Evidence Rating: No Effects | One study
Date:
This is a housing mobility demonstration program intended to help move families from high-poverty public housing to low-poverty private housing to improve their lives. This program is rated No Effects. The program was shown to have no statistically significant long-term effects on violent, property, drug, or general crime arrests.
A No Effects rating implies that implementing the program is unlikely to result in the intended outcome(s) and may result in a negative outcome(s).
This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.
Program Goals
During the early 1990s the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development developed the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) randomized housing mobility experiment. The goal was to help families living in high-poverty areas move into less-economically deprived neighborhoods to improve their lives and their children’s lives. Families were recruited between 1994 and 1998 from high-poverty public housing sites in five cities: Baltimore, Md.; Boston, Mass.; Chicago, Ill.; Los Angeles, Calif.; and New York, N.Y.
The program was implemented as a randomized-control trial to determine whether moving to a neighborhood with less poverty, rather than some other measure, would directly improve outcomes related to health, mental health, economic self-sufficiency, education, and risky and criminal behavior.
Program Components
Families with children under 18 were recruited through fliers, tenant associations, and other means. Interested families were added to waiting lists of the local public housing authorities and attended group orientations sessions to learn about the demonstration program.
The MTO program used a lottery system to provide randomly selected families in public housing the opportunity to relocate to housing in less-economically deprived areas (areas where the poverty rate was 10 percent or lower according to the 1990 census) using a housing voucher system. One group of families were given Section 8 housing vouchers, which provided rent subsidies for private housing in similar high-poverty neighborhoods, and MTO vouchers, which provided special assistance to move to private housing in low-poverty neighborhoods. Mobility counseling was provided to help families relocate to an appropriate neighborhood and also help them with leasing a unit. Families could relocate after 1 year without any special constraints on location. The other groups received either traditional Section 8 services or other social services and public assistance.
Program Theory
The MTO Demonstration Program is informed by numerous theoretical approaches, all of which fall within the context of Shaw and McKay’s (1969) social disorganization theory. Social disorganization theory hypothesizes that neighborhoods have both formal and informal controls that monitor each other’s behaviors and other threats (Leventhal and Brooks–Gunn 2002). Socially disorganized neighborhoods (i.e., industrialized, urban, transient population) have poor formal and informal controls leading to criminal and delinquent behavior. In terms of the MTO program, moving residents to a less economically deprived area, and a more socially organized neighborhood, should reduce their chances of becoming involved in criminal and delinquent activities.
Other theories that inform MTO include the developmental neighborhood-effects hypotheses that suggest that younger children could be more deeply affected than older children by a move to a middle-class neighborhood; a situational neighborhood-effects model that suggests even a modest change to the decision-making environment can affect criminal behavior; and a typology by Jencks and Mayer (1990) that defines four different types of models about why neighborhood environments might affect people’s behavior and well-being. Overall, the theories hypothesize different ways in which neighborhood environments affect individual behavior, including criminal behavior (Sciandra et al. 2013).
The research of Sanbonmatsu and colleagues (2011) and Sciandra and colleagues (2013) showed mixed results with regard to the effectiveness of the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Demonstration Program. MTO had a statistically significant, long-term effect on youth property crime arrests but no statistically significant long-term effect on violent, drug, or general crime arrests for youth and grown children. The preponderance of evidence suggests that the program did not have the intended effect on participants.
Study 1
Any Crime Arrest
Sanbonmatsu and colleagues (2001) found the MTO Demonstration Program resulted in no statistically significant differences between youths and grown children in the treatment and control groups on any crime arrests.
Property Crime Arrest
Youths in the MTO treatment group had statistically significantly less property crime arrests than youths in the control group. However, there were no significant differences between grown children in the treatment and control groups on property crime arrests.
Violent Crime Arrest
There were no statistically significant differences between youths and grown children in the treatment and control groups on violent crime arrests.
Drug Crime Arrest
There were no statistically significant differences between youths and grown children in the treatment and control groups on drug crime arrests.
Study 2
Property Crime Arrest
There were no statistically significant differences between the treatment and control groups on property crime arrests.
Violent Crime Arrest
Sciandra and colleagues (2013) found that the MTO Demonstration Program resulted in no statistically significant difference between treatment and control groups on violent crime arrests.
Study 1
Sanbonmatsu and colleagues (2011) conducted a randomized-control trial of the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Demonstration Program and its long-term effects on criminal behavior of youths and grown children.
The evaluation included 4,604 low-income families from Baltimore, Md.; Boston, Mass.; Chicago, Ill.; Los Angeles, Calif.; and New York, N.Y.; who were eligible if they had children under 18 and were living in public or government-subsidized housing in high-poverty areas. Enrollment took place between 1994 and 1998. Most of the sample consisted of female-headed households (97.8 percent), had approximately 3.7 family members in the household, were African American (61.4 percent) or Hispanic (31.0 percent), and were on welfare (75.1 percent). Few had a high school diploma (37.5 percent) or GED (17.6 percent).
Once enrolled, families were randomized to one of three groups: MTO treatment, Section 8 treatment, or a control group. The MTO treatment group (n=1,819 families) received Section 8 services with the MTO voucher. The Section 8 treatment group (n=1,346 families) received traditional Section 8 services only. The control group (n=1,439 families) received no MTO or Section 8 vouchers, only social services and public assistance. Since not all families enrolled in the MTO group actually used the vouchers, researchers used an intent-to-treat model to calculate differences among groups.
To examine the impact on youths’ risky and criminal behavior, subsets of the 4,604 households were examined. The subsets included 4,646 grown children who were 20–30 years old on Dec. 31, 2007, and 6,308 youths who were ages 10–20 as of Dec. 31, 2007. Criminal outcomes were reported for youths and grown children in the households 10–15 years after enrollment. Data was collected using survey self-reports and official arrest information. Adult and juvenile arrest histories were retrieved from state criminal justice agencies and in some cases county or city juvenile justice agencies.
Study 2
Sciandra and colleagues (2013) examined the long-term effects of the MTO Demonstration Program on criminal behavior of youth using the same sample as Sanbonmatsu and colleagues (2011). This evaluation examines data on youth 10 years after random assignment (ages 15–25 at the end of 2001 and ages 17–28 at the end of the follow-up period for this study).
Criminal behavior data was collected with administrative arrest records and used to measure the number of times youths were arrested between the MTO random assignment and the end of
These sources were used in the development of the program profile:
Study 1
Sanbonmatsu, Lisa, Jens Ludwig, Lawrence F. Katz, Lisa A. Gennetian, Greg J. Duncan, Ronald C. Kessler, Emma Adam, Thomas W. McDade, and Stacy Tessler Lindau. 2011. “Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program: Final Impacts Evaluation.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Study 2
Sciandra, Matthew, Lisa Sanbonmatsu, Greg J. Duncan, Lisa A. Gennetian, Lawrence F. Katz, Ronald C. Kessler, Jeffrey R. Kling, and Jens Ludwig. 2013. “Long-Term Effects of the Moving to Opportunity Residential Mobility Experiment on Crime and Delinquency.” Journal of Experimental Criminology 9(4):451–89.
These sources were used in the development of the program profile:
Goering, John, Joan Kraft, Judith D. Feins, Debra McInnis, Mary Joel Holin, and Huda Elhassan. 1999. Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program: Current Status and Initial Findings. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development & Research.
Jencks, Christopher, and Susan E. Mayer. 1990. “The Social Consequences of Growing Up in a Poor Neighborhood.” In Laurence E. Lynn Jr. and Michael G.H. McGeary (eds.). Inner-City Poverty in the United States. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 111–86.
Katz, Lawrence F., Jeffrey R. Kling, and Jeffrey B. Liebman. 2001. “Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(2):607–54.
Kling, Jeffrey R., Jens Ludwig, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2004. Youth Criminal Behavior in the Moving to Opportunity Experiment. Princeton IRS Working Paper 482. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University.
Kling, Jeffrey R., Jens Ludwig, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2005. “Neighborhood Effects on Crime for Female and Male Youth: Evidence From a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(1):87–130.
Leventhal, Tama, and Jeanne Brooks–Gunn. 2002. The Early Impacts of Moving to Opportunity on Children and Youth in New York City. New York, N.Y.: Columbia University, Teachers College, Center for Children and Families.
http://www.nber.org/mtopublic/NY/nycmtochptfin8.pdfLudwig, Jens, Greg J. Duncan, Lisa A. Gennetian, Lawrence F. Katz, Ronald C. Kessler, Jeffrey R. Kling, and Lisa Sanbonmatsu. 2013. “Long-Term Neighborhood Effects on Low-Income Families: Evidence From Moving to Opportunity.” American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 103(3):226–31.
Ludwig, Jens, Greg J. Duncan, and Paul Hirschfield. 2001. “Urban Poverty and Juvenile Crime: Evidence From a Randomized Housing-Mobility Experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics: 116(2):655–79.
Ludwig, Jens, Jeffrey B. Liebman, Jeffrey R. Kling, Greg J. Duncan, Lawrence F. Katz, Ronald C. Kessler, and Lisa Sanbonmatsu. 2008. “What Can We Learn About Neighborhood Effects From the Moving to Opportunity Experiment.” American Journal of Sociology 114(1):144–88.
Orr, Larry, Judith D. Feins, Robin Jacob, Erik Beecroft, Lisa Sanbonmatsu, Lawrence F. Katz, Jeffrey B. Liebman, and Jeffrey R. Kling. 2003a. Moving to Opportunity Interim Impacts Evaluation. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development & Research.
Orr, Larry, Judith D. Feins, Robin Jacob, Erik Beecroft, Lisa Sanbonmatsu, Lawrence F. Katz, Jeffrey B. Liebman, and Jeffrey R. Kling. 2003b. Moving to Opportunity Interim Impacts Evaluation: Final Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development & Research.
Sampson, Robert J., Jeffery D. Morenoff, and Thomas Gannon–Rowley. 2002. “Assessing ‘Neighborhood Effects’: Social Processes and New Directions in Research.” Annual Review of Sociology 28(1):443–78.
Sanbonmatsu, Lisa, Jeffrey R. Kling, Greg J. Duncan, and Jeanne Brooks–Gunn. 2006. “Neighborhoods and Academic Achievement: Results From the Moving to Opportunity Experiment.” Journal of Human Resources (forthcoming).
Shaw, Clifford R., and Henry D. McKay. 1969. Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas. Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press.
Shroder, Mark D. 2002. “Locational Constraint, Housing Counseling, and Successful Lease-Up in a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment.” Journal of Urban Economics 51:315–38.
Gender: Male, Female
Race/Ethnicity: White, Black, Hispanic
Geography: Urban
Setting (Delivery): Other Community Setting, High Crime Neighborhoods/Hot Spots
Program Type: Situational Crime Prevention, Violence Prevention
Targeted Population: Families
Current Program Status: Active