This dissertation comprises three chapters on topics related to low-income housing policies in the United States. Each chapter uses econometric methods to analyze data from administrative sources, aiming to establish causal relationships between variables of interest. In the first chapter, I provide evidence on how the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit policy impacts children's short- and medium-run human capital formation. I construct a novel dataset using the San Diego Unified School District administrative data and the California LIHTC database. Combining propensity score matching and difference-in-differences, I find an 0.28 percentage points decrease in the absenteeism rate, a 0.049 standard deviation increase in standardized English scores, and a 0.048 standard deviation increase in standardized math scores for students who moved into LIHTC during the study period. I also find positive effects on high school completion, college enrollment, and college completion. In the second chapter, I explore the impact of LIHTC on homelessness. Although an increase in affordable housing supply is observed, the effect on households at risk of homelessness is unclear. Combining point-in-time homeless counts and the LIHTC database from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, I construct a panel dataset that allows me to examine changes in homelessness on the Continuum of Care level from 2009 to 2019. With a first-differenced model, I find that one additional LIHTC unit is associated with a decrease of 1.1 homeless people. I also find that sheltered families and children are the primary beneficiaries of new LIHTC units. In the third chapter, I estimate the impact of the right-to-counsel policy in housing courts. New York City introduced a novel policy in 2018 to provide the right to counsel in housing courts for income-eligible tenants facing eviction. This policy allows low-income households better access to the formal justice system. Taking advantage of the staggered roll-out schedule on the zip code level, I estimate the causal effect of the policy change using a difference-in-differences approach. Despite no statistically significant impact on eviction filings, I find a 16.9 percent decrease in quarterly evictions. The results demonstrate positive impacts of tenant representation on evictions in the short run.

Originally published in 1979, these essays provide a guide to the labyrinth of issues which together made up ‘housing policy’ in the late 20th Century. The focus is on the practical and political difficulties of devising measures which meet policy objectives – difficulties which are just as prevalent in the 21st Century. The search for ‘comprehensive strategies’ is shown to be a vain one: given the number of relevant issues and their complexity, only an incremental approach is practicable. Major issues are discussed in the context of an analysis of the institutional, historical and financial framework within which housing policy is formulated and operated.

The primary theme of this collection of essays is that the cities' basic problems are poverty and racism, and until these concerns are addressed by bringing about racial equality, creating jobs, and instituting other reforms, the generally low quality of urban life will persist. Gans argues that the individual must work to alter society. He believes that not only must parents have jobs to improve their children's school performance, but that the country needs a modernized "New Deal," a more labor-intensive economy, and a thirty-two hour work week to achieve full employment. Other controversial ideas presented in this book include Gans's opposition to the whole notion of an underclass, which he feels is the latest way for the nonpoor to unjustly label the poor as undeserving. He also believes that poverty continues to plague society because it is often useful to the nonpoor. He is critical of architecture that aims above all to be aesthetic or to make philosophical statements, is doubtful that planners can or should try to reform our social or personal lives, and thinks we should concentrate on achieving individual public policies until we learn how to properly plan as a society.

This dissertation explores the question of how housing policy and the availability of affordable housing affect education. It consists of three papers that collectively provide evidence on the ways that shortages of affordable housing impact students and teachers, as well as examine the effects that policies addressing these shortages can have on educational equity and opportunities for disadvantaged students. In the first chapter, I examine the effect that low-income housing development has had on the racial, ethnic, and economic diversity of neighborhood public schools using evidence from the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the most important federal policy instrument incentivizing the supply of affordable housing. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that LIHTC development did not result in a change in school composition on the nationwide level, but significantly increased minority student enrollment in predominantly white areas. In the second chapter, I estimate the short- and medium-term impacts that a rapid rehousing and homelessness prevention program has on homeless students, focusing on the outcomes of school and district mobility, attendance, and behavioral referrals. I use generalized difference-in-difference and event study models to find, among other results, that participation in the program had positive behavioral impacts but increased absences for students rehoused to faraway cities. In the final chapter, I and co-authors explore the prevalence and implications of economic anxiety among teachers in a high cost urban district using a combination of survey and administrative data. We find that economic anxiety is widespread among surveyed teachers and that it is highly predictive of teacher departure from the district, increased teacher absences, and more negative attitudes toward their jobs.

The Affordable Housing Reader brings together classic works and contemporary writing on the themes and debates that have animated the field of affordable housing policy as well as the challenges in achieving the goals of policy on the ground. The Reader – aimed at professors, students, and researchers – provides an overview of the literature on housing policy and planning that is both comprehensive and interdisciplinary. It is particularly suited for graduate and undergraduate courses on housing policy offered to students of public policy and city planning. The Reader is structured around the key debates in affordable housing, ranging from the conflicting motivations for housing policy, through analysis of the causes of and solutions to housing problems, to concerns about gentrification and housing and race. Each debate is contextualized in an introductory essay by the editors, and illustrated with a range of texts and articles. Elizabeth Mueller and Rosie Tighe have brought together for the first time into a single volume the best and most influential writings on housing and its importance for planners and policy-makers.

Originally published in 1979, these essays provide a guide to the labyrinth of issues which together made up ‘housing policy’ in the late 20th Century. The focus is on the practical and political difficulties of devising measures which meet policy objectives – difficulties which are just as prevalent in the 21st Century. The search for ‘comprehensive strategies’ is shown to be a vain one: given the number of relevant issues and their complexity, only an incremental approach is practicable. Major issues are discussed in the context of an analysis of the institutional, historical and financial framework within which housing policy is formulated and operated.