The Spatial Concentration of Subsidized Housing - Poverty & Race ...

subsidized housing data and census neighborhood characteristics. The study testedthe effect of the presence or absence of subsidized housing (dichotomous variable) aswell as the number of assisted units (density). Propensity scores were used to matchneighborhoods with and without subsidized housing. Controls were added for movingbehavior by age and race. In addition, various interaction effects were studied.Results indicated that the relationship between assisted housing and neighborhood outmigrationwas a spurious one, “Once the relevant control variables are added to themodels, typically no relationship can be discerned” (p. 126). The author concludesthat the non-poor are likely to avoid neighborhoods with assisted housingdevelopments but that this is perhaps caused by other characteristics of theneighborhood and not the subsidized housing (p. 130).Three studies looked at the issue of “crowding out” which is the potentialreduction in unsubsidized units due to the construction of new units of subsidizedhousing. Murray (1999) studied public housing and other site-based housing andfound that there was no reduction with the construction of low-income housing butthere was a reduction with the construction of moderate-income housing. Sinai andWaldfogel (2005) found less “crowd out” in lower-income and high population areas.And Eriksen and Rosenthal (2007) studying LIHTC also found a difference betweenlow income and higher income areas with reductions in the higher income areas andactual increases in construction in lower-income areas as well as increased propertyvalues.10