Tracking mobility in the housing choice voucher program: a household level examination in Florida,USA

Previous research on the housing choice voucher (HCV) program has focused on neighbourhoods where voucher holders reside at one point of time. Little is known about mobility of voucher households during their tenure in the program. Using an administrative dataset that spans 11 years for the state of Florida, this study evaluates how often voucher households move and their mobility outcomes, measured by the change of neighbourhood poverty. Findings reveal that HCV households moved frequently beginning in the early years of program participation. Between 2007 and 2013 there was a notable decrease of voucher presence in high-poverty areas. Regression analysis further suggests that rental housing market conditions are significantly associated with mobility outcomes. White, non-Hispanic households and those with higher incomes were more likely to move to lower poverty neighbourhoods, whereas disabled and formerly homeless households moved more frequently and were not as successful in accessing lower poverty areas.     

Converting a public housing project into a tenant-managed housing co-operative: A Canadian case study

The conversion of the Alexandra Park public housing project into the Atkinson Housing Co-operative took place from 1992 to 2003. The new co-operative represents an attempt to increase resident participation in the management of their housing community. Although there have been other efforts to increase resident participation, this is the first conversion of its kind in Canada, and as a result a new housing model has been created. This paper discusses this new model, referred to as a hybrid structure that contains elements of the co-operative and public housing models.     

The geographic concentration of housing vouchers,Blacks, and poverty over time: a study of Cincinnati,Ohio, USA

Using data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) concerning Housing Choice Voucher (HCV, formerly called Section 8) recipients, the authors provide a spatial analysis in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. ‘Hot spot’ analysis is utilized to detect areas with significant densities of voucher recipients compared with the surrounding environs. Results show that the implementation of Cincinnati's HCV program between 2000 and 2005 in conjunction with public housing transformation has not led to a greater dispersion of voucher recipients and either poverty or racial deconcentration. Many HCV households remain concentrated in hot spots. The implications for US low-income housing policy are discussed.     

The present and future of income‐related housing support: debates in Britain and the Netherlands

This paper examines income‐related housing support in Britain and the Netherlands. It considers the main issues that are at stake in current policy discussions, compares the arguments that are put forward in the two countries and draw conclusions about the future of income‐related housing support. In both Britain and the Netherlands political discussions about the possible introduction of housing vouchers are observed. The most complicated issues are the poverty trap and unemployment trap, and housing consumption incentives. Moral hazard concerns can result in complicated anti‐fraud measures that may add to the burden of administering income‐related support. It is expected that the way in which income‐related housing support schemes in both countries are designed and administered may come under closer scrutiny. Politicians want these schemes to be in tune with the need for labour and housing market mobility, wage flexibility, and the need to bring the public budget under control.     

‘Between a rock and a hard place’: the failure to agree on regulation for the private rented sector in England

The private rented sector in England presents a number of widely-acknowledged problems for the policy maker including relatively poor property conditions and sometimes low management standards. There are a number of intractable obstacles to dealing with these problems, including an inability to agree on how the sector should be regulated, extreme variation in letting arrangements, a lack of clarity on the relationship between regulation and supply, industry distrust of regulation, and an anti-landlord culture.     

How to determine the financial possibilities of Dutch housing associations

The mission of Dutch housing associations is to helpfulfil the social housing tasks in the Netherlandswithout endangering their financial continuity.Furthermore, any financial resources that they do notneed to secure their financial continuity must be usedin the interest of social housing. Therefore it isimportant to determine the financial scope ofhousing associations. Their financial possibilitiesare dictated largely by the value of their housingstock. The estimated value of the stock, and thereforeof the financial possibilities, is partly determinedby the method that is used to value the housing stock.This paper will focus on the relationship between thefinancial position of the housing associations and thevaluation of their housing stock.     

A typology of clustered housing for older adults towards opportunities for social interaction:A case study of Dutch social housing

Dutch housing associations are dealing with a growing number of tenants who are ageing in place.Meanwhile,there is a lack of suitable housing that meets the(social)needs of this target group.Clustered housing,which offers a socio-spatial context that facilitates en-counters between residents,is considered a promising housing concept to(partly)fill this gap.However,clustered housing is a broad concept consisting of a variety of housing types that differ from each other in the extent to which people\"live together\".Still little is known about which types of clustered housing can be distinguished in relation to the potential for social interaction.Therefore,in this article we distinguish between types of clustered housing based on social,organizational,and spatial building characteristics.We have mapped these charac-teristics by combining real estate data of housing association Woonzorg Nederland with survey data collected among their building managers.Based on this dataset,an explorative cluster analysis was performed,resulting in four types of clustered housing.Finally,further explora-tion of the data shows that,from the perspective of building managers,residents of certain types of clustered housing interact more often and feel more connected with each other than residents of non-clustered housing types.     

Ventilation strategies for urban housing: lessons from a PoE case study

Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery is still not widely used in UK housing, but with insulation and air-tightness standards becoming increasingly strict, it is likely to become more common. Operable windows are almost a given for housing and the UK climate is rarely extreme enough to restrict people's use of those windows for natural ventilation. This is a potential problem for the use of heat-recovery systems and could greatly reduce their energy efficiency. The paper takes the Iroko housing scheme at Coin Street, London, as a post-occupancy evaluation (PoE) case study to investigate the questions raised with respect to how well the occupants of the houses cope with balancing both natural ventilation and mechanical systems to achieve thermal comfort energy efficiently. First, the optimum balance of mechanical and natural ventilation is estimated and used to determine the maximum potential saving it could give when compared with natural ventilation alone. Short-term monitoring of the building in question together with the results of questionnaires showed why this theoretical balance is not achieved and that the energy consumption is likely to be worse than for natural ventilation alone. Noise, perceived control, perceived freshness and misunderstanding are all discussed as possible causes for the apparent disjunction. Misunderstanding on the part of residents was shown to be a critical determinant, so information about the heat recovery system was distributed to the residents and the paper ends by looking at what theoretical energy savings might be made as a result of this act.     

The commodification of land and housing: the case of South Korea

The developmentalist state in South East Asia has played an important role in guiding and promoting economic growth. Although an implicit theme of much of the discourse is the role of the state in controlling the factors of production, this is not located within the decommodification/commodification debate. Proceeding from the premise that underlies much of economic theory, namely that land values at a time reflect the residual (or surplus) of economic activity that requires land as a factor input, the purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which the Korean state has managed the commodification of urban development and the distributional effects of this process. In spite of private land ownership the state has had a major impact on the processes by which land has become commodified, using extensive land expropriation and land‐use planning powers. The Korean state used different strategies to manage trends to commodification at different times: land readjustment projects were used from the 1950s to the 1970s and Public Management Development projects were the main mechanism of urban development from the 1980s. The urban development system was feasible because of the state's extensive control over access to housing finance (decommodified money). In the mid‐1990s there was a shift towards greater private sector involvement in urban development. The distributional effects of the urban development process have been highly inequitable. Subsidised home ownership for middle‐income families has been favoured over provision of public rental housing for low‐income families, driven in major part by cash flow considerations of the developmentalist state. Further, the basis of selecting beneficiaries has been very arbitrary. The system has promoted significant land concentration and land speculation particularly by private companies, including the large chaebol (corporations).     

从公共住房到租金优惠券——美国低收入阶层住房政策演化解析

本文对美国低收入阶层住房政策的演化过程作了介绍 ,分析了其中三种典型住房政策的实施效果。在把握我国国情的基础上 ,借鉴美国住房政策演化过程的经验教训 ,为建立我国弱势人群住房政策提出了建议。     

Patterns of exits from housing in a homelessness system of care: the case of Calgary,Alberta

Public officials around the world seek to target subsidized housing as purposely and efficiently as possible. With limited availability of subsidized housing, it is helpful to know which household types require specific types of housing support and for how long. With this in mind, we undertake survival analysis and hazard models on clients placed into housing funded by the Calgary Homeless Foundation (CHF) to characterize patterns of exit from Calgary’s homeless system of care. To do this, we use data from Calgary’s Homelessness Management Information System from 1 April 2012 until 31 March 2015. We find singles without dependents to require housing support for the longest period of time, while families require the support for the least amount of time. One important finding is that women require housing support for longer periods of time than men (even though we control for employment and income).     

Journey to Home: development of a conceptual model to describe Veterans' experiences with resolving housing instability

Abstract

Recent research has focused on risk factors for Veteran housing instability and programmatic responses. However, little is known about Veterans’ experiences of becoming unstably housed and navigating available resources to resolve housing crises. This qualitative paper, based on open-ended interviews with Veterans (n?=?60), presents the Journey to Home conceptual model, which offers a framework for understanding Veterans’ journeys through housing instability, including the factors that contribute to vulnerability, the range of housing conditions that Veterans describe as inadequate, how Veterans connect to assistance through VA and community providers, and barriers and facilitators to connecting with and using available assistance, resulting in either continued housing instability or successful housing outcomes. Ongoing efforts to end Veteran homelessness should prioritize strategies that respond to complex vulnerabilities.     

On the margins of urban Europe: housing policies in a secondary city (Cluj,Romania)

This paper discusses recent housing developments in Cluj, a secondary city in Romania. The city is at a point in its development where it is being affected by forces initiated by Romania's accession to the EU. While new housing provision is largely dominated by the private sector, public housing policies are also taking advantage of the new opportunities provided by membership of the EU.     

Emergency housing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: an assessment of the FEMA travel trailer program

Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005. More than 1800 persons died, and the disaster stands as the costliest in U.S. history. Over 200,000 former residents of New Orleans continue to reside elsewhere. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) emergency housing program, and specifically the design, manufacture, and deployment of its travel trailer housing units, remain the subject of controversy. The FEMA travel trailer program is critiqued, as is recent empirical evidence on the deleterious health outcomes experienced by many trailer occupants. The results of a pilot investigation are reported, whereby the post-occupancy assessments of a group of occupants of single-site FEMA trailer installations were compared to a group residing in two FEMA trailer park communities in New Orleans. Among the findings, the travel trailer unit was assessed by occupants as difficult to personalize to occupants’ preferred patterns of use, inadequate in size, affording few site amenities, and little overall privacy, and the unit itself functioned as a source of chronic environmental stress. The findings are translated into a theoretical/operative model of person-environment interactions, to assist in further research on this subject.

How knowledge and political ideology affects rental housing policy in Ontario,Canada: application of a knowledge paradigms framework of policy change

A case study of the Tenant Protection Act in Ontario, Canada is presented. A Conservative government elected in 1995 introduced an Act to deregulate rents and amend the Ontario Human Rights Code to allow use of income criteria to screen potential tenants. Document review and in‐depth interviews with tenant advocates were applied to understand how tenant advocates in Toronto used knowledge and other strategies to influence the legislation in the context of a new framework of policy change. The findings revealed that while different forms of knowledge, scientific, anecdotal and critical, had some influence on the process, the political ideology of the government played a significant role in determining the influence of opponents to legislation. The research concludes that while the neo‐liberal political ideology of the government did not consistently influence policy making in all areas, housing policy was particularly sensitive to political ideology. While the views of tenants did not influence the Conservative government, they did influence the policies of the Opposition parties that called for the restoration of social housing and rent control. On 2 October 2003, an Opposition party supporting these positions was elected in the Ontario general election.     

Barchester Low Rise: a case study of a management contract for remedial work to a large housing scheme

A case study of substantial remedial work to 580 dwellings was undertaken. Certain provisions and consequences had to be taken into account. These included: uncertainty of the extent of the defects, it was essential to remedy with tenants in occupation; a pilot contract approach taking 37 dwellings of different types and situations in order to identgy the extent of the defects; test buildability of design solution; monitoring of costs; refining design accordingly; monitoring costs to establish productivity on a full production run; the need for a management contract to ensure that the objectives of the pilot project were carried out; selection of a management contractor in competition; preparation of tender documents; evaluation of contractors’ submissions; appointment of a management contractor; monitoring the pilot contract; measuring performance arising from revisions to design and familiarity with the work; innovative use of temporary shelters over dwellings; feasibility studies on optimum annual spend on the main contract; negotiation of main contract on a management basis; main contract documentation; post-contract cost control against target and in relation to resources used; review meetings; risk analysis.     

The dynamics of decentralisation: A case study of the South Australian Housing Trust

Abstract

This paper explores recent organisational changes within the South Australian Housing Trust, focusing specifically on the decentralisation of the authority structure and the reasons behind this change. It was originally hypothesised that decentralisation was a response to the Housing Trust's changed circumstances, but it was discovered that a change in management styles was also an important causal factor.     

Housing design in relation to environmental comfort — a comparison of the traditional Malay house and modern housing

The changing needs of the Malaysian population mean that there is an urgent necessity for designers to acquire a better understanding of the relationships between climate, building and man. Dr Hanafi outlines some of the choices with diagramatic sketches and makes comparisons between traditional and new forms of construction.     

Building regulations are a barrier to affordable housing in Indian cities: the case of Ahmedabad

Cities in developing countries seldom consider the cost increases that regulations impose on development. To build legal housing, developers must meet a high minimum cost threshold established by mandatory standards. Many standards impose costs on building construction, make them less affordable to low-income households, deprive them access to legally built housing, and fuel the formation of slums. This study analyses the impact of relaxing a few mandatory building and site planning regulations on the cost of small two-room homes in Ahmedabad by developing two alternative layouts for the same site, one in accordance with prevalent regulations, and another after modifying a few regulations. It shows that rationalizing regulations can reduce housing cost by 34% and increase supply by as much as 75% without significantly lowering quality or compromising safety. It also shows that for a large portion of poor households, the costs imposed by mandatory standards are not trivial and have a high impact on the affordability of legally built housing. It recommends that if municipal authorities are interested in tackling the rapid growth of slums by expanding the supply of affordable housing, they should critically examine their building regulations and modify them to address the housing needs of their low-income residents.     

Developing an integrated water management strategy to overcome conflicts between urban growth, water infrastructure and environmental quality: a case study from Ashford, Kent

Ashford, in East Kent, is a government‐designated growth area. Between 2001 and 2031, the town is set to grow by 31 000 homes and 28 000 jobs, almost doubling in size. This raises numerous concerns about the ability of the local water infrastructure and Kentish Stour catchment to accept this pressure in the short and long term. The Ashford integrated water management study (AIWMS) set out to address all the issues around water quality, water resources, biodiversity and flood risk to allow Ashford's growth to occur without unacceptable environmental damage. The study reviewed current problems with the water environment, established the key constraints to growth that might arise from the proposed development and identified water management strategies to accommodate Ashford's expansion. The paper reviews the integration methodology that was developed and discusses the lessons learned from the experience.