Funding Agency:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Total Project Period:

10/31/05 - 10/31/08

Total Project Award:

$1,055,738

Principal Investigator:

Jackie Cohen (Carnegie Mellon University)

Co-Investigator:

Anthony Fabio, RD, MPH, PhD

Brief Background:

Prior research finds that persons who reside in disadvantaged communities are subject to greater risks of violence. The ill effects of community disadvantage are especially pronounced in neighborhoods where disadvantage is multifaceted and distributed widely among residents – features that characterize large public housing communities that provide subsidized housing for low-income households. Partly in an effort to ameliorate the effects of concentrated disadvantage, large-scale initiatives were undertaken during the 1990s to relocate households from higher-density public housing communities to communities in the private housing market.

Purpose:

The objective of this research is to evaluate the impact of housing relocation initiatives on community levels of youth violence. Outcomes from this research will provide empirical evidence on whether the private housing market provides low-income households with access to less disadvantaged and more diverse communities, and what effects this relocation of low-income households into private market housing communities has on violence levels in the surrounding and destination communities.

Hypotheses

We expect the following outcomes if relocation efforts successfully moved households into less disadvantaged and more diverse neighborhoods:

1. De-populated high-density public housing communities experienced declines in community levels of youth violence.
2. Community-level youth violence declined in neighborhoods bordering targeted public housing communities.
3. Community violence levels did not change in destination neighborhoods.
4. City-wide violence levels declined.