Understanding Residential Mobility of Low-income Families and Neighborhood Context and the Influence of Housing Assistance on Residential Movement: Evidence from HOPE VI Revitalization Replacement Families

Resident Relocation in the Context of Neighborhood Decline Memory and Context, Constraint and Opportunity Robin Boyle, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Wayne State University Detroit, United States of America r.boyle@wayne.edu Detroit Michigan 2010 Population Decline [1960 – 2008]: –45 % (est.) Foreclosed Homes [2009]: 78, 000 (est.) Vacant Residential Properties [2009]: 66, 400 (est.) Vacant Land [2009]: 10, 350 hectares or 28 % of the city (est.) –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Unparalleled sub regional household movement, endemic racial discrimination, economic restructuring, central city population decline, and physical decay is part of the narrative that is the City of Detroit, today. But as the city faces wrenching decisions about its future, attracting the headlines of ―hollowing-out‖, ―downsizing‖, ―rightsizing‖, and more, it is important to understand that what occurred in Detroit, Michigan in the mid/late 20 century not only scarred a city, it also shaped memory for a generation of residents: black and white, rich and poor, city and suburban. It is this memory and context that both frames and challenges vision and detailed prescription for the city as a whole and for its individual neighborhoods. This paper will provide detail for this narrative, focusing on citywide policies and plans that have emerged to address decline and shape the city of tomorrow. To explore constraint and opportunity, specific city neighborhoods will be used to illustrate a range of neighborhood interventions, including household relocation, that are being tested, some even reaching modest implementation. Understanding Residential Mobility of Low-income Families and Neighborhood Context and the Influence of Housing Assistance on Residential Movement: Evidence from HOPE VI Revitalization Replacement Families Ashley Brown Burns, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, United States of America akb17@duke.edu A major premise of American rental housing assistance and contemporary revision of the public housing system is concern for whether low income families are able to navigate pathways out of chronic housing assistance and poverty successfully. Yet, we know very little about how policies‘ targeted families conceptualize innovations like the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) program and the broader demolition of conventional public housing. The expansion of housing vouchers along with the demolition of large public housing sites characterize a policy intervention that seemingly offers low-income families more choice about where to live. What types of families benefit from living in revitalized HOPE VI areas? How do these newcomers construct community in the absence of displaced public housing residents? This research examines the processes and experiences of homeowners who purchased singlefamily homes and condominiums in a transitioning conventional public housing community HOPE VI-targeted area in the U.S. South. In-person semi-structured interviews examine how affected families experience and construct community in the publicly designed, mixed income space. A primary aim is to illuminate what, if any, observable changes or differences exist among lowto moderateincome families who reoccupy the restructured conventional public housing area, and who, ultimately, benefit from the resources directed to the transitioning community. Finally, this research also illuminates how residents perceive the HOPE VI program and re-construct new community in the former public housing site. Considering the evolving housing policy environment, it remains unclear how best to serve families in need of safe, decent, affordable housing. This study of a Southern City HOPE VI housing policy intervention provide unique insight to the implications of demolishing public housing, restructuring disadvantaged neighborhoods and the effects on their surrounding area, politics of gentrification, and social stratification. Investigating the Effects of Neighbourhood Restructuring on Destigmatization Practices and Health in a Toronto Public Housing Community Madelaine Cahuas, James R. Dunn Department of Health, Aging & Society, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada cahuasmc@mcmaster.ca Studies of neighbourhood restructuring from Europe, the United States and Australia have shown mixed impacts on outcomes such as health, employment, education, and social cohesion. Many neighbourhood restructuring initiatives seek to create social or tenure mix, arguably to reduce the stigma of public housing and the ill effects of concentrated poverty. Few studies, however, have directly investigated how neighbourhood restructuring affects individuals' experiences of, and strategies to deal with, stigmatization. This paper will present findings from a study examining how neighbourhood restructuring in Toronto's Regent Park may operate as a place destigmatization strategy, which, in turn, may affect the personal strategies residents use to manage neighbourhood stigma and how such strategies impact their health. Regent Park, a large 69-acre public housing estate near downtown Toronto, is one of Canada‘s largest and oldest public housing developments. It is also arguably one of Canada‘s most marginalized and stigmatized neighbourhoods. Currently, Regent Park is undergoing a 10-15 year complete demolition and re-construction process. The paper will draw on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with residents analyzing their experiences and destigmatization strategies before and after restructuring. Specifically, the strategies residents employ to manage, or respond to stigma (known as destigmatization practices) will be investigated for their role in mediating health outcomes (Lamont, 2009). Since it remains uncertain whether residents benefit significantly from restructuring initiatives, the findings presented in this paper may shed some light on the potential positive and negative effects of restructuring on residents‘ health in Regent Park. “Positive” Gentrification, Social Control, and the “Right to the City” in Mixed-Income Communities: Uses and Expectations of Space and Place Robert J. Chaskin, The University of Chicago Mark L. Joseph, Case Western Reserve University Public policies supporting market-oriented strategies to develop mixed-income communities as a response to urban poverty and the problems associated with public housing have become ascendant in the United States, Europe, and several other countries around the world. These efforts at ―positive gentrification‖ are often framed as a ―win-win‖ strategy, addressing both market goals of neighborhood revitalization and social goals of poverty deconcentration and inclusion. But they have also generated significant controversy and resistance, largely based on more negative assessments of gentrification processes. In addition to the question of displacement, these processes generate a set of fundamental tensions — between integration and exclusion, use value and exchange value, appropriation and control, poverty and development — that play out in particular, concrete ways on the ground. Often, the dynamics are most concretely manifest in responses to competing expectations regarding the use of space and what is considered to be appropriate normative behavior, and about the negotiation of these expectations in the context of arguments about safety, order, what constitutes ―public‖ space, and the nature and extent of rights to use that space in daily life. Drawing on social control theory and the ―right to the city‖ framework of Henri LeFebvre, this paper interrogates these tensions as they become manifest in three mixed-income communities being developed to replace public housing complexes in Chicago. Based on indepth interviews and field work in these communities, the paper examines responses to competing expectations regarding the use of space and appropriate normative behavior, the negotiation of these expectations in the context of arguments about safety, order, what constitutes ―public‖ space, and the nature and extent of rights to use that space in daily life, and some of the implications of these findings for policy and implementation. 1 Contact Information: Robert Chaskin Associate Professor and Deputy Dean for Strategic Initiatives The University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration 969 E. 60 Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 rjc3@uchicago.edu Forced relocation: reason for dissatisfaction with the dwelling and the neighbourhood? Karien Dekker, Utrecht University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Sociology, Utrecht, The Netherlands k.dekker@uu.nl Reinout Kleinhans, Delft University of Technology, OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment, Delft, The Netherlands R.J.Kleinhans@tudelft.nl This paper focuses on the relationship between the reason for relocation, and the satisfaction with the dwelling and the neighbourhood. We distinguish between voluntary reasons to move and forced reasons to move (demolition, divorce, unemployment, something else). While each separate reason has been extensively studied in the field of urban regeneration and gentrification, life-course studies, or social psychology, forced reasons are hardly studied in direct comparison. We hypothesize that a forced reason to move initially has a negative effect on the satisfaction with the new dwelling and the new neighbourhood. However, there may be a positive effect of time: the longer ago the forced move, the more positive the evaluation of the dwelling and the neighbourhood. Furthermore, we investigate the extent to which different forced moving reasons (demolition, divorce, unemployment) have different effects on satisfaction with the dwelling and the neighbourhood. We expect that a forced move due to an event in the personal sphere (divorce, unemployment) has a stronger negative effect on satisfaction with the dwelling and the neighbourhood than a