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Public Housing (public + housing)
Terms modified by Public Housing Selected AbstractsVIOLENCE AMONG ADOLESCENTS LIVING IN PUBLIC HOUSING: A TWO-SITE ANALYSIS,CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2003TIMOTHY O. IRELAND Research Summary: Current knowledge about violence among public housing residents is extremely limited. Much of what we know about violence in and around public housing is derived from analysis of Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data or victimization surveys of public housing residents. The results of these studies suggest that fear of crime among public housing residents is high and that violent offense rates may be higher in areas that contain public housing compared with similar areas without public housing. Yet, "[r]ecorded crime rates (and victimization rates) are an index not of the rate of participation in crime by residents of an area, but of the rate of crime (or victimization) that occurs in an area whether committed by residents or non-residents" (Weatherburn et al., 1999:259). Therefore, neither UCR nor victimization data measurement strategies address whether crime in and around public housing emanates from those who reside in public housing. Additionally, much of this research focuses on atypical public housing,large developments with high-rise buildings located in major metropolitan areas. To complement the existing literature, we compare rates of self-reported crime and violence among adolescents who reside in public housing in Rochester, N.Y., and Pittsburgh, Pa., with adolescents from the same cities who do not live in public housing. In Rochester, property crime and violence participation rates during adolescence and early adulthood among those in public housing are statistically equivalent to participation rates among those not in public housing. In Pittsburgh, living in public housing during late adolescence and early adulthood, particularly in large housing developments,increases the risk for violent offending, but not for property offending. The current study relies on a relatively small number of subjects in public housing at any single point in time and is based on cross-sectional analyses. Even so, there are several important policy implications that can be derived from this study, given that it moves down a path heretofore largely unexplored. Policy Implications: If replicated, our findings indicate that not all public housing is inhabited disproportionately by those involved in crime; that to develop appropriate responses, it is essential to discover if the perpetrators of violence are residents or trespassers; that policy should target reducing violence specifically and not crime in general; that a modification to housing allocation policies that limits, to the extent possible, placing families with children in late adolescence into large developments might reduce violence perpetrated by residents; that limited resources directed at reducing violence among residents should be targeted at those developments or buildings that actually have high rates of participation in violence among the residents; and that best practices may be derived from developments where violence is not a problem. [source] Transnational Ties, Poverty, and Identity: Latin American Immigrant Women in Public Housing,FAMILY RELATIONS, Issue 4 2008Silvia Domínguez Abstract: This study used ethnographic data to examine the nature and functions of transnational relationships of low-income Latin American women who had immigrated to the United States and were living in areas of extreme poverty. Findings indicated that these Latin American mothers utilized transnational ties to help maintain the cultural identities of themselves and their children, to alleviate social isolation, and to provide a safer summer housing alternative for their children. Transnational ties may have had some negative consequences, including financial and social burdens associated with maintaining long-distance familial relationships. However, despite some negative aspects, we conclude that transnational ties are often an instrumental resource for immigrant mothers living in poverty and are vital to immigrant social mobility. [source] Does Urban Public Housing Diminish the Social Capital and Labor Force Activity of Its Tenants?JOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001David A. Reingold This paper investigates the effect of urban public housing on the social capital and labor force activity of its tenants using cross-sectional survey data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MSCUI). A structural equation model of the hypothesized direct and indirect effects of public housing and neighborhood disadvantage on social capital and labor force activity is specified and fitted to these data. The modeling results suggest that urban public housing is strongly associated with neighborhood disadvantage but has little or no direct effect on either social capital or labor force activity. And while public housing may have indirect effects on social capital and labor force activity through neighborhood poverty, these indirect effects appear to be small. These findings have implications for the current emphasis in urban public housing policy on moving residents into the private housing market and reducing poverty concentration. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [source] Moving from Public Housing to Homeownership: Perceived Barriers to Program Participation and SuccessJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2004Anna M. Santiago Despite numerous federal policies aimed at enhancing resident self-sufficiency and homeownership through programs run by local public housing authorities, little is known about who participates and who succeeds. This study explores barriers to participation and success in an innovative resident self-sufficiency/homeownership program developed by the Housing Authority of the city and county of Denver. We conduct surveys of participants in the Foundations for Homeownership program, eliciting their perceptions regarding willingness and ability to participate in the program and, thereafter, completing it successfully. We find that at time of entry into the program, participants reported, on average, 4.6 major barriers that they perceive would limit their ability to achieve current goals. OLS and logistic regression analyses were conducted to ascertain the degree to which perceived barriers were associated with participants' demographic, economic, or attitudinal characteristics. [source] VIOLENCE AMONG ADOLESCENTS LIVING IN PUBLIC HOUSING: A TWO-SITE ANALYSIS,CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2003TIMOTHY O. IRELAND Research Summary: Current knowledge about violence among public housing residents is extremely limited. Much of what we know about violence in and around public housing is derived from analysis of Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data or victimization surveys of public housing residents. The results of these studies suggest that fear of crime among public housing residents is high and that violent offense rates may be higher in areas that contain public housing compared with similar areas without public housing. Yet, "[r]ecorded crime rates (and victimization rates) are an index not of the rate of participation in crime by residents of an area, but of the rate of crime (or victimization) that occurs in an area whether committed by residents or non-residents" (Weatherburn et al., 1999:259). Therefore, neither UCR nor victimization data measurement strategies address whether crime in and around public housing emanates from those who reside in public housing. Additionally, much of this research focuses on atypical public housing,large developments with high-rise buildings located in major metropolitan areas. To complement the existing literature, we compare rates of self-reported crime and violence among adolescents who reside in public housing in Rochester, N.Y., and Pittsburgh, Pa., with adolescents from the same cities who do not live in public housing. In Rochester, property crime and violence participation rates during adolescence and early adulthood among those in public housing are statistically equivalent to participation rates among those not in public housing. In Pittsburgh, living in public housing during late adolescence and early adulthood, particularly in large housing developments,increases the risk for violent offending, but not for property offending. The current study relies on a relatively small number of subjects in public housing at any single point in time and is based on cross-sectional analyses. Even so, there are several important policy implications that can be derived from this study, given that it moves down a path heretofore largely unexplored. Policy Implications: If replicated, our findings indicate that not all public housing is inhabited disproportionately by those involved in crime; that to develop appropriate responses, it is essential to discover if the perpetrators of violence are residents or trespassers; that policy should target reducing violence specifically and not crime in general; that a modification to housing allocation policies that limits, to the extent possible, placing families with children in late adolescence into large developments might reduce violence perpetrated by residents; that limited resources directed at reducing violence among residents should be targeted at those developments or buildings that actually have high rates of participation in violence among the residents; and that best practices may be derived from developments where violence is not a problem. [source] Spaces of Encounter: Public Bureaucracy and the Making of Client IdentitiesETHOS, Issue 3 2010Lauren J. Silver I emphasize the material deficits, spatial barriers, and bureaucratic procedures that restrict the storylines clients and officials use to make sense of one another. This article is drawn from a two-year ethnographic study with African American young mothers (ages 16,20) under the custody of the child welfare system. I focus here on the experiences of one young mother and explore several scenarios in her struggle to obtain public housing. I argue that service deficits can be explained not by the commonly articulated narratives of client "shortcomings" but, rather, by the nature of the organizational and material conditions guiding exchanges between public service gatekeepers and young mothers. I suggest that this work advances narrative approaches to psychological anthropology by attending to the roles of social and material boundaries in framing the stories people can tell each other. [identity, adolescent mothers, public bureaucracy, service negotiation, narrative] [source] The Space of Local Control in the Devolution of us Public Housing PolicyGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2000Janet L. Smith Sweeping changes in national policy aim to radically transform public housing in the United States. The goal is to reduce social isolation and increase opportunities for low income tenants by demolishing ,worst case' housing, most of which is modern, high-rise buildings with high vacancy and crime rates, and replacing it with ,mixed-income' developments and tenant based assistance to disperse current public housing families. Transformation relies on the national government devolving more decision-making power to local government and public housing authorities. The assumption here is that decentralizing the responsibility for public housing will yield more effective results and be more efficient. This paper explores the problematic nature of decentralization as it has been conceptualized in policy discourse, focusing on the underlying assumptions about the benefits of increasing local control in the implementation of national policy. As this paper describes, this conceived space of local control does not take into account the spatial features that have historically shaped where and how low income families live in the US, including racism and classism and a general aversion by the market to produce affordable rental units and mixed-income developments. As a result, this conceived space of local control places the burden on low income residents to make transformation a success. To make this case, Wittgenstein's (1958) post-structural view of language is combined with Lefebvre's view of space to provide a framework in which to examine US housing policy discourse as a ,space producing' activity. The Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation is used to illustrate how local efforts to transform public housing reproduce a functional space for local control that is incapable of generating many of the proposed benefits of decentralization for public housing tenants. [source] The end of public housing as we know it: public housing policy, labor regulation and the US cityINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2003Jeff R. Crump In this article I argue that the US public housing policy, as codified by the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 (QHWRA), is helping to reconfigure the racial and class structure of many inner cities. By promoting the demolition of public housing projects and replacement with mixed-income housing developments, public housing policy is producing a gentrified inner-city landscape designed to attract middle and upper-class people back to the inner city. The goals of public housing policy are also broadly consonant with those of welfare reform wherein the ,workfare' system helps to bolster and produce the emergence of contingent low-wage urban labor markets. In a similar manner, I argue that public housing demonstration programs, such as the ,Welfare-to-Work' initiative, encourage public housing residents to join the lowwage labor market. Although the rhetoric surrounding the demolition of public housing emphasizes the economic opportunities made available by residential mobility, I argue that former public housing residents are simply being relocated into private housing within urban ghettos. Such a spatial fix to the problems of unemployment and poverty will not solve the problems of inner-city poverty. Will it take another round of urban riots before we seriously address the legacy of racism and discrimination that has shaped the US city? Cet article démontre que la politique du logement public américaine, telle que la réglemente la Loi de 1998, Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, contribue à remodeler la structure par races et classes de nombreux quartiers déshérités des centres-villes. En favorisant la démolition d'ensembles de logements sociaux et leur remplacement par des complexes urbanisés à loyers variés, la politique publique génère un embourgeoisement des centres-villes destinéà y ramener les classes moyennes et supérieures. Les objectifs de la politique du logement rejoignent largement ceux de la réforme sociale où le système de ,l'allocation conditionnelle' facilite et nourrit la création de marchés contingents du travail à bas salaires. De même, les programmes expérimentaux de logements publics, telle l'initiative Welfare-to-Work (De l'aide sociale au travail) poussent les habitants des logements sociaux à rejoindre le marchéde la main d',uvre à bas salaires. Bien que les discours autour de la démolition des logements sociaux mettent en avant les ouvertures économiques créées par la mobilité résidentielle, leurs anciens habitants sont simplement en train d'être déplacés vers des logements privés situés dans des ghettos urbains. Ce genre de solution spatiale aux problèmes du chômage et de la pauvreté ne viendra pas à bout du dénuement des quartiers déshérités du centre. Faudra-t-il une autre série d'émeutes urbaines pour que l'on aborde sérieusement l'héritage de racisme et de discrimination qui a façonné les villes américaines? [source] Comments on Jeff R. Crump's ,The end of public housing as we know it: public housing policy, labor regulation and the US city'INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2003Alex SchwartzArticle first published online: 13 MAY 200 Jeff Crump's discussion of housing policy in the United States is highly polemic but not very analytic or informative. Crump argues that federal housing policy is attempting to move people out of public housing and into the private housing market and the lowwage labor force. However, he fails to support his argument with credible evidence. My comments point out the most egregious of Crump's claims. I start with Crump's most extreme contentions that housing policy is coercing public housing residents into the low-wage labor force. I then question his dismissive attitude toward the problems confronted by residents of distressed public housing and policies designed to help low-income families move out of impoverished neighborhoods. I subsequently show how Crump exaggerates the extent to which federal housing policy is clearing central cities of subsidized low-income housing. I conclude with a few words on the serious issues that a more informed critique of US housing policy could have raised. L'exposé de Jeff Crump sur la politique du logement aux Etats-Unis relève principalement de la polémique, plus que de l'analyse ou de l'information. Selon lui, la politique fédérale tente de déplacer la population des logements sociaux vers les marchés de l'habitat privé et de la main-d',uvre à bas salaires. Toutefois, il n'apporte aucune preuve crédible à son propos. Ma réaction porte sur ses arguments les plus insignes, en commençant par ses allégations extrémistes selon lesquelles la politique du logement contraint les habitants des logements publics à des emplois peu rémunérés. Je remets ensuite en cause son dédain à l'égard des difficultés que rencontrent les résidents des logements sociaux insalubres, sans oublier les politiques prévues pour aider les familles à faibles revenus à quitter les quartiers pauvres. En conséquence, à mon avis, Crump exagère la mesure dans laquelle la politique fédérale élimine des centres-villes les habitats à loyer modéré subventionnés. En quelques mots, ma conclusion porte sur les questions graves qu'aurait pu soulever un commentateur mieux documenté sur la politique du logement aux Etats-Unis. [source] Rejoinder: Alex Schwartz's critique of ,The end of public housing as we know it'INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2003Jeff R. Crump In this article I argue that the US public housing policy, as codified by the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 (QHWRA), is helping to reconfigure the racial and class structure of many inner cities. By promoting the demolition of public housing projects and replacement with mixed-income housing developments, public housing policy is producing a gentrified inner-city landscape designed to attract middle and upper-class people back to the inner city. The goals of public housing policy are also broadly consonant with those of welfare reform wherein the ,workfare' system helps to bolster and produce the emergence of contingent low-wage urban labor markets. In a similar manner, I argue that public housing demonstration programs, such as the ,Welfare-to-Work' initiative, encourage public housing residents to join the lowwage labor market. Although the rhetoric surrounding the demolition of public housing emphasizes the economic opportunities made available by residential mobility, I argue that former public housing residents are simply being relocated into private housing within urban ghettos. Such a spatial fix to the problems of unemployment and poverty will not solve the problems of inner-city poverty. Will it take another round of urban riots before we seriously address the legacy of racism and discrimination that has shaped the US city? Cet article démontre que la politique du logement public américaine, telle que la réglemente la Loi de 1998, Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, contribue à remodeler la structure par races et classes de nombreux quartiers déshérités des centres-villes. En favorisant la démolition d'ensembles de logements sociaux et leur remplacement par des complexes urbanisés à loyers variés, la politique publique génère un embourgeoisement des centres-villes destinéà y ramener les classes moyennes et supérieures. Les objectifs de la politique du logement rejoignent largement ceux de la réforme sociale oú le système de ,l'allocation conditionnelle' facilite et nourrit la création de marchés contingents du travail à bas salaires. De même, les programmes expérimentaux de logements publics, telle l'initiative Welfare-to-Work (De l'aide sociale au travail) poussent les habitants des logements sociaux à rejoindre le marchéde la main d',uvre à bas salaires. Bien que les discours autour de la démolition des logements sociaux mettent en avant les ouvertures économiques créées par la mobilité résidentielle, leurs anciens habitants sont simplement en train d'être déplacés vers des logements privés situés dans des ghettos urbains. Ce genre de solution spatiale aux problèmes du chômage et de la pauvreté ne viendra pas à bout du dénuement des quartiers déshérités du centre. Faudra-t-il une autre série d'émeutes urbaines pour que l'on aborde sérieusement l'héritage de racisme et de discrimination qui a façonné les villes américaines? [source] The October Riots in France: A Failed Immigration Policy or the Empire Strikes Back?INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 2 2006Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad ABSTRACT In October 2005, the predominately Arab-immigrant suburbs of Paris, Lyon, Lille and other French cities erupted in riots by socially alienated teenagers, many of them second- or third-generation immigrants. For many French observers, it was a painful reminder that France's immigration policy had, quite bluntly, failed. The grand French ideal of égalité, the equality of all citizens of the Republic, itself a by-product of France's colonial past, demonstrated its incompatibility with twenty-first century reality. The French immigration experience is markedly different than those of other European countries, as France's is tainted by colonial history, republican idealism, a rigidly centralized government structure, and deep-seeded traditions of xenophobia. Indeed, the nineteenth century French policy of the mission civilicatrice (civilizing mission) still influences French policy toward its immigrants today: rather than accept cultural differences, the French government demands that all its citizens adhere to a rigid and exclusive "French" identity. As such, the children of the generation of immigrants that the French government actively brought to France to fuel its post-war expansion now find themselves unemployed and socially marginalized. Government social structures meant to ease the disparity between social classes, such as public housing and education, generally do more to aggravate problems than to solve them; public housing is woefully inadequate and the education structure institutionalizes the poor quality of schools in immigrant communities. Despite this generally poor outlook, the French have recently made some progress toward better integration of their immigrant communities, though these efforts are generally met with wide-spread demagogic and populist opposition. LES ÉMEUTES D'OCTOBRE EN FRANCE: ÉCHEC DE LA POLITIQUE D'IMMIGRATION OU L'EMPIRE CONTRE-ATTAQUE? En octobre 2005, dans les banlieues de Paris, Lyon, Lille et d'autres villes françaises, oú prédominent les immigrés arabes, des émeutes ont éclaté, menées par des adolescents socialement aliénés, dont beaucoup étaient des immigrés de deuxième ou troisième génération. Pour nombre d'observateurs français, ces événements ont douloureusement confirmé que la politique d'immigration de la France était un échec cuisant. Le magnifique idéal français d'égalité de tous les citoyens de la République, lui-même un sous-produit du passé colonial de la France, se révélait décidément incompatible avec la réalité du 21e siècle. En matière d'immigration, l'expérience de la France est sensiblement différente de celle des autres pays européens, la France étant marquée par une histoire coloniale, un idéalisme républicain, une structure gouvernementale rigidement centralisée et une tradition de xénophobie profondément ancrée. D'ailleurs, l'approche française de la mission civilisatrice, qui avait cours au 19e siècle, continue d'influencer la politique de la France à l'égard de ses immigrés: plutôt que d'accepter les différences culturelles, le Gouvernement français exige que tous les citoyens adhèrent à une identité « française » à la fois rigide et exclusive. Les enfants des immigrés que le Gouvernement français avait fait venir en France pour soutenir son expansion d'après-guerre se retrouvent maintenant au chômage et socialement marginalisés. Les structures sociales gouvernementales destinées à atténuer les disparités entre classes sociales, notamment le logement social et l'enseignement, font souvent plus pour aggraver les problèmes que pour les résoudre. Les logements sociaux sont cruellement insuffisants et le système d'enseignement institutionnalise la mauvaise qualité des établissements scolaires fréquentés par les communautés d'immigrés. Malgré ces perspectives généralement médiocres, les Français ont fait des progrès dans le sens d'une meilleure intégration de ces communautés, bien que ces efforts se heurtent généralement à une importante opposition teintée de démagogie et de populisme. LAS REVUELTAS DE OCTUBRE EN FRANCIA: ¿UNA POLÍTICA DE INMIGRACIÓN ERRÓNEA O EL IMPERIO CONTRAATACA? En octubre de 2005, los barrios donde predomina la inmigración árabe de París, Lyon, Lille y otras ciudades francesas fueron el escenario de revueltas de adolescentes socialmente alienados, muchos de ellos inmigrantes de segunda o tercera generación. Para muchos observadores franceses, fue un doloroso recordatorio de que, con bastante claridad, la política de inmigración de Francia había fracasado. El gran ideal francés de l'égalité, es decir, la igualdad de todos los ciudadanos de la República, consecuencia en sí misma del pasado colonial francés, demostró su incompatibilidad con la realidad del siglo XXI. La experiencia de la inmigración francesa es muy distinta a la de otros países europeos, ya que Francia está marcada por su historia colonial, el idealismo republicano, una estructura gubernamental estrictamente centralizada y unas tradiciones arraigadas de xenofobia. Ciertamente, la política francesa del siglo XIX de la mission civilisatrice (misión civilizadora) influye aún hoy en la política francesa sobre inmigración: más que aceptar las diferencias culturales, el Gobierno francés exige que todos sus ciudadanos se adhieran a una identidad "francesa" rígida y exclusiva. Los hijos de la generación de inmigrantes a los que el Gobierno francés alentó activamente a ir a Francia para impulsar la expansión de la postguerra se encuentran ahora sin trabajo y marginados de la sociedad. Las estructuras sociales del Estado, encaminadas a disminuir la disparidad entre clases sociales, tales como la vivienda y la educación públicas, contribuyen generalmente a agravar los problemas más que a solucionarlos: las viviendas públicas son lamentablemente inadecuadas y la estructura educativa institucionaliza la escasa calidad de las escuelas de las comunidades de inmigrantes. A pesar de este panorama en general poco prometedor, los franceses han logrado recientemente algunos progresos hacia una mejor integración de sus comunidades inmigrantes, aunque estos esfuerzos se encuentran a menudo con una oposición demagógica y populista ampliamente extendida. [source] Geographic Mobility and Spatial Assimilation among U. S. Latino Immigrants,INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 3 2005Scott J. South Although the spatial assimilation of immigrants to the United States has important implications for social theory and social policy, few studies have explored the atterns and determinants of interneighborhood geographic mobility that lead to immigrants'residential proximity to the white, non-Hispanic majority. We explore this issue by merging data from three different sources - the Latino National Political Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and tract-level census data - to begin unraveling causal relationships among indicators of socioeconomic, social, cultural, segmented, and spatial assimilation. Our longitudinal analysis of 700 Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban immigrants followed from 1990 to 1995 finds broad support for hypotheses derived from the classical account of minority assimilation. High income, English language use, and embeddedness in Anglo social contexts increase Latino immigrants'geographic mobility into Anglo neighborhoods. U. S. citizenship and years spent in the United Stares are ppsidvely associated with geographic mobility into more Anglo neighbor oods, and coethnic contact is inversely associated with this form of mobility, but these associations operate largely through other redictors. Prior experiences of ethnic discrimination increase and residence in public housing decreases the likelihood that Latino immigrants will move from their origin neighborhoods, while residing in metropolitan areas with large Latino populations leads to geographic moves into "less Anglo" census tracts. [source] Obstacles to desegregating public housing: Lessons learned from implementing eight consent decreesJOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2003Susan J. Popkin Between 1992 and 1996 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) settled a number of legal cases involving housing authorities and agreed to take remedial action as part of court-enforced consent decrees entered into with plaintiffs. These housing authorities faced significant obstacles that impaired their ability to comply swiftly and fully with all of the elements in the desegregation consent decrees. The obstacles fell into two broad categories: contextual obstacles (racial composition of waiting lists and resident populations, lack of affordable rental housing, and inadequate public transportation), and capacity and coordination obstacles (conflict among implementing agencies and ineffective monitoring by HUD). Findings presented here highlight the sizable potential delay between the time a legal remedy is imposed and when plaintiffs in public housing segregation disputes realize any benefits. They also reinforce the argument that implementation problems will be legion when policies impose a significant scope of required changes on a large number of actors who must collaborate, yet are not uniformly capable or sympathetic to the goals being promoted. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [source] Does Urban Public Housing Diminish the Social Capital and Labor Force Activity of Its Tenants?JOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001David A. Reingold This paper investigates the effect of urban public housing on the social capital and labor force activity of its tenants using cross-sectional survey data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MSCUI). A structural equation model of the hypothesized direct and indirect effects of public housing and neighborhood disadvantage on social capital and labor force activity is specified and fitted to these data. The modeling results suggest that urban public housing is strongly associated with neighborhood disadvantage but has little or no direct effect on either social capital or labor force activity. And while public housing may have indirect effects on social capital and labor force activity through neighborhood poverty, these indirect effects appear to be small. These findings have implications for the current emphasis in urban public housing policy on moving residents into the private housing market and reducing poverty concentration. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [source] LIMITED EXPOSURE: CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES AND NEIGHBORHOOD EFFECTS IN THE GAUTREAUX TWO HOUSING MOBILITY PROGRAMJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 4 2010ANITA ZUBERI ABSTRACT:,Housing mobility programs intend to improve the well-being of low-income families by changing the neighborhood environment in which they live, and thereby creating access to a new set of opportunities and resources. Using data collected in a study of the Gautreaux Two (G2) Housing Mobility program, which offered housing vouchers to public housing residents in Chicago to move to lower-poverty and less segregated "opportunity" neighborhoods, this article explores families' access to programs and services for their children in the neighborhoods where they move. The analysis is based on a sample of 46 families who moved through the G2 program. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with mothers in four waves, which started when the family still lived in public housing. The results show that almost three-quarters of the families utilized activities for their children in the baseline neighborhoods, but mothers also expressed concerns about the safety and lack of program variety available in these disadvantaged neighborhoods. After moving through the G2 program, only one-third of the children in these families are using activities. The decline in activity participation is especially steep for children in families that move to areas outside of the city. Although few mothers are concerned with safety or the variety of programs available, several report barriers to activities for children in the new neighborhood, including fewer programs for low-income children, high cost, transportation difficulties, and issues finding daycare or preschool for younger children. Some children continue to use activities in the old neighborhood and some families end up making subsequent moves to nonqualifying neighborhoods. These findings suggest that activity participation is important for many low-income families, and losing access to these activities upon moving through the G2 program may limit children's exposure to the new neighborhood and contribute to subsequent moves. [source] "Squatting is Still Legal, Necessary and Free": A Brief Intervention in the Corporate CityANTIPODE, Issue 1 2002Paul Chatterton Squatting is a solution to homelessness, empty properties and speculation. It provides homes for those who can't get public housing and who can't afford extortionate rents. Squatting creates space for much-needed community projects. Squatting means taking control instead of being pushed around by bureaucrats and property owners. Squatting is still legal, necessary and free.(Advisory Service for Squatters 1996:1) What follows is an account of a brief intervention in the contemporary urban landscape in an English city, Newcastle upon Tyne. It is an account of a group of people who squatted a building as a response to the increasing dominance of corporate organisations and the declining accountability of local authorities in cities. [source] Public intervention, private aspiration: Gated communities and the condominisation of housing landscapes in SingaporeASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 2 2009Choon-Piew Pow Abstract While the proliferation of gated communities worldwide has generated great interests and debates, the emergence of gated communities is by no means a ,global' urban phenomenon that displays uniform characteristics and genesis. Drawing on Singapore as a case study, this paper goes beyond the universalising and often polemical discourses on gated communities to provide a balanced account on how gated communities in the form of enclosed condominium estates are locally embedded in the city state where public housing dominates. As will be pointed out in the paper, gated communities in Singapore may be considered as a form of ,club good' that exists as part of the state's urban/national developmental agenda and are, arguably, less socially and spatially divisive than those depicted elsewhere. By teasing out the local specificities of gated communities, this paper underscores the need to read beyond the physical form of gated communities in order to understand the complex social and political production of housing landscapes. [source] People, places and policies , trying to account for health inequalities in impoverished neighbourhoodsAUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 1 2009Peter Feldman Abstract Objective: We consider associations between individual, household and area-level characteristics and self-reported health. Method: Data is taken from baseline surveys undertaken in 13 socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Victoria (n=3,944). The neighbourhoods are sites undergoing Neighbourhood Renewal (NR), a State government initiative redressing place-based disadvantage. Analysis:This focused on the relationship between area and compositional factors and self-reported health. Area was coded into three categories; LGA, NR residents living in public housing (NRPU) and NR residents who lived in private housing (NRPR). Compositional factors included age, gender, marital status, identifying as a person with a disability, level of education, unemployment and receipt of pensions/benefits. Results: There was a gradient in socio-economic disadvantage on all measures. People living in NR public housing were more disadvantaged than people living in NR private housing who, in turn, were more disadvantaged than people in the same LGA. NR public housing residents reported the worst health status and LGA residents reported the best. Conclusions: Associations between compositional characteristics of disability, educational achievement and unemployment income and poorer self-reported health were shown. They suggested that area characteristics, with housing policies, may be contributing to differences in self-reported health at the neighbourhood level. Implications: The clustering of socio-economic disadvantage and health outcomes requires the integration of health and social support interventions that address the circumstances of people and places. [source] Using Space: Agency and Identity in a Public,Housing DevelopmentCITY & COMMUNITY, Issue 3 2002Kevin Fox Gotham Recent critiques of conventional poverty research have highlighted the need to move beyond the conceptual limitations of "neighborhood effects" models and the use of the tropes of "adaptation" or "resistance" to explain the behaviors and actions of the urban poor. We use ethnographic field observations and interviews with public,housing residents to address these limitations in the poverty literature, assess competing explanations of poor people's agency, and provide insight into the importance of space as a mediating link between macrostructural constraints and locally situated behaviors. We theorize agency and identity as spatial phenomena,with spatial attributes and spatial influences,and examine how different spatial meanings and locations enable or constrain particular forms of social action and behavior. Our ethnographic and interview data depict several strategies by which residents "use space" to provide a measure of security and protection, to designate and avoid areas of criminality and drug activity, and to challenge or support the redevelopment of public housing. From these data we show that urban space is not a residual phenomenon in which social action occurs, but a constitutive dimension of social life that shapes life experiences, social conflict, and action. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||