Study Examines Geographic Mobility in Housing Choice Voucher Program

A report published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, “You Can’t Get There from Here: Mobility Networks and the Housing Choice Voucher Program,” examines how administrative boundaries and historical patterns of segregation impact housing mobility for Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) households. The author, Philip Garboden, finds that public housing agency (PHA) boundaries and patterns of racial and economic segregation have a significant influence over where voucher families move. A lack of available housing in suburban counties, voucher households’ reliance on existing support systems, and difficulties associated with transferring between PHAs may all play a role in shaping the location decisions of voucher households.

Garboden analyzed HUD administrative data on all HCV household moves between 1994 and 2015 for the Baltimore, MD, Dallas, TX, and Cleveland, OH metropolitan areas to identify clusters of census tracts that voucher families were more likely to move within than between. He termed these clusters of census tracts “mobility clusters.” Garboden further characterized these mobility clusters by joining them to spatial data on administrative and jurisdictional boundaries, as well as social and economic indicators.

It can be difficult for families to port their vouchers across PHAs, and the study found administrative boundaries clearly influence mobility clusters. In Baltimore, for example, nearly all mobility clusters fell within the administrative boundaries of PHAs. The largest PHA in Baltimore was in the central city, away from the lower-poverty neighborhoods and better funded schools of the suburbs, leading a large share of voucher families in the Baltimore area to cluster in poorer, more segregated communities in the inner city. PHA administrative boundaries shaped mobility clusters in the Cleveland metropolitan area as well, though these boundaries included lower poverty areas.

Mobility clusters reflected patterns of racial and economic segregation in all three metro areas. Fifty-eight percent of all moves in Cleveland occurred in the two most segregated clusters, for example, while 19% of moves in Dallas occurred in the most segregated cluster in terms of poverty. Garboden points to preexisting ties to the community and limited information as potential factors in the perpetuation of mobility clusters along racial and economic lines. Relocating away from family members can result in the loss of important informal supports such as transportation and childcare. At the same time, families tend to search for housing in neighborhoods with which they are already familiar or learn about through social connections.

Voucher reforms have recently focused on small area fair market rents (SAFMRs) and source of income protection laws to promote mobility. The author concludes that the challenges presented by administrative boundaries and the factors underlying clustering along racial and economic lines require additional policy interventions. Mobility across PHA boundaries could be improved through interventions ranging from regional administration of vouchers by cooperating local PHAs to regional PHA consolidation. Mobility counseling with robust housing search assistance may help families move outside of established mobility clusters, and potentially into lower poverty and less segregated neighborhoods.

Read the article at: https://bit.ly/3vUrjjU