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In the Baltimore Region

According to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, households that are severely housing cost burdened spend 38% less on food and 62% less on healthcare than similarly situated households who are not severely housing cost burdened.

Along with a lack of affordable housing, Baltimore residents continue to suffer from the city’s legacy of segregation. A study conducted by the Urban Institute in 2019 highlights one of the ways that segregation in Baltimore City impacts neighborhood investment. Neighborhoods that were less than 50% African American saw almost four times the investment that neighborhoods that were more than 85% African American saw. This lack of investment means that predominately black neighborhoods often lack the quality resources and educational and employment opportunities that community members need.

The traditional HUD HCV Program, though well-intentioned, can lack important elements, like counseling and landlord recruitment, that make it possible for households to move out of areas of concentrated poverty.

Accessing areas of opportunity can make a big difference in the life of a family for generations. Read the following articles to gain a deeper understanding of the impact Housing Mobility Programs have on families:

Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Project by Raj Chetty Describes the long-term impact of the Moving to Opportunity experiment that moved families from high-poverty housing projects to low-poverty neighborhoods. In the experiment, children under the age of 13 were more likely than the control group to attend college, had higher incomes in their mid-twenties, were less likely to become single parents, and were more likely to live in low-poverty neighborhoods as adults.

The effects of a housing mobility experiment on participants’ residential environments by Q.C. Nguyen, D. Acevedo-Garcia, N.M. Schmidt, & T.L. Osypuk Describes the impact of the Moving to Opportunity experiment moves on the neighborhoods that they lived in. Participants who were in the low-poverty group, meaning they needed to initially move to a low-poverty neighborhood, had better neighborhood environments, even after the period where they were required to move ended. Participants ended up in neighborhoods with better economic conditions, social systems, physical features, and health outcomes than the control group.

The Long-Term Effects of Moving to Opportunity on Adult Health and Economic Self-Sufficiency by L. Sanbonmatsu, et. al. Describes the impact of the Moving to Opportunity experiment on adults. Adults who received low-poverty vouchers were less likely than the control group to have diabetes, extreme obesity, physical limitations, and psychological distress.

Walking Away From The Wire: Housing Mobility and Neighborhood Opportunity in Baltimore by S. Deluca & P. Rosenblatt Describes the neighborhood outcomes for families who moved through the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program. Families who were in the program for up to 9 years lived “more affluent and integrated neighborhoods [and] in school districts with more qualified teachers and fewer poor students.”

“Living here has changed my whole perspective”: How escaping inner-city poverty shapes neighborhood and housing choice by J. Darrah & S. Deluca Describes the ways tenants participating in the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program shifted what their preferences when choosing a home for their families.

¹Data from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition’s report on the shortage of affordable housing

²Data from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University’s report on America’s rental housing in 2020

³Severely housing cost burdened means that the household spends 50% or more of their income on housing