Insights into Housing and Community Development Policy U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development | Office of Policy Development and Research Breaking Down Barriers: Housing, Neighborhoods, and Schools of Opportunity Today, past policy choices and an array of systemic forces—including persistent housing discrimination—have segregated many children in distressed, underresourced neighborhoods and high-poverty, low-quality schools. High-poverty schools face many barriers to success. Moreover, the effects of housing and neighborhoods on children are intertwined, offering multiple, potentially complementary ways to support children’s development. Although school choice can help students in high- poverty neighborhoods access higher-quality schools, where children live significantly affects their school options: housing strategies are an important complement to choice. Housing policy can enable more children to benefit from neighborhoods and schools of opportunity both by investing where children already are and by enabling families to make opportunity moves. Place-based housing interventions where children currently live and attend school can support low-income students’ educa- tion and align with initiatives to improve high-poverty districts and schools. Public housing agencies (PHAs) are well-placed to support children’s success in school in many ways, such as helping parents engage in their children’s education. Also, integrative housing and education initiatives, such as magnet schools in revitalizing areas and housing mobility programs, can reinforce the integrative student assignment plans many districts have implemented.1 Diverse schools can help children develop cross-racial trust and greater capacity to navigate cultural differences,2 and evidence suggests that all groups of children who attend integrated schools experience significant educational benefits.3 This report reviews recent research and identifies key steps policymakers can take to improve children’s access to high-quality neighborhoods and schools. Although housing and school policies are closely related, their design often does not reflect that relationship. In particular, this report suggests housing strategies that could help the nearly 4 million children4 who already receive federal housing assistance. • Coordinate school, housing, and transportation • Support mobility at the regional level. Children often planning, including place-based programs. Sustainable, must move outside their current school district or PHA’s institutionalized processes could align related policies jurisdiction to attend higher-performing, lower-poverty at all levels of government, providing a platform for schools and live in a lower-poverty neighborhood. coordinated strategies to support students attending Regional strategies can better match low-income families low-quality, high-poverty schools. and opportunity areas. Promising regional strategies include regionally administered vouchers, regional • Build place-based housing-education partnerships. These project-based voucher pools, and regional waiting lists. partnerships can support low-income students and school The federal government could help with technical improvement strategies. Also, school strategies such as assistance, evaluation, waivers, and financial support. magnet schools can complement place-based programs, enabling children in revitalizing areas to attend high- • Consider schools when designating opportunity areas quality, integrated schools. for housing voucher mobility programs, and be flexible when defining those areas. Only a subset of low-poverty • Encourage affordable housing development near neighborhoods provide access to low-poverty or high- high-quality schools. The Low-Income Housing Tax performing schools; low-poverty neighborhoods do not Credit (LIHTC) Program, for instance, could provide guarantee access to high-quality schools. Communities a bonus for development located near high-performing could aim for high-performing elementary schools, such schools, and the U.S. Department of Housing and as those identified by local value-added performance Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Section 8 Management measures. They could also avoid resegregating schools by Assessment Program could encourage PHAs to increase considering schools’ economic and racial composition. voucher use near high-quality schools. 2 Insights into Housing and Community Development Policy To ensure that opportunity areas include sufficient rental This report is divided into five sections that explain the options, communities might define their thresholds for context and consequence of these options. First, the report opportunity areas flexibly. describes how school poverty is closely associated with children’s school performance, how neighborhoods relate, • Help families use housing assistance in opportunity and how housing policies are an important complement neighborhoods and near opportunity schools. Mobility to school choice programs. Second, the report details the counseling can provide families with concise, understand- current state of housing and school segregation, how the able information on neighborhoods and their schools, relationship between neighborhoods and schools creates a including how those schools compare with the schools vicious circle, and how families choose homes and schools. their children currently attend. The federal government Third, the report suggests how stronger institutional relation- can support more and higher-quality mobility counseling, ships and place-based initiatives could improve children’s better and simpler ways to provide families with their school options. Fourth, the report proposes how affordable housing and school options, and more research on housing could be sited near opportunity schools. Fifth, effective counseling. This support could include a voucher the report describes housing mobility programs, including demonstration to provide access to both opportunity regional programs, and identifies how to help families with neighborhoods and opportunity schools. The federal vouchers access opportunity schools as well as opportunity government can also help communities encourage neighborhoods. landlords in opportunity areas to participate. Defining Poverty and Performance in Neighborhoods and Schools Low-poverty neighborhoods have a • Low-poverty schools: 25.0 percent or The number of public school students relatively low proportion of residents less FRPL-eligible students. designated as low income by FRPL has living below the federal poverty line. climbed during the past 30 years.10 Ris- • Mid-low poverty schools: 25.1 to 50.0 This report refers to census tracts as ing child poverty, economic instability, percent FRPL-eligible students. neighborhoods; census tracts have and increased immigration largely ex- a popu lation of between 1,200 and • Mid-high poverty schools: 50.1 to plain this trend,11 along with a 2010 law 8,000 and are drawn to reflect visible 75.0 percent FRPL-eligible students. that changed how schools may certify community boundaries.5 The Census their count of FRPL-eligible students.12 Bureau defines three types of census • High-poverty schools: more than tracts by the proportion of residents in 75.0 percent FRPL-eligible students. When discussing school performance, poverty.6 this report refers to “low-performing” The Department of Education and “high-performing” schools on the • Low-poverty areas: less than 10 describes FRPL-eligible students as basis of schools’ absolute test scores rela- percent in poverty. “low-income students.” tive to other schools in the state, with- out adjusting for student composition. • Poverty areas: more than 20 percent FRPL eligibility is more inclusive than This framing is consistent with HUD’s in poverty. the federal poverty line; students are definition of school performance with considered FRPL eligible if their house- • Extreme-poverty areas: more than regard to Affirmatively Furthering Fair hold has an income below 185 percent 40 percent in poverty. Housing (AFFH) assessments, while rec- of the federal poverty threshold. FRPL ognizing that other national and local does not capture broader measures of The term “high-poverty areas” commonly data, including value-added measures socioeconomic status, such as parents’ refers to areas of 30 to 40 percent poverty. and measures that adjust for student education or occupation.8 FRPL composition, can provide a more com- By comparison, low-poverty schools have remains the most common measure plete perspective on school performance a relatively low proportion of enrolled for school poverty, however, because when available.13 In comparison, this students who are “low income.” The it is commonly found across surveys, is report refers to “high-quality” schools U.S. Department of Education defines strongly correlated with district-level more broadly, recognizing that a single school-level poverty by the proportion poverty, and is related to socioeco- performance metric may not fully of children who are eligible for free or nomic status at the household level.9 reduced-price lunch (FRPL).7 reflect schools’ quality. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development | Office of Policy Development and Research 3 The Importance of School Poverty and How Neighborhoods Relate The relationship between school-level students at lower-poverty schools are effectively, randomly assigned to attend poverty, distinct from students’ own cir- more likely to graduate and attend a lower-poverty schools (0 to 20 percent