Brett Theodos

Vulnerable people, precarious housing, and regional resilience: an exploratory analysis

This article has two purposes. First, it explores the ideas of vulnerability, precariousness, and resilience as they apply to people, housing, neighborhoods, and metropolitan areas. People might be more vulnerable to shocks or strains, we propose, if they are members of racial/ethnic minorities, recent immigrants, non-high school graduates, are children or over 75 years old, disabled, recent veterans, living in poverty, or living in single-parent households. Housing may be more precarious, we propose, when it is rented, multi-family, manufactured, crowded, or subject to overpayment. The article goes on to document the relationships between potential personal or household vulnerability and potentially precarious housing conditions. Microdata from the 2005–2007 American Community Survey suggest that an important minority of people have multiple vulnerabilities; these vulnerabilities associate with residence in precarious housing. We suggest that policy be directed toward precarious situations most likely to afflict the most vulnerable populations, especially single-parent households and immigrants.

Why High-Poverty Neighborhoods Persist The Role of Precarious Housing

Why do we see persistence, recurrence, and new emergence of concentrated poverty in U.S. cities? In this article, we explore an understudied connection: whether an important part of the built environment—a series of attributes that constitute precarious housing—constitutes a durable substrate on which concentrated poverty predictably emerges and recurs and if so, how this might vary across the United States. Poverty grew fastest between 2000 and 2005–2009 in tracts that began the decade with high levels of rented one- to four-family housing, multifamily housing, housing between 20 and 25 years old, and households paying over 30% of their income for housing costs. In addition, poverty grew fastest in tracts with high percentages of black or Hispanic households in 2000.

Federally Sponsored Local Economic and Community Development: A Look at HUD's Section 108 Program

The Section 108 program operates the loan guarantee portion of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. Specifically, Section 108 allows CDBG grantees to transform a portion of their CDBG funds into federally guaranteed loans large enough to pursue physical and economic revitalization projects that can renew entire neighborhoods. This article presents findings from an analysis of Section 108 projects funded in fiscal years 2002–2007, including financing details, funded activities, and project outcomes. The study is designed to answer the following three core issues: (1) What types of projects are being funded, and what is the nature of those projects? (2) How are Section 108 projects funded, and how are they repaid? (3) What outcomes did the investments produce? In sum, the study team found that Section 108 is an important tool for community development because it allows jurisdictions to pursue larger projects with outcomes that cannot be funded through annual CDBG grants; yet, the complexity and size of Section 108 projects mean that local capacity and support are vital to the successful planning and completion of these projects.