An Overview of the Moving to Opportunity Housing Mobility Experiment
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The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment was a housing mobility program that ran from 1994 to 1998 in five major US cities. It randomly assigned over 4,600 low-income families living in public housing or high-poverty neighborhoods to one of three groups: an experimental group that received housing vouchers to move to lower-poverty areas, a control group that received no special assistance, and a Section 8 group that received standard housing vouchers. The document discusses findings from initial and long-term evaluations of the program's impacts on outcomes related to poverty, crime exposure, employment, income, education, health, and behavior. It also outlines plans for the final evaluation using new survey and administrative data to better understand the mechanisms
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An Overview of the Moving to Opportunity Housing Mobility Experiment
- 1. An Overview of The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Experiment Lisa Gennetian, The Brookings Institution Prepared for University of Pennsylvania/Philadelphia Fed Conference “Reinventing Older Communities: How Does Place Matter?” March 27, 2008
- 3. Random assignment to 3 groups 4,600 eligible families in public housing Experimental group (exp) Assigned to control group (C) Section 8 group (S8) Conventional section 8 voucher No voucher, existing programs Restricted section 8 voucher + mobility counseling 47% leased up 68% leased up
- 5. HUD’s 5-Year Evaluation Qualitative Study: Popkin, Harris, and Cunningham Quantitative Study: Abt (Feins and Orr) NBER (Kling, Liebman, Katz, Sanbonmatsu) Also Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, Ludwig, Whitaker, Psaty Surveys of household heads, youth ages 12 to 19, and children ages 5 to 11 Administrative Data: Earnings, AFDC/TANF and Food Stamps; involvement with criminal justice system (Ludwig)
- 6. CONVERT TO GRAPH: Neighborhood Outcomes Control Mean Exp.-Con. ITT Poverty Rate of Census Tract <15% .097 .158* (.017) >35% .557 -.177* (.022) Crime and Safety Saw illicit drugs sold or used .441 -.119* (.022) Victim of crime .173 -.041* (.016) Feels safe during the day .768 .087* (.018)
Editor's Notes
- Paper prepared for the University of Pennsylvania / Philadelphia Fed conference “Reinventing older communities: How does place matter?” March 26-28, 2008
- 5,300 families volunteered 4,608 were found eligible – poor, with kids, living in high poverty assisted housing, no lease probs. 1,800 assigned to move to low-poverty, 48% successfully moved 1,350 got section 8 with no location restriction, 60% successfully moved 1,400 assigned to the control group and, at least initially, remained in the high poverty assisted housing development Those lease-up rates I noted, 48% and 60%, are important for our later discussion of impact estimates.
- Significant positive impacts for both experimental and Section 8 groups on: Feeling safe in the neighborhood (day and night) Police coming when called All measures of neighborhood quality Significant reductions for both experimental and Section 8 groups in: Witnessing drug activity in the neighborhood See public drinking, groups hanging out Crime victimization over last six months
- In sum, the interim evaluation shows moving to low poverty improves housing, increases safety, lowers depression and obesity rates, is very good for girls and appears to be bad for boys. We have not seen any employment impacts or educational effects after 5 years but we actually didn’t expect to until year 10. So what theoretical reasons do we have to think there might be larger or different impacts in the longer run?
- In sum, the interim evaluation shows moving to low poverty improves housing, increases safety, lowers depression and obesity rates, is very good for girls and appears to be bad for boys. We have not seen any employment impacts or educational effects after 5 years but we actually didn’t expect to until year 10. So what theoretical reasons do we have to think there might be larger or different impacts in the longer run?
- The Administrative data matching is relatively inexpensive and is totally covered within our current contract. The need for additional resources is in maximizing what we can do with the survey.
- So what do we want to know about?
- The Administrative data matching is relatively inexpensive and is totally covered within our current contract. The need for additional resources is in maximizing what we can do with the survey.
- There has been a general move from concentrated poverty to dispersed poverty. This provides a compelling story about how that truly impacts families. It potentially provides direction on how poverty deconcentration policies should be designed to have the most positive impact.