Housing stability and displacement prevention

Before making investments in housing stability and displacement prevention, city and county leaders should ensure this strategy addresses local needs.

The Urban Institute and Mathematica have developed indicator frameworks to help local leaders assess conditions related to upward mobility, identify barriers, and guide investments to address these challenges. These indicator frameworks can serve as a starting point for self-assessment, not as a comprehensive evaluation, and should be complemented by other forms of local knowledge.

The Urban Institute's Upward Mobility Framework identifies a set of key local conditions that shape communities’ ability to advance upward mobility and racial equity. Local leaders can use the Upward Mobility Framework to better understand the factors that improve upward mobility and prioritize areas of focus. Data reports for cities and counties can be created here.

Several indicators in the Upward Mobility Framework may be improved with investments in housing stability and displacement prevention programs. To measure these indicators and determine if investments in this strategy could help, examine the following:

• Housing affordability: Ratio of affordable and available housing units to households with low, very low, and extremely low income levels. These data are available from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Local Income Bands.
• Housing stability: Number and share of public-school children who are ever homeless during the school year. These data are collected by local public school districts.
• Economic inclusion: Share of people experiencing poverty who live in high-poverty neighborhoods. These data are available in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
• Racial diversity: Index of people’s exposure to neighbors of different races and ethnicities. These data are available through the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
• Social capital: Number of membership associations per 10,000 people and the ratio of residents’ Facebook friends with higher socioeconomic status to their Facebook friends with lower socioeconomic status. These data are available from the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns and Opportunity Insights’ Social Capital Atlas, respectively.

Mathematica's Education-to-Workforce (E-W) Indicator Framework helps local leaders identify the data that matter most in helping students and young adults succeed. Local leaders can use the E-W framework to better understand education and workforce conditions in their communities and to identify strategies that can improve outcomes in these areas.

One indicator in the E-W Framework may be improved with investments in this strategy. To measure this indicator and determine if investments in this strategy could help, examine the following:

• Access to affordable housing: Ratio of (1) the number of affordable housing units to (2) the number of households with low and very low incomes in an area (city or county). Housing units are defined as affordable if the monthly costs do not exceed 30 percent of a household’s income. Households with low incomes are defined as those earning below 80 percent of area median income (AMI), and very low-income households are defined as those earning below 50 percent of AMI.

• Take an intra-agency approach: Homelessness prevention initiatives tend to gain momentum when they are championed by a local government leader — such as the head of a family services agency or a high-ranking elected official. A vocal champion can then bring key agencies together to develop an action plan, which can require cross-agency and/or cross-government (i.e. a city tenant’s rights office and a state or county court) collaboration.
  

• Identify patterns of eviction causes: Partnerships across government agencies and with local research institutions can provide increased data sharing and analysis capacity. That expanded capacity should focus on identifying trends and patterns of factors leading to homelessness. Insights gained from this process can include identifying landlords with a history of illegal or wrongful evictions, neighborhoods in particular need of services, and/or the need for changes in program eligibility rules.
  

• Invest in service providers with deep community roots: A common challenge in eviction prevention is ensuring eligible residents are both aware of the program and willing to accept services. Especially for legal services, which represent the bulk of a jurisdiction’s public investment, prioritize partnerships with community-based organizations with whom members of the target population are likely familiar. The highest impact partners often already have a significant footprint and a demonstrated history of raising public awareness and engagement.
  

• Emphasize cost savings: Many housing stability programs can be framed as long-term cost-reduction strategies. Highlighting the fact that these services tend to reduce demand for expensive public services, like beds in homeless shelters, supports for individuals experiencing homelessness, and emergency medical care, can be used to cultivate public support and persuade potential funders.
  

• Streamline application processes: Complex or time-intensive application processes can become barriers to households attempting to access housing assistance programs. By streamlining application processes, such as by setting more flexible eligibility criteria or documentation requirements, agencies can increase the number of households able to access services. For example, an evaluation of an emergency rental assistance program in Kentucky found that simplified income verification requirements significantly increased application approval rates.