HUD Releases 3-Year Follow-Up Report for The Housing and Children’s Healthy Development Study

By Julie Walker, NLIHC Program Manager, Opportunity Starts at Home

On July 16, HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) released a "The Housing and Children's Healthy Development Study 3-year Follow-up Report" for the Housing and Children's Healthy Development (HCHD) study. Serving as a companion to the original Baseline Report, the report conveys findings from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) investigating the impacts of housing choice vouchers (HCVs) on children’s healthy development, and possible ways that voucher access might affect child and family outcomes. The report finds strong evidence that voucher access is associated with improvements in housing conditions, housing affordability, neighborhood safety, and reduced parental stress and hypertension among primary caregivers.  

Using random assignments within the HCV program at two Public Housing Authorities (PHAs), the study analyzed survey data from a sample of 895 families with 1,231 children in Cleveland, Ohio, and Dallas, Texas. The University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center (SRC) conducted the survey, with baseline data collected in person in 2017 and 2018 and follow-up data collected by phone in 2020 and 2021. The baseline sample included 461 households that received vouchers and 434 that did not, and researchers gathered data about 1-2 children in the home. The follow-up survey reached 86% of the baseline sample and gathered data about primary caregivers and children.   

The report finds that voucher access improved housing affordability, household financial stability, housing and neighborhood conditions, and the physical and mental health of family members. The 3-year follow-up data suggest that the effect of vouchers on family stress may be an important mechanism impacting health and wellbeing, with the lowest levels of financial stress associated with paying about 30% of income toward rent.   

The study also found that each additional month of leasing a unit with a voucher was associated with increased positive outcomes. Along with increased affordability and decreased likelihood of missed rent payments, an additional month of lease-up was associated with a decreased likelihood of having a hypertension diagnosis, increased feelings of neighborhood safety, and decreased levels of parenting stress. 

The study’s research team is currently seeking funding for a third wave of data collection to examine longer-term impacts on physical health, cognitive development, and socioemotional adjustment of participating families and their children. The report’s authors emphasize that the COVID-19 pandemic confounded results of the 3-year follow-up survey, and an additional round of data collection under different circumstances is necessary to understand the real potential of the HCHD study.   

Read the report.   

To learn more about the connections between housing and child wellbeing, read the OSAH fact sheet.