Subsidized Housing’s Siting and its Social Consequences: A National Perspective

Yana Kucheva, University of California, Los Angeles

My paper will examine the relationship between subsidized housing and neighborhood ethnic transitions. Specifically, my analysis estimates the effect of the presence of subsidized housing units on the spatial concentration of minorities in the surrounding neighborhood by predicting the change in the percentage of the non-Hispanic white population living adjacent to assisted housing units between 1980 and 2000 in eight US cities. Although areas that contain assisted developments are likely to have been disadvantaged before they received new affordable housing, the existence of subsidized units is hypothesized to have a discernible independent effect on the level of the neighborhood racial mix.