New Study Tracks Subsidized Housing’s Impact on Neighborhoods

Does the presence of subsidized low-income housing have a measurable presence on neighborhood mobility patterns? A new working paper released by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Center for Administrative Records Research and Applications suggests that it does not.

According to “The Effect of Low-Income Housing on Neighborhood Mobility: Evidence from Linked Micro-Data,” there was little evidence that low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) developments played any significant role in changing neighborhood demographics in terms of racial or ethnic composition, poverty rate, median income or the homeownership rate. Nor did it appear that LIHTC construction encouraged households to relocate to lower-income neighborhoods compared to communities without the availability of subsidized housing.

The report analyzed data collected in the 2000 and 2010 censuses plus Department of Housing and Urban Development data on the development of LIHTC properties during the previous decade.