Creating Moves to Opportunity: Mixed Methods Evidence on Barriers to Neighborhood Choice
Low-income families often live in neighborhoods with fewer opportunities to get ahead, even when they have housing vouchers that would allow them to move to neighborhoods with more potential for upward mobility. In this SSRC lecture, Johns Hopkins sociologist Stefanie DeLuca will explore why through two randomized interventions. In these experiments, housing voucher recipients were given varying levels of information, financial support, and customized search assistance to move to higher-opportunity neighborhoods. The treatment increased the share of those moving to high-upward-mobility areas from 15% to 53%. Qualitative interviews with participants in the program showed that the intervention increased families' optimism …