Reacting to the effects of concentrated poverty in public and assisted housing, Federal policy in the 1990s has increasingly championed mixed-income housing -- even though the concept has not been well defined or rigorously researched. The latest issue of HUD's Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research begins to fill this void with three articles that define and examine mixed-income housing, its characteristics, and its benefits.
Good location and excellent design and management are essential to attracting higher income renters who have several housing choices, according to Paul C. Brophy and Rhonda N. Smith, who studied seven multifamily, mixed-income developments. Beyond that, mixed income succeeds most where enough units are aimed at higher income renters to create a "critical mass" in the community and where the type and quality of the units is the same for all income levels. Having neighbors who are earning a paycheck is not enough to achieve upward mobility for the lowest income tenants, caution Brophy and Smith in "Mixed-Income Housing: Factors for Success." Resources also must be committed to creating education or employment opportunities for these tenants.
Most privately owned, mixed-income rental housing projects subsidized by HUD are not located in high-poverty neighborhoods, report Jill Khadduri and Marge Martin in "Mixed-Income Housing in the HUD Multifamily Stock," which analyzes a new national data set of such projects. Only special market conditions -- such as the presence of upwardly mobile immigrants who are willing to use assisted housing as a starting point -- make mixed-income housing feasible in high-poverty neighborhoods. From their examination of the national data, the researchers also conclude that special incentives for relatively higher income households are not needed to create public housing with a mix of incomes.
Advocacy of mixed-income housing is "based largely on faith and on dissatisfaction with the previous thrust of low-income housing policy," contend Alex Schwartz and Kian Tajbakhsh in "Mixed-Income Housing: Unanswered Questions." Schwartz and Tajbakhsh identify and illustrate four different contexts for achieving mixed-income housing: density bonuses and other land-use regulations, special public housing initiatives, State and local programs, and nonprogrammatic private projects. The effectiveness of any of these types remains open to question, they conclude, because little is understood about either the potential benefits and costs or the necessary preconditions to achieving social goals.
These stimulating discussions of a key housing policy issue are found in the September 1997 issue of Cityscape, which is available from HUD USER for $5. Please use the order form to obtain copies.
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