Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Despite extant research on adolescents in public housing, limited evidence describes the experiences and perceptions of life circumstances for emerging adults, including how they perceive the future. This study attempts to address the role of intergenerational poverty and its ability to alter the trajectory of the life course by creating mental or physical barriers that prevent emerging adults from actualizing their true potential. Due to duplicated social status over time, emerging adults tend to have multiple family members in public housing that span multiple generations. Family support is one of the most significant variables that determine how one views their future and the resources available to them. This investigation of the influences that shape how emerging adults perceive their futures considers how the conditions in public housing encourage or support the continuation of poverty. This study offers a blueprint on how to begin the eradication of poverty in public housing, specifically by severing generational poverty through policies based on an understanding of the experiences of emerging adults in this context. Upward social mobility for low-income groups can be achieved by increasing access and improving social capital across generations in public housing. Further, this study goes beyond the current literature by acknowledging the evolution of the conceptualization of the life-course progression to adulthood to include the stage of emerging adulthood and its connection to social policies and social services. This qualitative study uses phenomenological inquiry through individual semi-structured interviews.