IPRNews-Fall 2008-Rebuilding America's Housing Policies

Rebuilding America's Housing Policies
IPR fellow leads MacArthur planning group for research on housing and families

Fall, 2008, Volume 30, Number 2


Members of the MacArthur planning group review plans for launching a major study on housing effects on families.

Many American neighborhoods continue to display evidence of the nation’s ongoing housing crisis—an abundance of for-sale and foreclosure signs. Yet these signs also point to another equally grave crisis—the lack of a coherent national housing policy, in particular for the nation’s poor.

“The current crisis has had an impact on many Americans, but those hardest hit are America’s low-income families and their children,” said IPR Faculty Fellow Thomas D. Cook, a social psychologist. “Housing policy in America has reached a crossroads, and fresh ideas are needed.”

Supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Cook has put together an interdisciplinary team comprising some of the nation’s top researchers in housing, poverty, and child development, including IPR sociologist Mary Pattillo. They will spend 18 months designing a major new longitudinal study on housing and families. If successful, the group will evolve into a new MacArthur research network that will carry out the study.

According to Cook, past housing policy has relied on a patchwork of studies where success was often measured by the number of bricks laid, the amount of mortar poured, or the number of apartments built. Past studies of housing effects have also been mainly one-dimensional, for example, assessing children in a sole area like cognitive performance or mental or physical health. The proposed study will take a broader, multidimensional perspective of how housing and the surrounding social, institutional, and family environment can affect a child’s health, education, behavior, and—most importantly—his or her life outcome.

“We hope this study will serve as the basis for a coherent, long-term federal housing policy,” Cook said, “one that will prove its worth by helping children to become productive members of society and successful parents, enabling them to bypass the all-too-frequent pitfalls of America’s disadvantaged youth—from going on welfare to becoming teenage parents or going to jail.

MacArthur Planning Group on Housing and Families with Children
Thomas D. Cook, Chair Joan and Sarepta Harrison Chair in Ethics and Justice and Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University. Research on randomized experiments and contexts of poverty and child development; Moving to Opportunity technical adviser.		Sandra Newman Professor of Policy Studies and Director, Institute for Policy Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Research on housing affordability and the role of housing in the lives of children, families, and people with disabilities.
Greg Duncan Distinguished Professor of Education, University of California, Irvine. Research on the Gautreaux program, Moving to Opportunity experiment, and Milwaukee’s New Hope Project.		Mary Pattillo Professor of Sociology and Faculty Associate, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University. Ethnographic research on housing and neighborhoods, particularly African American neighborhoods.
Kathryn Edin Professor of Public Policy and Management, Kennedy School, Harvard University. Research on how poor families with children adapt to the limitations in their physical and social environments.		Stephen Raudenbush Lewis-Sebring Professor, Department of Sociology and Chair, Committee on Education, University of Chicago. Research on the effects of neighborhoods and schools on families and children.
Jens Ludwig McCormick Tribune Professor of Social Service, Law, and Public Policy, Harris School, University of Chicago. Research on housing policy and the Moving to Opportunity experiment.		Cybele Raver Associate Professor of Applied Psychology and Director, Institute of Human Development and Social Change, New York University. Research on welfare reform and early childhood interventions.

Rebuilding America's Housing Policies IPR fellow leads MacArthur planning group for research on housing and families

Fall, 2008, Volume 30, Number 2

Rebuilding America's Housing Policies
IPR fellow leads MacArthur planning group for research on housing and families