Housing

  • Matthew Desmond
  • Rebecca Diamond

Leaders: Matthew Desmond, Rebecca Diamond

The Housing RG is tasked with exploring the the inner workings of disadvantaged neighborhoods and the low-cost housing market, with a focus on (a) the relationship between housing, employment, and poverty, (b) the causes, dynamics, and consequences of eviction, and (c) the effectiveness of housing vouchers and other housing programs. A sampling of our ongoing projects follows.

Evictions and poverty: Are evictions an important cause of deep and extreme poverty? In collaboration with Raj Chetty, Matt Desmond is starting a project on the long-term consequences of eviction that will reveal the extent to which deep and extreme poverty can be reduced with a “housing first” policy that ramps up federal housing programs.

Housing voucher policy: The U.S. currently spends approximately $20 billion per year on subsidized housing vouchers, but 80 percent of these vouchers are used in moderate- or high-poverty neighborhoods, where opportunities for upward mobility are typically limited. Can voucher policies be recast to increase the number of families moving to “high opportunity” neighborhoods?

CPI Collaborators

Matt Desmond's picture Matt Desmond Housing Research Group Leader; Professor of Sociology
Princeton University
Rebecca Diamond's picture Rebecca Diamond Associate Professor of Economics; Housing Research Group Leader, Assistant Professor of Economics
Stanford University
Lisa Gennetian's picture Lisa Gennetian Research Professor, Institute for Human Development and Social Change; Director, the beELL initiative
, Director, Poverty and Economic Self-Sufficiency, National Center for Research on Hispanic Families and Children; Senior Researcher, National Bureau of Economic Research
New York University
Robert Haveman's picture Robert Haveman Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs and Economics, Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Research on Poverty
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jackelyn Hwang Assistant Professor of Sociology
Stanford University

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