Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This project examines the impact of assisted housing—Section 8 Vouchers and Public Housing—on the educational outcomes of children in New York City families who receive this assistance. In as far as assisted housing provides stability and frees up resources that can be directed towards education, assisted housing should improve educational outcomes (e.g., Newman & Holupka, 2016). However, the existing research is mixed and frequently finds no effects of assisted housing on educational outcomes (e.g., Sanbonmatsu et al., 2011).

To help understand these mixed effects, we incorporated an additional variable—school moves that accompany assisted housing—into a set of analyses. Prior research suggests that, generally speaking, changing schools can be disruptive (Friedman-Krauss & Raver, 2015; Mehana & Reynolds, 2004; Schwartz, Stiefel, & Cordes, 2016). Thus, if the receipt of assisted housing results in a school move because one’s family moves to a new neighborhood, the theorized educational benefits of assisted housing may be more ambiguous. As such, the presence of a school move may help distinguish between cases in which assisted housing promotes educational achievement and when it does not.

To test these ideas, we examined two groups of new entrants into assisted housing: a younger middle school group and an older high school group. For each group we generated a control group of similar students (matched on baseline housing and education characteristics) who did not receive assisted housing. This quasi-experimental design allowed for examining educational outcomes relative to their levels prior to having received assisted housing.

The results showed that the older cohort experienced some educational benefits of assisted housing whereas the younger cohort did not. Further analyses showed that the younger cohort were more likely to move schools after assisted housing whereas the older cohort was not. In addition, these school moves were negatively related to subsequent educational outcomes. These results are consistent with the hypothesis moving schools after the receipt of assisted housing can disrupt or inhibit the expected educational benefits of assisted housing.

This research implies that assisted housing may be more likely to positively impact educational outcomes when students remain in same school or when disruptions from school moves are addressed. Further, this research may help understand mixed evidence for the benefits of assisted housing in the wider literature.