Housing Assistance, Employment, and Self-Sufficiency

Housing Assistance, Employment, and Self-Sufficiency

Highlights

• Most recipients of HUD assistance are elderly, children, disabled, or already connected to the labor force, but many who work earn insufficient income to afford housing without a subsidy.
• HUD, local public housing agencies, and other stakeholders administer programs aimed at helping HUD-assisted households achieve self-sufficiency through various supports such as counseling, job training, child care, health services, transportation assistance, and savings incentives.
• Research has found that HUD’s Jobs Plus program, which consists of employment services, financial incentives, and community supports, is associated with increased annual earnings for nondisabled, working-age residents of public housing.

HUD provides rental subsidies to 2 million nonelderly and nondisabled households; of these, 57 percent reported some form of earned income at the end of 2017. Having earned income, however, does not mean having enough income to afford housing. The average monthly earned income for tenants with earnings was $1,664, whereas the average gross rent for housing was $1,230. To be able to afford housing without assistance, families need to have a consistent income, more working hours, and higher wages. Currently, many assisted tenants frequently enter and exit the labor force, have part-time rather than full-time employment, and seldom earn more than the minimum wage. Residents of HUD-assisted housing face numerous barriers to better employment, including chronic health problems, childcare and other family care responsibilities, and a lack of skills and education, and individuals experiencing homelessness may face challenges specific to homelessness in addition to these impediments. HUD has several programs and local initiatives designed to overcome these barriers.

Barriers to Higher Earnings

HUD provides annual rental subsidies to 4.6 million households; approximately 42 percent of these are nonelderly and nondisabled households. HUD’s administrative data over a three-year period show that 80 percent of these 2 million households have had earned income, with 40 percent having earned income in every quarter over the three-year period. At any given time, approximately 60 percent are employed. In other words, about 20 percent of these households have not worked during the previous three years, 40 percent have been in and out of the labor force, and 40 percent have been consistently employed. Based on survey data, HUD estimates that approximately half of those who are working are employed full time (more than 35 hours per week), with average hourly wages at or near local minimum wage, and the same surveys indicate that only half of those who are working are employed for all 12 months in a year.

Even when working full-time, it can be difficult to afford housing. Housing choice vouchers offer critical assistance and, when coupled with additional supports, can help households achieve self-sufficiency.

The economic upturn and falling unemployment rates nationally have increased employment for nonelderly and nondisabled tenants from 50 percent in 2011 to 57 percent in 2017. Although this uptick in employment rates has improved the quality of life of many families, earned incomes remain low. The average monthly wage income for these workers was $1,394 in 2011 and $1,664 in 2017. To put this in context, full-time income at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is approximately $1,208 per month.

As part of the Rent Reform Demonstration, a survey of 5,263 nonelderly and nondisabled tenants (average age of 39) from 2015 to 2016 at 4 public housing agencies (PHAs) in Lexington, Kentucky; Louisville, Kentucky; San Antonio, Texas; and Washington, DC, asked detailed questions about likely barriers to employment and higher paid work. In total, 54 percent of respondents reported having a barrier to work. The most common barrier was health related. Although none of the respondents were technically disabled, 28 percent reported that their physical health limited their ability to work, and 14 percent reported facing limitations due to mental health.

Sixty-four percent of the surveyed households had children under 13, and for 21 percent of the respondents, childcare costs were listed as a barrier to employment. Approximately 16 percent of the households reported having limited ability to work because they needed to care for a sick or disabled family member.

Although the survey did not ask households whether their level of education was a barrier to employment, low educational attainment certainly contributes to low wages. Of the families surveyed, 26 percent did not have a high school degree nor passed the general educational development test. Only 12 percent had a college degree, and most of those held only associate’s degrees. Notably, 31 percent had a trade license or certificate, and 13 percent reported attending college or vocational school at the time of the survey.1

Connecting HUD-Assisted Residents to Employment

HUD can and does influence relationships between housing and work through its community development initiatives and investments that improve transit options, preserve and develop affordable housing, and revitalize neighborhoods; however, the agency has a special opportunity to deliver employment opportunities and workforce development for individuals who live in HUD-assisted housing. Individuals in HUD-assisted housing may face several barriers to employment that are common among low-income earners. The supports and services needed to secure employment or increase wages vary considerably. For some, a bus pass, a childcare voucher, or some training is sufficient to help secure and maintain employment, but others may need intensive mental health services or significant additional education before they can find employment.2

These barriers and challenges, although daunting, can often be overcome with sufficient effort and targeted supports. Several past and present HUD programs have targeted these barriers with varying degrees of success. Evaluations of these programs offer helpful insights on which strategies work best and under what conditions they could be applied to ongoing and future initiatives.

Jobs Plus. HUD launched its original Jobs Plus demonstration in 1998 in collaboration with The Rockefeller Foundation and MDRC as a randomized controlled trial. Jobs Plus is a locally based, job-driven program to increase earnings and advance employment outcomes. The program creates incentives for employment through income disregards for working families and through services designed to support workers, including linkages to employers, job placement and counseling, educational advancement, and financial counseling. Ideally, these incentives will saturate the developments, building a culture of work and making working families the norm. The Jobs Plus model consists of three components: employment services, such as help with job searches or high school equivalency classes for securing and maintaining jobs; financial incentives that reduce or eliminate possible disincentives to work; and formal and informal community supports for work.3

The original demonstration ran from 1998 through 2003. A 2010 report by MDRC analyzed earnings data during this period and for three years after the program ended. MDRC found that Jobs Plus “caused a 16 percent increase in average annual earnings over the full seven years (an average gain of $1,300 per year) for nondisabled, working-age public housing residents.”4

Building on these results and lessons, New York City and the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity began to replicate the Jobs Plus program. HUD also has begun scaling up Jobs Plus. Since 2014, HUD has awarded roughly $62 million to 24 grantees.5 This effort includes a process study of the first 9 grantees and an outcomes study of the first 24 grantees. Jobs Plus has provided the strongest available evidence to support the success of a specific initiative. (See “Jobs Plus: Self-Sufficiency in Public Housing,” for a more detailed discussion of the Jobs Plus program and related evaluations.)

Family Self-Sufficiency program. Established in 1990, the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program allows PHAs to enter into a five-year contract (that PHAs can extend for two additional years) with participating households to set goals and coordinate services that help residents become self-sufficient. The program has three main components: an escrow account, case management, and referrals to supportive services. If a participant’s income rises during the contract period, prompting an increase in their required rent contribution, the PHA issues a credit into an escrow account.6 The participant can use the escrow account for goal-related expenses and receives the account in full after completing the program — meaning that they have secured employment and exited housing assistance without receipt of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits.7 The program allows for considerable local variation, which makes evaluating the overall program difficult. Evidence on the program’s effectiveness is mixed, especially for those facing the most severe challenges; only a small portion of FSS participants graduate and claim their escrow savings, although those who did attained steady employment and higher incomes.8 Some local programs have demonstrated limited success, however, justifying further experimentation and study. A randomized trial of an FSS program in New York City that combined FSS with cash work incentives, the Opportunity NYC – Work Rewards demonstration, found consistent positive effects for those who were not working at the time of enrollment. This intervention, however, did not reduce participants’ poverty rates or their reliance on public benefits, nor did it significantly change any outcomes for those who were already working at the time of enrollment.9 HUD is currently undertaking a random assignment study of FSS in 18 cities.

Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency (ROSS) Grant Program. The ROSS program provides grants for hiring service coordinators to empower residents of public or Indian housing to increase earned income and progress toward economic independence and housing self-sufficiency. HUD has an evaluation of the program underway.

Recipients of HUD housing assistance have varied work situations and work readiness, so different levels of services are required to achieve self-sufficiency. Photo by Dan Lynch, courtesy of the Boston Housing Authority

Section 3. Taking a somewhat different approach to encourage employment more directly, HUD’s Section 3 program requires that grantees receiving certain HUD funds, such as community development block grants and Public Housing Capital Fund grants, employ low-income individuals, especially recipients of housing assistance. Affected entities include PHAs, states, local governments, and other grantees and subgrantees. Section 3 requires that 30 percent of new hires for projects receiving HUD funds qualify as Section 3 residents. Research indicates that some agencies subject to Section 3 devote staff and resources to proactively comply, but other efforts are insufficient.10 Unruh and Dahlk interviewed local leaders in five cities and found that officials believe that contractors make only superficial efforts to hire public housing and low-income residents because of insufficient compliance enforcement. The leaders also note that workforce development officials have to spend considerable time verifying hiring requirements for a relatively small number of Section 3 hires.11 HUD reports that from 2012 to 2015, the Section 3 program led to 110,500 jobs for new program employees and trainees and $4.8 billion in contracts awarded to 26,000 businesses, indicating great potential for the program with increased compliance.12 Research conducted by Walter, Caudy, and Ray found that agencies with active Section 3 programs have difficulty securing employment for residents with criminal records.13

Moving to Work demonstration. HUD’s Moving to Work demonstration program gives PHAs greater flexibility to design and test new programs and strategies, which some have used to experiment with work requirements. In 2015, nine PHAs implemented some type of work requirements for recipients of housing assistance.14 PHAs that have implemented work requirements have used various work thresholds, exemptions, and supportive services, but nearly all have offered case management.15 In one-third of the Charlotte Housing Authority’s 15 public housing developments, for example, heads of households are required to work a minimum of 15 hours per week, and those who fail to meet the requirement face sanctions. An evaluation of the program finds that the requirement was effective in increasing employment but not in increasing hours worked, and it did not lead to households being able to exit public housing. The researchers caution against drawing definitive conclusions from the research; rather, they suggest that the topic needs more investigation and note that the particular supports and policies that the Charlotte Housing Authority implemented may have influenced the outcomes found in the study.16 An Urban Institute overview of the programs estimates that the work requirements apply to less than 10 percent of HUD-assisted renters and therefore would have only a small effect on overall work output. More research and evaluation of such programs is needed, particularly as a growing number of PHAs are designated as Moving to Work agencies and are likely to impose work requirements.17

PHA initiatives. Local PHAs can implement programs that promote employment among residents in conjunction with or independent of the HUD programs discussed above, particularly if they enjoy the flexibility afforded by the Moving to Work demonstration. For example, the Philadelphia Housing Authority, through its preapprenticeship program, employs residents directly while also training them to pursue employment in trades elsewhere. The PHA partners with three unions to train laborers, painters, and maintenance mechanics, who can then work for the PHA. The PHA commits to having a quarter of its workforce consist of residents. Residents gain experience and transferrable skills while benefiting their communities.18

Many PHAs partner with local Workforce Investment Boards. In Boston, for example, the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) and the Boston Private Industry Council (PIC) collaborated under a memorandum of understanding to offer workforce development through training, job fairs, and other investments. BHA funded resident services through PIC and hired Resident Service Coordinators to help residents navigate the services. BHA also partnered with the city’s Office of Jobs and Community Services (now known as the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development) to extend its workforce development services to more BHA residents.19 The partners have continued to build on their work together; in 2015, HUD awarded BHA a Jobs Plus grant, and the city of Boston allocated additional funds to promote work readiness for families in the Charlestown public housing development.20 In Portland, Oregon, Home Forward and Worksystems, Inc., established the Bridges to Success program, which worked with industries to provide tailored training and education coupled with case management to help residents navigate various services provided by additional partnering stakeholders. The program achieved a 50 percent employment rate for graduates, and those who secured employment earned an average annual income of more than $30,000.21

Home Forward is also one of four PHAs (including Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC) to have worked with the Urban Institute on the Housing Opportunity and Services Together (HOST) demonstration, which tests approaches centered on making housing a platform for services and supports that improve economic well-being. Building on the Chicago Family Case Management demonstration, which provided wraparound case management to public housing residents, HOST takes a two-generation, or whole-family, approach, providing intensive wraparound services to the most vulnerable families in public housing. The HOST model tailors its services to an individual’s needs, recognizing that residents may need different types and levels of supports. The demonstration keeps case managers’ caseloads low to allow them more contact with families and to build trusted relationships with their clients.22

HUD’s Jobs Plus program has successfully increased earnings among program participants. Photo by Dan Lynch, courtesy of the Boston Housing Authority

Another set of PHAs is working with MDRC to test a demonstration project called MyGoals for Employment Success, which combines structured coaching with financial incentives to help recipients of housing assistance improve labor market outcomes. The approach is based on evidence that the stresses associated with poverty can weaken executive functioning skills. In response, the program uses a highly structured coaching method, based on behavioral psychology that helps participants set goals and make and execute plans. In the process, coaches assist participants in addressing executive functioning challenges that may be getting in the way of their success in work or training. The program offers a stipend for remaining engaged in the coaching process and financial bonuses for entering and sustaining employment. MyGoals recognizes that voucher recipients may also need more than just employment-specific supports, and thus offers help with setting and achieving financial goals, such as building credit and savings.23

Connecting Individuals Experiencing Homelessness to Employment

Individuals experiencing or at risk of homelessness may also benefit from HUD programs to promote self-sufficiency. Stable housing plays an essential role in transitioning those experiencing homelessness to work, but in many cases, additional services and supports are needed to achieve the desired employment and earnings outcomes. Individuals experiencing homelessness face a number of barriers to employment. HUD’s Family Options Study finds that 83 percent of adult respondents surveyed had not worked during the previous week, and 45 percent had not worked in the past year.24 Some of the more prevalent barriers to employment for this population include the experience of homelessness itself as well as the lack of a fixed address, technology needed for job searches and applications, and, often, transportation. As with the HUD-assisted population and the low-income population generally, individuals experiencing homelessness have a considerable diversity of skills, experiences, and challenges and therefore have varied needs regarding work readiness.25

HUD and other federal agencies have attempted to address the employment challenges for this population through several approaches. The Ending Chronic Homelessness through Employment and Housing initiative, a partnership between HUD and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in the early 2000s, combined permanent supportive housing with wraparound services and customized employment strategies developed with One-Stop Career Centers. Customizing employment situations allows the service provider, the prospective employee, and the employer to use the skills and abilities of an employee to set appropriate and productive expectations.26 An evaluation of the program’s Los Angeles site found that participants were “significantly more likely to have worked” than members of the study’s comparison groups.27

More recently, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 aims for better coordination of federal programs — including employment and training for adults, dislocated workers, and youth — through DOL formula grants to states, adult education and literacy programs, and state programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education to help individuals with disabilities obtain employment.28 For example, Friendship Place, a nonprofit in the Washington, DC area, administers a job matching program called AimHire that typically secures employment for participants within 90 days.29 Citing the success of the Housing First approach to ending homelessness, president and chief executive officer of Friendship Place Jean-Michel Giraud urges a similar emphasis on employment — “Employment First” — that prioritizes the pursuit of employment in conjunction with (not as a precondition for) securing housing. In 2017, 69 program participants secured employment.30

Research Lessons

“The evidence base on what works is thin,” says MRDC policy area director James Riccio, pointing to the need to innovate and continue conducting rigorous evaluations, including more randomized controlled trials.31 To that end, MDRC and HUD are currently evaluating the FSS program with a randomized controlled trial, and an evaluation of the ROSS program is also underway. The positive outcomes of the Jobs Plus demonstration and the limited but illuminating findings from the Opportunity NYC – Work Rewards demonstration, for example, point to program components and principles worth replicating and that merit further testing. In addition, PHAs, particularly those participating in the Moving to Work demonstration, have the flexibility to experiment with various approaches that can then be evaluated.

Research to date offers some general lessons and promising principles to guide ongoing and future efforts to improve the employment outcomes and earnings of low-income individuals, including HUD-assisted households and individuals experiencing homelessness.

HUD and its local partners offer various supports to help HUD-assisted residents achieve self-sufficiency. Chicago Housing Authority

Mobility strategies show mixed impact. Based largely on the theory of spatial mismatch, the Bridges to Work demonstration of the mid- to late 1990s attempted to match individuals with jobs in suburbs and support their commute. The program struggled with recruitment, developing partnerships, and sustaining transportation. Evaluation of Bridges to Work found few statistically significant outcomes for the treatment group compared with the control group.32 Research on the Moving to Opportunity demonstration — a random assignment research effort designed to relocate low-income voucher recipients to low poverty, high-opportunity neighborhoods — also shows the limits of using mobility strategies alone to affect outcomes for adults; the program had no significant impacts on employment, earnings, or welfare receipt. Moving to lower poverty neighborhoods, however, did correlate with positive impacts on future earnings for children in the demonstration. One study found that children in families that used a voucher to move to a lower poverty neighborhood when they were 13 or younger had an annual income in their mid-20s that was 31 percent higher than the mean annual income of the control group.33 These findings support two-generation approaches that seek improved outcomes for youth as well as adults.

Employment readiness needs vary widely. Most HUD-assisted residents who can work are already attached to the labor market, although many could increase their earnings with additional training or other supports such as transportation or child care assistance.34 Other residents need more intensive supports to be prepared for employment. Initiatives such as HOST address these needs through a tiered approach, offering different levels of services according to need. Matching residents with the appropriate level of supports requires one-on-one attention and is aided by the development of a trusted relationship between service providers or coordinators and clients.

Evaluation of DOL’s Ready to Work program, which prepares long-term unemployed people for jobs in highgrowth industries, likewise finds that in addition to skills training and one-on-one career coaching assistance, additional mental or behavioral health services might also be necessary.35

Housing assistance alone is insufficient for many. Stable, affordable housing, which can be obtained through use of housing assistance, can be a platform for securing employment, but for many individuals eligible for housing assistance or experiencing homelessness, housing assistance alone is likely to be insufficient for achieving economic independence. Evaluation of the Welfare to Work voucher program, for example, in which recipients of cash welfare in six cities were awarded housing vouchers but received few additional services to help them obtain or retain employment, found no evidence of improved labor outcomes. Instead, the evaluation found reduced work and earnings that faded over time until at 3.5 years no statistically significant differences existed between the treatment and control groups.36

A study of a randomized waitlist lottery for housing vouchers in Chicago found that the use of housing vouchers by households previously in the private market reduced labor force participation by 4 percentage points and reduced earnings among working-age, able-bodied adults.37 Another study, however, points to “a large positive effect” of housing assistance on the future earnings of teenage females, although the effects were not the same for males. The study estimates that young adult females who had ever lived in voucher-assisted housing earn 14 percent more than the comparison group, and those who had ever lived in public housing earn 29 percent more than the comparison group; moreover, these effects increase with every year lived in assisted housing.38

Need for collaboration. Because many people need more than just housing to be well situated to increase earnings or find employment, housing providers often need to collaborate with other entities that provide a range of additional services. Partner organizations can provide education, training, and employment skills; in addition, other services and supports, including transportation, child care, and physical and mental health care, are beyond the typical purview and expertise of housing providers and are often essential. Riccio points out that public housing residents are among the nation’s poorest people and may also interact with other federal programs such as TANF, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or Medicaid. Federal agencies and their local offices that share constituents with PHAs, he says, would do well to collaborate and coordinate services and resources that can support their efforts to work, which was an important feature of the original Jobs Plus demonstration.39 Likewise, at the local level, increased collaboration across workforce development and housing and community development silos could increase efficiency and strengthen efforts to increase employment and earnings among low-income individuals.40 Based on its experience with collaboration in Seattle, Building Changes suggests that cross-system coordination, which does not happen naturally, is most effective when each partner serves clients in areas in which it has expertise and refers clients for matters in which other partners have expertise.41 Such coordination is a challenging but critical component of successful efforts to achieve stability in housing and employment. (For additional examples of cross-sector collaboration, see “Programs Integrate Workforce and Housing Services.”)

Benning Terrace in Washington, DC, was a site of the Urban Institute’s Housing Opportunity and Services Together (HOST) demonstration, which tailors services and supports to an individual’s needs.

Looking Forward: EnVision Centers

Building on lessons from previous programs, HUD has recently launched a new initiative — the EnVision Centers demonstration — to offer HUD-assisted families the tools to achieve self-sufficiency. Recognizing that financial assistance alone is insufficient for many to realize long-term economic independence, the EnVision Centers serve as a centralized hub to connect people to supports in four main areas: economic empowerment, educational advancement, health and wellness, and character and leadership. The centers will bring in a range of public, private, and nonprofit partners, including PHAs, to efficiently and effectively coordinate needed services and supports.42 In June 2018, HUD announced the designation of EnVision Centers in 17 communities across the nation.43 In February, the Urban Institute released a brief that included nine specific recommendations for EnVision Centers based on research on past programs, including setting realistic expectations and timelines for building assets, using a trauma-informed approach for mental health care, and using two-generation strategies, among others.44

Continuing evaluation of existing HUD programs to promote self-sufficiency as well as evaluation of the EnVision Center demonstration should yield additional insights for shaping future efforts. The hope remains that these programs can help HUD-assisted families discontinue assistance on solid financial footing with long-term economic independence and stability in housing and employment. As families exit assistance, they will free resources for low-income families that until now have been unable to access housing assistance and the employment-related supports that target the HUD-assisted population. Ultimately, EnVision Centers, like their programmatic antecedents, seek to help families flourish and “climb the ladder of opportunity.”45

1. MDRC. 2017. “A New Way to Subsidize Housing Costs and Support Work: Launching the Rent Reform Demonstration for Families with Housing Vouchers.”
2. Interview with Susan Popkin, 5 June 2018.
3. “JPI Jobs Plus Initiative Program,” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website (www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/jpi). Accessed 18 July 2018.
4. James A. Riccio. 2010. “Sustained Earnings Gains for Residents in a Public Housing Jobs Program: Seven-Year Findings from the Jobs-Plus Demonstration,” policy brief, MDRC, 1.
5. Betsy L. Tessler, Nandita Verma, Jonathan Bigelow, Victoria Quiroz-Becerra, Kirstin P. Frescoln, William M. Rohe, Michael D. Webb, Amy T. Khare, Mark L. Joseph, and Emily K. Miller. 2017. “Scaling Up a Place-Based Employment Program: Highlights from the Jobs Plus Pilot Program Evaluation,” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research.
6. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 2016. “Fact Sheet: Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) Program”; Lalith de Silva, Imesh Wijewardena, Michelle Wood, and Bulbul Kaul. 2011. “Evaluation of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program: Prospective Study,” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, vii.
7. de Silva et al., vii.
8. Susan J. Popkin. 2018. “EnVision Centers: Insights from Research on Past Efforts to Promote Self-Sufficiency among HUD-Assisted Households,” Urban Institute, 4.
9. Nandita Verma, Edith Yang, Stephen Nunez, David Long, and Victoria Deitch. 2017. “Learning from the Work Rewards Demonstration: Final Findings from the Family Self-Sufficiency Study in New York City,” MDRC, xi.
10. Rebecca J. Walter, Michael Caudy, and James V. Ray. 2016. “Revived and discouraged: Evaluating employment barriers for Section 3 residents with criminal records,” Housing Policy Debate 26:2, 400–2.
11. Rachel Unruh and Kira Dahlk. 2012. “Building Pathways to Employment in America's Cities through Integrated Workforce and Community Development,” National Skills Coalition, 1–3.
12. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. n.d. “Section 3: Connecting Low-Income Residents with Opportunity.”
13. Walter et al., 398–415.
14. Diane K. Levy, Leiha Edmonds, and Jasmine Simington. 2018. “Work Requirements in Public Housing Authorities: Experiences to Date and Knowledge Gaps,” Urban Institute, 1.
15. Ibid., 4–5.
16. William M. Rohe, Michael D. Webb, and Kirstin Frescoln. 2015. “Work Requirements in Public Housing: Impacts on Tenant Employment and Evictions,” Center for Urban and Regional Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 19–21.
17. Levy et al., 8–10.
18. “Pre-Apprenticeship Program,” Philadelphia Housing Authority website (www.pha.phila.gov/resident-services/career-training/pre-apprenticeship-program.aspx). Accessed 11 June 2018.
19. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Department of Labor. 2014. “From the Ground Up: Creating Sustainable Partnerships between Public Housing Authorities and Workforce Investment Boards,” 19–22.
20. “Boston Housing Authority awarded $2 Million from HUD and more than $1 Million from City of Boston to increase economic independence for families at the Charlestown public housing development,” Boston Housing Authority website (www.bostonhousing.org/en/News/Boston-Housing-Authority-awarded-$2-Million-from-H.aspx). Accessed 22 June 2018.
21. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Department of Labor, 19–22.
22. Susan J. Popkin and Marla McDaniel. 2013. “HOST: Can Public Housing be a Platform for Change?” Urban Institute, 6, 7, 11.
23. MDRC. 2017. “Overview: MyGoals for Employment Success: Combining Executive-Skills Workforce Coaching with Financial Incentives to Improve Economic Mobility for Families with Housing Subsidies,” 1–3. Document provided by James A. Riccio.
24. Daniel Gubits, Marybeth Shinn, Stephen Bell, Michelle Wood, Samuel Dastrup, Claudia D. Solari, Scott R. Brown, Steven Brown, Lauren Dunton, Winston Lin, Debi McInnis, Jason Rodriguez, Galen Savidge, and Brooke E. Spellman. 2015. “Family Options Study: Short-Term Impacts of Housing and Services Interventions for Homeless Families,” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, 8.
25. Butler Family Fund, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Labor, and U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. 2015. “Partnership for Opening Doors: A summit on integrating employment and housing strategies to prevent and end homelessness,” 11.
26. Chronic Homelessness Employment Technical Assistance Center. 2006. “Rebuilding Lives from the Streets to a Home and a Job.”
27. Martha R. Burt. 2007. “Evaluation of LA's HOPE: Ending Chronic Homelessness through Employment and Housing — Final Report,” Urban Institute, vii.
28. Butler Family Fund et al., 8.
29. Jean-Michel Giraud. 2018. “Employment First: A Powerful Tool for Ending Homelessness,” United States Interagency Council on Homelessness blog, 26 February (www.usich.gov/news/employment-first-a-powerful-tool-for-ending-homelessness). Accessed 11 September 2018.
30. “AimHire Job Placement,” Friendship Place website (friendshipplace.org/programs-outreach/aimhire-job-placement/). Accessed 11 June 2016.
31. Interview with James Riccio, 6 June 2018.
32. Margery Austin Turner and Lynette A. Rawlings. 2005. "Overcoming Concentrated Poverty and Isolation: Lessons from Three HUD Demonstrations," Urban Institute, 19–23.
33. Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, and Lawrence F. Katz. 2015. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," Harvard University and National Bureau of Economic Research, 1–2.
34. Alicia Mazzara and Barbara Sard. 2018. "Chart Book: Employment and Earnings for Households Receiving Federal Rental Assistance," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 5 February.
35. Abt Associates and MEF Associates. 2017. "Evaluation of the Ready to Work Partnership Grant Program: Findings from the Implementation Study of Four Training Programs for Long-Term Unemployed Workers," U.S. Department of Labor, vi, viii.
36. James A. Riccio. 2007. "Subsidized Housing and Employment: Building Evidence About What Works to Improve Self-Sufficiency," working paper, MDRC, 9.
37. Brian A. Jacob and Jens Ludwig. 2012. "The Effects of Housing Assistance on Labor Supply: Evidence from a Voucher Lottery," American Economic Review 102:1, 272.
38. Fredrik Andersson, John C. Haltiwanger, Mark J. Kutzbach, Giordano Palloni, Henry O. Pollakowski, and Daniel H. Weinberg. 2015. "Childhood Housing and Adult Earnings: A Between-Siblings Analysis of Housing Vouchers and Public Housing."
39. Interview with James Riccio.
40. Unruh and Dahlk, 1.
41. Building Changes. 2016. "Coordinating Employment and Housing Services: A Strategy to Impact Family Homelessness," 12–3.
42. "Envision Centers," U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website (www.hud.gov/envision-centers). Accessed 25 June 2018.
43. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 2018. "Secretary Carson Kicks Off Envision Center Demonstration," 7 June press release.
44. Popkin 2018, 2.
45. "Envision Centers," U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website.

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