this panel all adopt unique approaches to studying how housing subsidies matter. The first reports on an experimental study of XX near-poor households in New York City who applied for affordable housing at one of ten newly constructed rental developments by comparing the outcomes of households who were randomly selected via lottery for housing to the outcomes of those who are similar in every way but were not selected. The second is a national study using a special version of the PSID, which identifies the children who lived in assisted housing at some point during childhood. The latter two papers focus on how the receipt of a housing choice voucher affects children's educational outcomes. Collectively, these papers will shed important new light on how housing subsidies affect the well-being of children and families.
