Poverty, Housing Deprivation and Housing Assistance

摘要

This paper examines three aspects of the relationship between the permanence of poverty and the housing situation of poor households: whether permanent poverty is a good predictor of housing deprivation; the relation between permanency of housing deprivation and permanent poverty; and whether households who are likely to be permanently poor can be identified from among the applicants for housing assistance. The results of the analyses reported in the paper show that households who in 1978 were judged to be permanently poor lived in physically deficient dwellings at substantially higher rates than transiently poor households. Among renters the rates were 40 percent for the permanently poor and 22 percent for the transiently poor; among homeowners, the rates were 34 and 15 percent, respectively. Permanently poor homeowners were much less likely to be spending an excessive share of their incomes on housing than the transiently poor - 26 versus 42 percent. Conversely, all poor renters were likely to be spending more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing. Permanence of poverty was also associated with occupying a dwelling that has been persistently deficient. The combined incidence of households living in permanently deficient units and spending an excessive share of their incomes on housing was found to be low. Hence, those living in permanently deficient units and those with excessive housing expenditures constitute separate target populations. Finally, the permanently poor exhibited rates of persistent housing expense burdens and crowding about twice those of the transiently poor. Identifying the permanently poor requires a predictive equation based on a local definition of poverty and additional information on extenuating circumstances for each case. Tabular data are provided. (Author abstract modified).