Shomon Shamsuddin

All Mixed Up: Making Sense of Mixed-Income Housing Developments

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Mixed-income housing is a popular strategy used by planners, developers, and government agencies to simultaneously revitalize blighted urban neighborhoods and preserve affordable housing for low-income residents. Yet the term “mixed income” is not consistently defined, so there is no clear understanding of what mixed-income housing is, what characterizes it, and how mixed-income projects differ from one another. Planners and policymakers are making important decisions about whether and how to pursue this urban redevelopment strategy without knowing the kinds of housing mixes available. We construct a data set of all 260 HOPE VI mixed-income redevelopment projects, analyze grant announcements, and obtain internal records from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Using the data, we conduct a descriptive analysis of income mixes across projects. Based on this analysis and previous studies of income mixing, we develop a framework for categorizing key aspects of mixed-income housing. We identify four key dimensions for distinguishing current and future approaches to mixed-income housing: allocation, the proportion and range of incomes included in projects; proximity, the spatial scale at which income mixing is intended; tenure, the balance between rental housing and homeownership units; and duration, the amount of time projects remain mixed income based on funding restrictions. Planners can influence the nature of mixed-income housing projects by making choices about the range of options offered within these dimensions. We show that HOPE VI developments vary dramatically across all of them. We also highlight additional characteristics that may affect the broader community: rate of resident return, development size, building type, neighborhood characteristics, and race and ethnicity. Takeaway for practice: Planners need to understand the four dimensions to clarify the tradeoffs involved in decisions about mixed-income housing projects. Ultimately, this can help planners better design and plan projects that balance social goals and local conditions.

Hoping for more: redeveloping U.S. public housing without marginalizing low-income residents?

Abstract Urban restructuring policies have uprooted residents and dismantled communities. Previous studies focus on housing redevelopment that minimizes the fraction of housing units left for poor residents and on interviewing residents only once the redevelopment has been announced. By contrast, this paper examines how residents over time experienced the HOPE VI redevelopment of the Orchard Park public housing project in Boston, which sought to preserve a low-income community. Using official records and a unique set of interviews with residents before and after redevelopment, we find marked declines in crime and increased residential satisfaction, which are attributed to changes in tenant composition. The redevelopment process reduced the total number of public housing units yet maintained the vast majority of housing for poor families while creating a new social mix. The findings suggest that to more fully capture the impacts of restructuring, existing theory must be expanded to consider who is displaced and how poverty is deconcentrated.

Lease it or lose it? The implications of New York’s Land Lease Initiative for public housing preservation:

Urban scholars frequently call for equitable and inclusive growth to create more just cities but this vision has proven elusive in urban development – especially involving low-income communities and affordable housing. In 2013, the New York City Housing Authority proposed to leverage private development to benefit low-income residents by supporting market-rate residential construction on open space in public housing sites to pay for needed improvements to subsidised units. The Land Lease Initiative was a seemingly win-win plan but quickly faced backlash from multiple quarters. Using interviews with key housing authority officials and analysis of plan documents and media coverage, we show how the content and framing of the plan stoked fears of displacement, despite stated intentions. Our analysis reveals that criticism overlooked four unconventional ideas for preserving public housing, which are embedded in the plan: (1) retaining all public housing units and high-rise public housing towers on site, as opposed to demolishing them; (2) deconcentrating poverty by increasing residential density, instead of displacing poor residents; (3) adding affordable housing units to the site of low-income public housing; and (4) creating mixed-income communities around buildings, in addition to within them. The findings suggest that the future of affordable housing in the neoliberal era involves blurring the line between preservation and privatisation.

Broken Promises or Selective Memory Planning? A National Picture of HOPE VI Plans and Realities

Abstract Government efforts to redevelop public housing often face a contentious gap between plans and realities. This paper compares 2014 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) administrative data on housing unit counts and unit mixes for all 260 developments receiving Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) revitalization grants with data provided in the original HOPE VI grant award announcements. We find that HUD records undercount approximately 11,500 once-proposed units. The biggest changes were a 29% decline in the number of market-rate units and a 40% decline in homeownership units. The chief shortfall during implementation, therefore, was not with public housing units (although the HOPE VI program as a whole did trigger an overall decline of such units). To help elucidate the dynamics at play when the unit allocation shifts between initial grant award and implemented project, we include a series of five brief case studies that illustrate several types of unit change. Interviews with HUD staff confirm the baseline for record-keeping shifted during implementation once project economic feasibility became clearer; adherence to original unit mix proposals remained secondary. HUD prioritized its accountability to Congress and developers over its public law accountability to build the projects initially proposed to local community residents. Although these changes have sometimes been interpreted as broken promises, it is even clearer that HUD’s monitoring system exemplifies what we call Selective Memory Planning: when planners and policy makers, willfully or not, selectively ignore elements of previous plans in favor of new plans that are easier to achieve.

The Built Environment and Walking to School: Findings from a Student Travel Behavior Survey in Massachusetts

Thousands of communities across America now promote walking and biking (active commuting) to school as a mechanism to increase physical activity, reduce traffic congestion, and improve air quality. Distance to school and attributes of the built environment are crucial factors in a child’s mode choice, and some of the most difficult determinants to influence with programmatic interventions. Further understanding the built environment’s role may help in assessing a school’s mode shift potential and more effectively planning and implementing strategies that increase walking and biking to school. Based on a student travel behavior survey of 18,713 responses from 105 schools in Massachusetts, a multilevel model was used to investigate the effects of route, neighborhood, and school characteristics on walking to school. The model results indicate that the built environment affects the odds of walking to school. Specifically, short routes along less-trafficked streets with mixed land use are associated with the increased odds of children walking to school. Investigating these built environment characteristics of the route, neighborhood, and school through a multilevel model, the study created a framework for examining between-school differences in walk-to-school rates, while controlling for built environment factors of the school and student body. A potential application for this work is to compare walk-to-school rates across heterogeneous schools and contextualize schools’ baseline walk share, set appropriate and measurable mode shift goals, and track their progress over time.

Holding on to HOPE: Assessing Redevelopment of Boston’s Orchard Park Public Housing Project

Abstract Purpose This chapter addresses the related questions of how to assess housing redevelopment and what constitutes a successful redevelopment project, based on the HOPE VI transformation of Boston’s Orchard Park from one of the city’s most notorious, crime-ridden public housing projects into a mixed-income community that remained overwhelmingly composed of low-income residents. Methodology/approach The analysis is based on a unique set of interviews with a sample of residents before and after housing redevelopment occurred. In addition, we draw upon interviews with housing authority staff, official agency file documents, and archival materials. Findings We find increased residential satisfaction after redevelopment but lingering concerns about safety and security despite marked declines in crime. Although the redevelopment process displaced some households, residents attributed improvements in living conditions to changes in tenant composition prompted by the housing transformation. Social implications The results suggest an alternative model of public housing redevelopment that accommodates a majority of poor, subsidized households with some displacement. Still, loss of housing units, tenant selection, and social problems complicate notions of successful redevelopment. Originality/value This chapter contributes to the literature by showing how some low-income families may benefit from housing displacement induced by the redevelopment process. We analyze an overlooked but frequently implemented approach to housing redevelopment under the HOPE VI program to keep the majority of redeveloped units for low-income residents. It is the only study of which we are aware that has collected public housing resident opinions both before and after HOPE VI redevelopment occurred.