Residential Mobility Programs; Urban Policy Brief No. 1, 1994

Authors: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development    

Published occasionally throughout the year, each issue of Urban Policy Brief series will review the relevant research and policy literature on a particular urban problem and trace the evolution of Federal, State, and local responses. The first issue focuses on residential mobility, a relatively new addition to the comprehensive array of policies and programs that the Federal government is using to reduce concentrations of urban policy and expand residential choice and opportunity for low-income and minority households. Mobility strategies typically employ some combination of housing assistance, intensive counseling, and other supportive services to help low-income families living in areas of concentrated poverty obtain rental housing in low-poverty, often suburban neighborhoods where access to opportunity is presumably greater. This issue draws on a wide range of sociological, demographic, and policy literature to summarize the current state of knowledge on the problems that gave rise to mobility strategies, including housing discrimination, the isolation of low-income and minority families in distressed central cities, and the "spatial mismatch" between these areas and the suburban movement of available employment opportunities.

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