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

consisting of single family zones, near wealthier neighborhoods and having specificracial characteristics. Negative spillover effects were not found in multi-family zones.Unfortunately all three studies relied on data that is not likely to be availablefor a wide variety of MSA’s. Due to unique characteristics of these MSA’s inparticular (New York City, Los Angeles, and Seattle) they are not likely to begeneralizable to other MSA’s. We would need results of a wider sample of MSA’s inorder to draw stronger conclusions about nationwide trends.Only three studies (out of 65) were both comprehensive and national in scope.James (2008) used a special sample from the American Housing Survey (AHS) whichprovides data on the geographic location of subsidized housing at the census tractlevel. The AHS is a sample survey and therefore the results are typically onlyavailable at the national and state level but a sample of census tract level data isavailable. The survey suffers from being a self-report instrument where the residentreports whether they have a housing subsidy and from which source which can lead toinaccuracies. This is in contrast to administrative databases which use data providedby the local housing providers (such as Public Housing Authorities). There arediscrepancies in total numbers between the two types of data. In particular, the AHScovers more types of subsidies than the HUD database and so is not directly31