Jenna Hampton, Graduate Student at Washington University in St. Louis & Practicum Student with the Social Policy Institute
Despite its name, the Housing Choice Voucher (or Section 8) program does not always offer families much choice in where to live. Research from Opportunity Insights found that out of the 2.2 million households who receive vouchers, the majority live in high-poverty neighborhoods. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains that families with vouchers are often unable to access low-poverty, high-opportunity neighborhoods due to a number of barriers, including:
Lack of support services from public housing agencies
Shortage of information on available housing options for voucher-holders
Landlords who are unfamiliar with the Housing Choice Voucher program
Outright discrimination is also a barrier. In St. Louis City, a “Source of Income” law prevents landlords from refusing to rent to someone due to their use of a housing voucher. Still, the Metro St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council (EHOC) identified over 100 rental ads in St. Louis indicating that a landlord would not rent to anyone using a voucher. Last October, a local news story reported an instance in which a Central West End landlord turned down a woman named Phoenix after learning about her source of rental income. Phoenix reflected,
“It made me feel very belittled as well, like I wasn’t equal. There was no sense of equity in the situation at all.”
Housing mobility programs are gaining traction around the U.S. as a potential solution to these barriers. The 25 public housing agencies (PHAs) that currently manage housing mobility programs provide counseling, landlord outreach, and administrative support to help families access housing units in a broader range of neighborhoods.
This summer, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) opened an application for the Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration. Congress authorized $50 million to support new housing mobility programs around the country as part of the demonstration. PHAs that participate in the demonstration will test a variety of support services and outreach strategies to identify which elements of housing mobility programs are most effective.
Ascend STL Inc manages the only housing mobility program in St. Louis. In 2017, Ascend partnered with the St. Louis City and County housing authorities to create the Mobility Connection program*, which “provides families with opportunities and resources to connect with quality housing in communities of their choice.”
Ascend helps families with Housing Choice Vouchers move to high-opportunity areas (HOA) in the St. Louis region—defined as having a poverty rate and concentration of subsidized housing at or below 10%. The image below shows Ascend’s map of HOAs as of 2018.
Source: Ascend STL, Inc. 2018 Annual Report
Last year, as part of an evaluation by the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis, I surveyed 20 Mobility Connection participants about their experiences. Though one might think that economic concerns would be the primary motivation for moving to a HOA, our survey found that most participants were motivated to move by factors related to the safety and general well-being of their families. These included a desire for lower crime rates (95%), better housing (90%) and school quality (80%), and more amenities such as grocery stores and parks in their neighborhoods (75%). One parent explained her motivation for moving as:
“You want your children to feel safe, you want them to have a good education, you want them to be successful in life. One of my main reasons for wanting to relocate in a better neighborhood is my children more so than myself.”
While it is not practical to move every low-income family in St. Louis to HOAs, mobility programs offer families an opportunity to proactively choose their neighborhoods. Many families do not want to let their children’s futures hang in the balance as they wait for the promised “someday” of community improvements. Another parent from my survey explained her sense of urgency for moving out of her old neighborhood:
“My house was broken into and then my car was broken into… there was a shooting up the street from the house, so I just didn’t feel safe… I don’t feel safe with [my son] being home by himself in that neighborhood.”
Every family deserves to feel safe and happy in their neighborhood. Housing mobility programs like Mobility Connection help put the choice back into the Housing Choice Voucher program. Landlords and developers are a critical piece of that change. When community developers focus solely on place-based development, they miss an opportunity to promote equity through mobility-based strategies.
As the housing and community development field works together to create safe, high-opportunity neighborhoods throughout St. Louis, we should also expand the choices available to families who want the best for themselves and their children. Here are some actions we can take together to strengthen housing mobility in our region:
Develop better enforcement mechanisms to monitor Source of Income discrimination
Encourage more landlords to participate in Mobility Connection and to accept Housing Choice Vouchers in general
Re-evaluate zoning laws that prevent multi-family developments in HOAs (families with vouchers cannot access HOAs if there are not enough units in their price range)
Make HOAs more welcoming for low-income families who move there by encouraging more service providers to open offices in the area, working with schools on anti-bias trainings, etc.
Communicate with families who use Housing Choice Vouchers to learn more about their motivations, their hopes, their frustrations, and how we can help
* The original Mobility Connection program officially ended in March of this year. However, MDRC and Opportunity Insights will help Ascend re-launch the program as part of a broader study on housing mobility programs.
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Jenna Hampton is a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. In December 2020, she will complete her Master of Social Work and Master of Social Policy degrees. In addition to classes, Jenna works part-time for the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) and is a practicum student for the Social Policy Institute (SPI). While in St. Louis, Jenna has been an active member of CBN’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund Coalition (AHTFC). Originally from Oklahoma City, she became passionate about public and affordable housing policy when she worked as an intern for the Waco Housing Authority in Waco, Texas. Jenna hopes to continue working in the housing and community development field following her upcoming graduation. She believes that quality, affordable housing is a foundational need that should be guaranteed for all.
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Articles in “From the Field” represent the opinions of the author only and do not represent the views of the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis or the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.
