Doctoral Dissertation Research: Residential Outcomes for Families Receiving Housing Assistance

这项研究集中在当今美国社会面临的一个重要问题上：当经济适用房供不应求时，家庭如何利用有限的经济资源在理想的社区找到并维持合适的住房。这一点很重要，因为人们居住的地方关系到他们的健康、教育和其他结果。然而，在过去的几十年里，由于住房成本的增长远远超过了收入的增长，经济适用房可以说变得越来越难以获得。这个项目测试了一些新兴的理论，这些理论强调家庭寻找新住房的方式不仅对居住结果很重要，而且受到我们居住的地方和我们在那里的经历、我们的社会网络的输入和位置、我们对何时何地搬家的偏好、理想和期望的影响。本研究阐明了过去居住与社会条件、居住偏好、期望和理想（心理社会因素）、住房寻找和当前居住之间的联系。这项工作的发现将有助于扩大获得满足居民需求的住房的决策。本项目考察了住房选择券计划参与者在特定县与儿童一起生活的住宅动态之间的关系。它采用的信息来自50-55个定性深度访谈，来自两个地方公共住房管理局的纵向行政数据，以及来自美国人口普查局和一个地区委员会的地区数据。访谈提供了对户主居住历史、社会网络、居住心理因素、住房搜索过程和居住满意度的深入了解。定量数据根据常用的家庭和社区社会经济背景指标，为评估搬家前后的居住结果提供了额外的背景信息。使用定性和定量数据的结合，便于根据标准社会经济措施和参与者报告的居住满意度对结果进行比较。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This study centers on a vital issue facing U.S. society today: how families use limited financial resources to find and maintain suitable housing in desirable neighborhoods when affordable housing is in short supply. This is important since where people live matters for their health, education, and other outcomes. Yet, affordable housing has arguably become less accessible over the past several decades, as housing costs have risen substantially more than incomes. This project tests emerging theories that emphasize that how households search for new housing is both important for residential outcomes and influenced by the conditions of where we have lived and our experiences there, the input and location of our social networks, and our preferences, ideals, and expectations for when and where to move. This study elucidates the links between past residential and social conditions, residential preferences, expectations and ideals (psychosocial factors), the housing search, and current residence. Findings from this work will facilitate decisions that broaden access to homes that meet residents' needs. This project examines the relationships among residential dynamics for Housing Choice Voucher program participants living with children in a particular county. It employs information from 50-55 qualitative in-depth interviews, longitudinal administrative data from two local public housing authorities, and tract-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau and a regional council. Interviews provide insight into householders' residential histories, social networks, residential psychosocial factors, housing search processes, and residential satisfaction. Quantitative data offer additional background information to assess residential outcomes from before and after a move, according to commonly used measures of household and neighborhood socioeconomic context. Using the combination of qualitative and quantitative data facilitates the comparison of outcomes according to standard socioeconomic measures and participants' reported residential satisfaction.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.