A sort of homecoming : incarceration and the housing security of urban men

While individuals returning from prison face many barriers to successful re-entry, among the most serious are the challenges they face in securing housing. Housing has long been recognized as a prerequisite for stable employment, access to social services, and other aspects of individual and family functioning. The formerly incarcerated face several administrative and de facto restrictions on their housing options; however, little is known about the unique instabilities that they face. We use a longitudinal survey of urban families to examine housing insecurity among nearly 3,000 urban men, including over 1,000 with incarceration histories. We find that men recently incarcerated face greater housing insecurity, including both serious hardships such as homelessness, and precursors to homelessness such as residential turnover and relying on others for housing expenses. Their increased risk is tied both to diminished annual earnings and other factors, including, potentially, evictions from public housing supported by Federal "one-strike" policies

Housing insecurity among urban fathers

This article examines housing insecurity among an understudied population: urban fathers of young children. Housing security is of particular importance for vulnerable populations, and urban fathers, many of whom face unemployment and monitoring from the child support and criminal justice systems, often rely on this security to mitigate the socioeconomic challenges they face. By assessing the extent and type of housing insecurity affecting urban fathers, we identify a potentially serious source of disadvantage facing families more broadly. A year after the birth of a new child, fully a quarter of fathers reported significant housing insecurities with 3% experiencing homelessness. Results suggest that from 9-12% of fathers are doubling up, relying on others for living expenses, and moving more than once every year. Finally, only half of fathers had been able to maintain housing security over the three to four years since the focal child's birth

Fertility Timing of Unmarried and Married Mothers: Evidence on Variation Across U.S. Cities from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

In this paper, we examine the determinants of fertility timing of unmarried and married mothers using a rich new birth cohort study, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, drawn from 20 medium and large U.S. cities. We find considerable variation in the time to next birth among comparable mothers who live in different cities. Some of this variation is explained by variation in labor markets, housing costs and availability, and welfare policies. City variation is particularly important for unmarried women who already have two or more children, whose fertility is more sensitive to these contextual variables than is the fertility of married women, or unmarried women with just one child

Fertility Timing of Unmarried and Married Mothers: Evidence on Variation Across U.S. Cities from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

In this paper, we examine the determinants of fertility timing of unmarried and married mothers using a rich new birth cohort study, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, drawn from 20 medium and large U.S. cities. We find considerable variation in the time to next birth among comparable mothers who live in different cities. Some of this variation is explained by variation in labor markets, housing costs and availability, and welfare policies. City variation is particularly important for unmarried women who already have two or more children, whose fertility is more sensitive to these contextual variables than is the fertility of married women, or unmarried women with just one child

Housing Policies and Unmarried Mothers’ Living Arrangements

Many studies estimate the effects of welfare benefits on mothers’ living arrangements while housing costs and subsidies are rarely the focus of study. Housing costs and subsidies affect the affordability and accessibility of housing. This article estimates the effects of housing prices and public and subsidized housing on the living arrangements of mothers three years after a non-marital birth while controlling for welfare benefit levels, sex ratios, unemployment rates, child support enforcement and personal characteristics. Results suggest that housing prices are positively associated with marriage, cohabitation and living with family. The availability of public and subsidized housing are negatively associated with both marriage and cohabitation relative to living alone. The relative risk of marriage is reduced more than cohabitation suggesting eligibility criteria and meanstesting make marriage more costly. Failure to control for housing costs and subsidies leads to underestimates of the effects of welfare and unemployment rates on living arrangements.Low-income housing, affordability, demographics, welfare

Effects of child health on housing in the urban U.S.

This study exploits an exogenous health shock--the birth of a child with a severe health condition that is considered by the medical community to be random--to investigate the effect of that shock on the family's housing situation. We use population-based data from an urban birth cohort study in the U.S. that oversampled non-marital births, resulting in a relatively disadvantaged sample that may be particularly susceptible to the effects of adverse life events. The health conditions were recorded in the infants' hospital medical records and coded by a pediatric consultant to capture conditions that are considered both severe and random. Seven different housing outcomes in the domains of quality, crowding, and stability were assessed from maternal interviews and in-home assessments when the children were 3 years old. We found that poor child health increases the likelihood of both overcrowding and homelessness and that it may also increase the likelihood of having inadequate utilities and generally poor housing quality. The effect sizes ranged from 1 to 17 percentage points, depending on the measure of poor child health and housing outcome.Child health Housing Homelessness Home crowding Housing stability Housing quality USA

The flute of the gods /

Decorated end-papers.Glossary: p. 335-338.Photographic frontispiece and photographic plates facing p. 2, 14, 18, 64, 94, 108, 112, 118, 124, 128, 130, 134, 138, 178, 198, 206, 244, 256, 282, 310, 324, 326 and 332.Verso of t.p.: September, 1909.Copyright date from verso of t.p.Mode of access: Internet