The Impact on Health Outcomes of Moving to Opportunity in Boston

Lawrence F. Katz, Jeffrey R. Kling, Jeffrey B. Liebman

ABSTRACT

	This paper examines the short-run impacts of a change in
residential neighborhood on the well-being of low-income families,
using evidence from a program in which eligibility for a mobility
subsidy was determined by random lottery.  We provide a first look at
the experiences of 540 families at the Boston site of Moving To
Opportunity (MTO), a demonstration program currently underway in five
cities.  Families in eligible public housing projects in high poverty
Census tracts can apply to MTO and are assigned by lottery to one of
three groups.  The Experimental group receives some counseling
assistance and a Section 8 rental subsidy that can be used to move to
a Census tract that had a poverty rate of less than ten percent in
1990.  The Section 8 Comparison group receives a geographically
unrestricted rental subsidy.  The Control group continues in public
housing and receives no new rental assistance or services.

	We pursue a multi-faceted research strategy.  Direct program
observation and qualitative interviews with participants are used to
form hypotheses and guide the interpretation of results.  Our
quantitative analyses of program impacts use housing program records
on residential location, and data from a new telephone survey of
participants.  One to three years after participants enter the
program, we find that both Experimental and Section 8 Comparison
families are fairly successful in using their subsidies to move out of
high poverty neighborhoods: 45% of Experimental and 59% of Section 8
Comparison families move through the program.  The Experimental group
is much more likely to move to suburban and other wealthier
communities, while regular Section 8 assistance is modestly more
effective in getting a larger share of families out of the most
distressed communities.  The subsidized mobility opportunity has
resulted in significant improvements in the mental health of household
heads, and in reduction in child behavior problems, in the number of
asthma attacks and in frequency of injuries to children requiring
medical attention.