OUP - Abstract

Explaining Racial Differences in Housing Choice Voucher Wait Times

Dissertation School: Northeastern University

Abstract:

My research seeks to illuminate the connection between race, location, and policy to explain and quantify the differences in the outcomes for Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) applicants. While the vast majority of research on vouchers and race has focused on either differences in locational outcomes or the "success rates" of groups attempting to utilize a voucher, comparatively little research has been done on outcomes prior to receiving a voucher. Studies on locational attainment and success rates are important; however, success or failure in using a voucher only captures a small part of an interrelated temporal process that includes application, voucher issuance, and, if successful, length of stay in program. Although all parts of the process are conceptually distinct, the outcomes at each stage converge into a single measurable effect: applicant wait time. Consequently, applicant wait time serves as a focal point for this research. Thus, observed racial disparities in average wait time among voucher applicants are explained though the critical intersections among local application rates, wait line dropout, success rates, and attrition.

This research combines the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) regional application data with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) leasing data, in order to form a complete picture of voucher applicant outcomes across the entire state. While several variations of housing vouchers exist, this research concerns the most common type, tenant-based rental vouchers from the "regular" program. While the nine DHCD regions distribute only 25 percent of these vouchers (Public Housing Authorities distribute the rest), they receive a much higher percentage of the state's total applicants. Analyzing the DHCD applicant data and regional wait queue characteristics provides a striking example of how the creation of independent waiting lists based on geographic boundaries can lead to racial and ethnic disparity in average wait time, despite a voucher allocation scheme primarily based upon standard measures of need. Such disparities result, not from wait time differences within regions, but between regions. The purpose of my research is to discover whether the observed race-related wait time disparity in Massachusetts is an aberration or a predictable result given underlying factors related to race, poverty, and residential distribution patterns.

In order to fully capture the complex relationship among race, location, and wait time, individual and neighborhood-level factors are used to explain race related differences in applications, wait list dropout, success rates, and program attrition. Statistical models depend on Hieratical Linear Modeling (HLM) to adequately deal with the interactions between race and neighborhood as well as regression techniques to account for spatial dependence. A strong emphasis is placed on untangling the effects of applicants' race in relation to the racial/ethnic makeup of their surrounding community and other "neighborhood effects."

As the length of HCV waiting times has grown, the need for research regarding how the distribution of wait times impacts groups of interest is growing as well. Wait times in the HCV program surpass a decade in some areas (Coddington & Pelletiere 2004), but constitute only a few months in others. By discussing voucher wait time as the product of multiple forces, I will address the disturbing reality that it may not be possible to bring additional racial parity to wait times without adversely affecting other, equally valid, measures of racial/ethnic equality. If this is true, the reasons lie more in the underlying racial stratification of our society rather than any specific housing policies or voucher distribution formulas.

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