Challenges Facing Housing Markets in the Next Decade, Developing a Policy-Relevant Research Agenda

Outlines research questions in the areas of: the impact of the housing market crisis; rising poverty and income inequality and volatility; concentration of poor and minority households in distressed areas; and need for sustainable housing and communities

Improving U.S. Housing Finance Through Reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Assessing the Options

Presents criteria for evaluating proposals for reforming the two government-sponsored enterprises. Outlines the key arguments for their structural strengths and weaknesses, a framework and goals for reform, and features of specific proposals to date

Housing production subsidies and neighborhood revitalization: New York City's ten-year capital plan for housing

This paper was presented at the conference "Policies to Promote Affordable Housing," cosponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and New York University's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, February 7, 2002. It was part of Session 3: The Impact of Housing on People and Places.Housing - New York (N.Y.) ; Construction industry - New York (N.Y.) ; Housing subsidies ; Federal Reserve District, 2nd ; Housing - Finance

Do housing and social policies make households too small? Evidence from New York

How many adults should live in a house? How do people actually divide themselves up among households? Average household sizes vary substantially, both over time and in the cross-section. In New York City, we find that housing and income maintenance policies exert powerful influences on household size and composition -- more powerful than race, culture, or ethnicity. These policies make households smaller (measured by number of adults). We review arguments why governments might want to influence household sizes, and discern no reason for trying to make households smaller than they would be in the absence of these housing and income maintenance policies. Small average household size can be extremely expensive in terms of physical and environmental resources, higher rents, and possibly homelessness. Our results indicate that New York City may well have too much of it

The Academic Effects of Chronic Exposure to Neighborhood Violence

We estimate the causal effect of repeated exposure to violent crime on test scores in New York City. We use two distinct empirical strategies; value-added models linking student performance on standardized exams to violent crimes on a student’s residential block, and a regression discontinuity approach that identifies the acute effect of an additional crime exposure within a one-week window. Exposure to violent crime reduces academic performance. Value added models suggest the average effect is very small; approximately -0.01 standard deviations in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics. RD models suggest a larger effect, particularly among children previously exposed. The marginal acute effect is as large as -0.04 standard deviations for students with two or more prior exposures. Among these, it is even larger for black students, almost a 10th of a standard deviation. We provide credible causal evidence that repeated exposure to neighborhood violence harms test scores, and this negative effect increases with exposure

Administrative Burdens in Emergency Rental Assistance Programs

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, localities across the United States have been given unprecedented short-term rental assistance funding and considerable flexibility in its distribution. The emergency nature of these programs suggests that the administrative burden placed on participants should be lower than in typical rental assistance programs such as the housing choice voucher program. Yet there are several features unique to housing, such as the double take-up challenge of engaging both tenants and landlords, that persist. This article draws on national surveys of more than two hundred emergency rental assistance programs, surveys of thousands of tenant and landlord applicants, and interviews with ten program administrators to investigate the degree and sources of administrative burdens in these programs

Monitoring Success in Choice Neighborhoods: A Proposed Approach to Performance Measurement

Offers a framework and tools for performance management in the initiative to transform poor neighborhoods into revitalized, sustainable mixed-income communities. Proposes system components, logic model, management reports, and performance indicators

Building Environmentally Sustainable Communities: A Framework for Inclusivity

Reviews literature on past inequitable and unsustainable urban development and visions for linking sustainability, opportunity, and inclusion. Analyzes possible metrics for measuring sustainability and access as well as next steps for policy

Advancing Racial Equity in Emergency Rental Assistance Programs

The NYU Furman Center, together with the Housing Initiative at Penn and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, recently co-authored a report describing these "first-generation" COVID rental assistance programs, based on a survey of 220 programs across the country. This brief draws upon the analysis from that survey, along with additional document review and interviews with selected program administrators. Based on these sources, the brief highlights several lessons about strategies states and localities can use to design and implement more equitable emergency rental assistance programs