A recent study by the Urban Institute and Emory University finds that public housing transformation in two cities had overall a positive impact on the cities’ crime rates. The study, Public Housing Transformation and Crime: Making the Case for Responsible Relocation, probes the nexus between the relocation of public housing residents into private-market housing with housing choice vouchers and the change in crime rates in both original and destination neighborhoods in Chicago and Atlanta between 2000 and 2009. The study’s authors note the Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA’s) and Atlanta Housing Authority’s (AHA’s) “efforts generated positive effects in some places and negative effects in others.”

The researchers conclude that, overall, a significant portion of neighborhoods in both cities were able to assimilate relocated households from public housing without any unfavorable impact on destination neighborhood conditions.

Controlling for other factors affecting the crime rate, in Chicago citywide, demolishing public housing and relocating households is associated, on average, with a 1% decrease in violent crime rate, which the authors call “a small but significant net decrease.” Demolition and relocation are also associated with a 4.4% decline in gun related crime and 0.3% increase in property crime, on average. In Atlanta, public housing transformation has resulted in a 0.5% decline in property crime rate and 0.7% net decrease in violent crime rate citywide.

However, at a neighborhood level, tearing down public housing appears to have a much bigger effect on the crime rate than at a citywide level. According to the report, between 2000 and 2008 in the Chicago neighborhoods where public housing was demolished, gun crime, violent crime and property  crime declined by 70%, 60% and 49% respectively. Similarly, in Atlanta between 2002 and 2009, public housing demolition at a neighborhood level is associated, on average, with 13% decline in violent crime and 9% decrease in property crime.

For some destination neighborhoods, however, the study finds a negative relationship between relocation of public housing households and neighborhoods crime rate, which was also found by the study’s authors to correspond with the density of relocated households in the neighborhood. For instance, in Chicago, a neighborhood with more than two to six relocated households per 1000 families had a 5% higher violent crime rate than a similar neighborhood without relocated households. Also, in both cities, a high-density area with more than 14 relocated public housing households per 1000 households has a 21% higher violent crime rate than a similar neighborhood without relocated public housing residents.

Comparison of the impact of pre-existing Housing Choice Voucher households in destination neighborhoods with public housing transplants is probed by the authors, but the issue remains unsettled. “This research raises many questions, most notably why the presence of even relatively small clusters of relocated households in the destination neighborhoods is associated with statistically significant differences in crime rates during that quarter, on average, compared to tracts without any relocation voucher holders, while the presence of traditional voucher holders seems to have little to no impact,” the authors say.

Also, the paper notes that in both cities the percentage of these moderate- or high-density tracts associated with higher crime rates vary throughout the study period. For example, in Atlanta, for most of the study period, only 13% of the census tracts had a moderate or high concentration of relocated households. Moreover, most of these moderate- or high-concentration areas already had a higher crime and poverty rate even before the arrival of public housing relocation households.

The researchers recommend “responsible relocation strategies” in future public housing redevelopment, which they say includes real housing choice and support during and after relocation.

Click here for the full study, Public Housing Transformation and Crime: Making the Case for Responsible Relocation, at the Urban Institute website.