Housing

Legal Levers for Health Equity in Housing

The U.S. housing system has created a chronic affordability gap and persistently inequitable and unhealthy living conditions. Law plays an important role in shaping that system, but there is too much unknown about the impact of housing laws and policies on health and health equity. This report series by the P4A Research Hub at the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law aims to highlight these gaps, and to suggest areas for research and action needed to produce healthier communities.

Scott Burris

Gentrification and the Health of Low-Income Children in New York City

At this time, little is known about the health consequences of growing up in gentrifying neighborhoods. Many observers worry that gentrification could heighten stress and undermine children’s health, but it may also bring changes to low-income areas that enhance health. Kacie Dragan, Ingrid Ellen, and Sherry A. Glied, representing P4A’s NYU Wagner Research Hub, explore these issues in a new paper, focusing on children’s physical and mental health.

Sherry Glied

Local Policy Responses to Housing Voucher Discrimination

People who receive vouchers or other forms of federal or local housing assistance are not protected from discrimination by federal fair housing or civil rights laws, and in most places, landlords can legally refuse to rent to voucher holders. Researchers will assess whether and under what conditions state and local protections reduce landlord discrimination and improve the rate at which voucher holders are successful at finding housing.

Father and daughter swing outside house
Commentary

A Blueprint for Well-Being: Building the Evidence for Health-Promoting Housing Policy

6.5.2019
Lisa Dubay, Jillian West

How does the current housing affordability crisis widen health inequities across race and income? What are the wide-ranging effects of housing subsidies on children’s well-being or on positive aging for low-income seniors? Policies for Action is trying to answer some of these questions, and create actionable evidence for those shaping housing policies at the local, state, and federal levels.

Colorado Coalition for the Homeless resident council
Commentary

Using PFS to Scale Supportive Housing: Lessons Learned and New Directions

4.11.2019
Samantha Iovan, Paula Lantz, Sarah Gillespie, Ruth Gourevitch

Pay for success sparks innovation in the public sector while limiting risk to taxpayers by ensuring the government only pays for services that are effective. Importantly, it can bring financing to interventions for populations that are often forgotten, neglected, or deemed less worthy of taxpayer support, including people experiencing chronic homelessness.

Cross-post

Housing Law and Health Equity: No Bliss in Ignorance

4.9.2019
Katie Moran-McCabe, Scott Burris

There are many explanations for the housing crisis in the U.S. One is that the law has never stopped promoting and preserving segregation, nor has it adequately supported the supply of enough affordable, safe, and stable housing for all citizens.

Health, Housing, and the Law

Abraham Gutman, Katie Moran-McCabe and Scott Burris at the Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research published an article in the Northeastern University Law Review that explores 23 legal mechanisms, or levers, that may impact health equity in housing in the U.S., and reviews the evidence base evaluating each lever.

Scott Burris

Using Pay-For-Success Financing For Supportive Housing Interventions

Paula Lantz and Samantha Iovan of the University of Michigan Research Hub used their innovative pay-for-success (PFS) surveillance system to identify strengths and challenges of several supportive housing interventions using PFS, and to assess whether PFS housing projects generally meet established criteria for improving social welfare.

Paula Lantz

Housing Subsidies and Family Health

In the U.S., the key challenge for many households is housing affordability. Households paying more than one-half of a limited total income for rent have very little left over for food, transportation, education, and other critical expenses. And these rent burdens have only been growing. In 1960, fewer than one in four renters was rent-burdened (or paid more than 30 percent of their income on rent); today that fraction is nearly half.