Cityscape最新文献

For more than a decade, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) have partnered to link NCHS national health survey data with HUD administrative records on persons participating in federal public and assisted housing programs. This study used 2015-18 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)-HUD linked data to examine women 18-44 years old with children and renting their home who were receiving HUD assistance (n=852) and a comparison population of women of the same age with children, who were low-income renters but did not link to HUD records at the time of their NHIS interview (n=894). The population of HUD-assisted women differed from the comparison group on key sociodemographic characteristics and health indicators. HUD-assisted women were more likely to report their health as fair or poor and to being a current smoker. HUD-assisted women also were less likely to be uninsured and more likely to have a regular source of care. The findings in this article are exploratory but demonstrate how the NCHS-HUD-linked data can be a resource for researchers and policymakers in further examining housing status as an important social determinant of health.

This article examines a new rental assistance program in Philadelphia, called PHLHousing+, that disburses unconditional cash payments directly to tenants to eliminate their housing cost burden. The program is designed as a 2.5-year randomized controlled trial that aims to test the impact of direct-to-tenant cash assistance on household outcomes compared with traditional housing vouchers. The motivations for the program range from the need for more flexible tools that respond to the diverse needs of low-income renters to the desire for a robust evidence base on effective policies to improve household outcomes. The article also discusses the evolution of the idea behind PHLHousing+ before the COVID-19 pandemic through to its development, using knowledge obtained from upscaling local pandemic emergency rental assistance programs. Finally, the article describes the program's implementation, including participant enrollment, strategies to minimize benefits loss, and cash disbursement mechanisms. It reflects on the lessons learned throughout this process, such as the importance of flexible funding and a strong research-practice partnership. The goal is to provide guidance to those planning similar programs and inform local and national policy, especially on direct-to-tenant, cash-based housing assistance.

An increasing number of American renters within major metropolitan housing markets rely on online platforms such as Craigslist to find rental units. Landlords that advertise rentals on these websites have been found to tailor the language used in their listings in reference to surrounding neighborhood demographics to influence prospective tenants' rental searches. This work investigates the underexplored subject of move-in fees, referring to upfront costs to secure a lease, such as security deposits, application charges, and advanced rent payments that can affect whether a prospective renter can afford an advertised unit. This study advances a framework for how housing researchers can assess variations in landlord discourse within online housing marketplaces using text analysis methods and web scraping. It then illustrates how the resulting measures about move-in fees have distinct variations in prevalence along sociodemographic, spatial, and policy measures through a series of descriptive analyses, with subsequent conclusions toward policy implications designed to assist low-income renters with overcoming financial barriers in securing rental housing.

Research on rental housing markets in the United States has traditionally relied on national or local housing surveys. Those sources lack temporal and spatial specificity, limiting their use for tracking short-term changes in local markets. As rental housing ads have transitioned to digital spaces, a growing body of literature has utilized web scraping to analyze listing practices and variations in rental market dynamics. Those studies have primarily relied on one platform, Craigslist, as a source of data. Despite Craigslist's popularity, the authors contend that rental listings from various websites, rather than from individual ones, provide a more comprehensive picture. Using a mixed-methods approach to study listings across various platforms in five metropolitan areas, this article demonstrates considerable variation in both the types of rental units advertised and the features provided across those platforms. The article begins with an account of the birth and consolidation of online rental platforms and emergent characteristics of several selected websites, including the criteria for posting, search parameters, search results priority, and first-page search results. Visualizations are used to compare features such as the 40th percentile of rent, rent distribution, and bedroom size based on scraped data from six online platforms (Padmapper, Forrent.com, Trulia, Zillow, Craigslist, and GoSection8), 2020 Fair Market Rents, and 2019 American Community Survey data. The analyses indicate that online listing platforms target different audiences and offer distinct information on units within those market segments, resulting in markedly different estimates of local rental costs and unit size distribution depending on the platform.

The number of highly destructive disasters is increasing in regions of the United States where the Hispanic population is growing fastest. Up-to-date studies of disaster preparedness are needed that include housing measures and other factors that may account for differences in disaster preparedness between Hispanics and other racial and ethnic groups. This study fills this gap in the literature by using data from the 2017 American Housing Survey, which includes a topical module on disaster planning along with the core measures of housing and neighborhood characteristics, including housing tenure. The results reveal that Hispanics are generally less prepared than non-Hispanic Whites regarding resource- and action-based measures, with a few exceptions. Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians are significantly more likely than Whites to have at least 3 gallons of water per person, and Hispanics and Blacks are significantly more likely than Whites and Asians to have flood insurance. The findings show that housing and residential characteristics are consistently significant in predicting preparedness-controlling for other relevant variables-although they do not attenuate the disadvantages that Hispanics and Blacks face in their disaster preparedness relative to Whites. Future research would benefit from further exploration of the linkage between racial and ethnic inequalities in housing and neighborhood characteristics and household disaster preparedness.

While useful for mail delivery, ZIP Codes are flawed as a geographic metric for public health research. This paper quantifies the magnitude of potential error inherent in using ZIP Codes as a unit of analysis in the state of Michigan. ZIP Codes are intersected with municipality boundaries in ArcGIS to determine the degree of misclassification. Results showed that 49 percent of the population had their municipality misclassified by their ZIP Code. This creates potentially huge errors when ZIP Code is the only geographic identifier, because actual exposure may vary from the exposure to which an individual is assigned based on ZIP Code. The Flint, Michigan, Water Crisis is a prime example of this error and the need to consider finer units of analysis whenever possible. Collaboration with experts in geographic information science is therefore essential for any public health research project where location is a factor.

This qualitative study of 29 young adults (aged 18-25) living in permanent supportive housing (PSH) resulted in a grounded theory that shows how PSH generally provides a sense of ontological security for young adults-much like for older adults-who are also experiencing significant developmental change processes. Simply stated, ontological security refers to a concept of well-being in the world that is rooted in a sense of order in one's social and material environment. Thematic analyses indicated that the presence of markers of ontological security (for example, constancy, routine, control) positively affected participants' mental health and well-being, which helped with positive identity construction. An increase in ontological security also related to residents' social environment and participants' ability to improve on social relationships, which supported improved mental health and sense of self. Most young adults in this study regarded living in PSH as "a chance to start my life" and considered the question of "What's next?" within a normative developmental trajectory. Counterexamples that demarcate the limits of these thematic findings are included in the grounded theory model, including some experiences of social isolation and struggles with mental health associated with less positive orientations toward "what's next."

The enrollment phase of the Family Options Study provides information about the mismatch of the homeless service system and the needs and desires of families experiencing homelessness in 12 communities. One-fourth (25.8 percent) of the 2,490 families screened for the study after shelter stays of a week were deemed ineligible for one or more of the interventions at initial screening, with ineligibility highest for those screened for transitional housing programs (28.9 percent) and lower for short- and long-term rental subsidies (9.2 and 4.1 percent). Families given priority offers of housing and service interventions for which they appeared eligible faced additional screening by programs and made decisions about whether to enroll. Considering all stages of this process, families were least likely to be eligible for and subsequently choose to enroll (within 9 months) in transitional housing programs (32.5 percent of those initially screened) and most likely to be eligible for and subsequently lease up with long-term subsidies (73.4 percent) with short-term subsidies in between (51.0 percent). Homeless system interventions systematically screen out families with housing and employment barriers, despite the presumption that these families are the families who need interventions in order to achieve housing and economic stability.

This study developed risk models for returns to housing instability (that is, homelessness and unstable doubling-up situations) among families exiting emergency shelter. Participants included 446 families randomly assigned to receive priority offers of long-term housing subsidies and 578 families randomly assigned to usual care in the Family Options Study, a multisite experiment designed to test the impact of various housing and service interventions for homeless families. Relationships between family features recorded at shelter entry and returns to housing instability 20 months later were examined empirically. Correlation, hierarchical logistic regression, and receiver operating characteristic curves were used to combine family features into predictive risk models. Results indicated that few observable family features beyond previous housing instability offered predictive utility. Access to long-term housing subsidies appears to reduce housing instability. Further research should examine whether disability benefits, reliable employment, or effective substance dependence treatment reduce housing instability.