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Title: Revitalizing Hope: An Analysis of HOPE VI’s Effect on Neighborhoods and Public Housing Residents in Philadelphia

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 2018

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Abstract: Urban poverty has become increasingly concentrated in the inner-city. From 1970 to 1990, the number of high-poverty neighborhoods more than doubled (Jargowsky, 1996). In the 1990s, policymakers came to the consensus that the concentration of poor, minority residents in inner city public housing projects were the fundamental dilemma in U.S. cities and to solve the crisis, public housing must be demolished and the residents moved. As housing determines one’s access to transportation, schools, jobs, and community, policymakers have justified the implementation of various housing programs to alleviate the effects of concentrated poverty. Over the last two decades, local housing authorities have demolished and redesigned some of the country’s most distressed public housing. These demolitions and redevelopments were a part of the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) “Homeownership Opportunities for People Everywhere” (HOPE VI) program. Scholars and policymakers were hopeful that the program would help transform blighted neighborhoods into thriving mixed-income communities by demolishing extremely distressed public housing projects. This thesis project questions whether or not HOPE VI has been an effective policy at deconcentrating area poverty and improving resident life outcomes in Philadelphia. William Julius Wilson’s The Truly Disadvantaged (1987) spurred two decades of scholarly debate surrounding the dynamics of poverty in America’s inner-cities. Wilson’s work sparked a large body of research that suggests a range of adverse social, political, and economic effects of concentrated poverty in urban areas. Living in areas of concentrated poverty leads to a variety of negative life outcomes such as lower educational attainment, increased joblessness, lower economic opportunities, physical and psychological health disparities, and criminal delinquency (Briggs, 2010; Crump, 2002; Goetz, 2003; Galster et al., 2008). When looking at the HOPE VI-centric literature, Goetz and a number of other progressive reformers point out many shortcomings of the program. These scholars argue that a stark reduction of hard units forces the program to disperse public housing residents to other areas of disadvantage, through mobility vouchers. They also argue that relocation disrupts valuable community and social networks. On the other hand, many scholars argue that the program injected revitalized value to neighborhood real estate markets, which has stabilized communities from crime and poverty (Turbov & Piper, 2005; Zielenbach, 2005). Residents in these communities report higher levels of perceived safety and overall satisfaction (Clampet-Lundquist, 2010; Popkin et. al, 2009). I hypothesize that HOPE VI, which physically revitalized severely distressed former public housing sites, has and will continue to improve life outcomes at the individual level and positively transform the quality of the neighborhoods around Philadelphia. I expect the transformed physical landscape to spur investment into historically neglected parts of the city, and increase access to more meaningful human capital and local resources. This thesis evaluates HOPE VI’s effectiveness at four public housing cases in Philadelphia: Richard Allen Homes, Schuylkill Falls (now Falls Ridge), Mill Creek Apartments (now Lucien E. Blackwell Homes) and Martin Luther King Plaza. This analysis evaluates both resident outcomes and neighborhood level impacts. At the neighborhood level, the variables include vacancy rates, median home values and contract rental rates, population living below the poverty line, and racial demographics. At the individual level, this thesis illustrates changes in median household incomes, unemployment rates, and access to local amenities and supportive services. Data was collected from Social Explorer, and the National Historical Geographic Information System operated by the University of Minnesota’s Population Center. Data was extracted from 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2013, and 2016 at the census tract level across various topics to explain program effectiveness. Through my case study of Philadelphia, communities with HOPE VI redevelopment experienced positive growth at both the individual and neighborhood levels. Real Estate metrics in the tracts containing HOPE VI revitalization sites improved significantly following the completion of the projects. The redevelopment of Schuylkill Falls and MLK plaza appear to be the standout examples of program success. Hildebrandt (2015) suggests these cases experienced the most strategic attention by the city due to their proximity to Center City and Manayunk. Despite the beautiful new facades and green spaces at each site, the PHA still lost more than 7,000 total units under HOPE VI. Because most residents were unable to move back into the redeveloped sites, the HOPE VI program merely dispersed poverty in their deconcentration efforts. Thus, HOPE VI was a successful redevelopment program but failed to adequately address the self-sufficiency goals of PHA residents. My research suggests that public housing with the best access to a city’s central business district are more poised to thrive after HOPE VI redevelopment. There are more resource and community amenities pumped into these projects in hopes to increase downtown foot traffic and commerce. Distressed neighborhoods such as Mill Creek, which are spatially separated from Center City, fare the worst. Future scholarship requires a heightened focus on resident level outcomes, especially among those who relocated with Section 8 vouchers. My analysis was significantly constrained by the inability to evaluate the mover cohort and interview residents. Income-mixing also turned out to be an insignificant factor, as the PHA did not actively track mixed-income variation in their redevelopments. Future scholarship needs to address how mixed-income communities effect residents and neighborhood outcomes.

Url: https://scholarship.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/handle/10066/20645

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Authors: McGovern, Stephen J.

Institution: Haverford College

Department: Political Science

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Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS

Topics: Housing and Segregation, Other

Countries: United States