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Developing Choice Neighborhoods: An Early Look at Implementation in Five Sites
September 2013
Prepared for:
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 Seventh Street, SW Washington, DC 20401
Prepared by:
The Urban Institute
2100 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Interim Report
Developing Choice Neighborhoods: An Early Look at Implementation in Five Sites
Acknowledgments
This report represents the work of many contributing authors from the Urban Institute and its partner organizations, including Rolf Pendall, Martin D. Abravanel, Audra Brecher, Alex Curley, Elizabeth Davies, Megan Gallagher, Monica Getahun (LFA Group), David Greenberg (MDRC), Taryn Gress (Case Western Reserve University), Chantal Hailey, Leah Hendey, Reed Jordan, Mark Joseph (Case Western Reserve University), Amy Khare, G. Thomas Kingsley, Nancy Latham (LFA Group), Diane K. Levy, Brianna Losoya, Jen McGraw (CNT Energy), Hannah Melnicoe (LFA Group), Jamie Pfluecke, Kathryn L.S. Pettit, Susan J. Popkin, Aesha Rasheed, Hortencia Rodriguez (MDRC), and Rachel Scheu (CNT Energy).
The authors also acknowledge Dena Belzer and Amanda Gehrke from Strategic Economics, Inc., for their analysis of leverage and housing market conditions in the Choice Neighborhoods and
the following individuals for providing helpful feedback on this report: Ingrid Ellen, Ann
Forsyth, George Galster, and Deborah McCoy.
In addition to the research team, the authors thank David Hardiman, Paul Joice, Carol Star, and others from HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research; Choice Neighborhoods staff in the Office of Public and Indian Housing, including Alexa Rosenberg and Mindy Turbov; and the Choice Neighborhoods implementation grantees and their staff, including Yusef Freeman, Bob Gehret, Aarti Kotak, Maggie Merrill, Kathlyn Paananen, Esther Shin, and Anne Fiske Zuniga for their thoughtful review of and comments on the report.
Disclaimer
The contents of this report are the views of the contractor and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the U.S. government.
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Contents
Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................... ii
1 Choice Neighborhoods: The Initiative and This Evaluation...................................... 1-1
1.1 HOPE VI: Precursor to Choice Neighborhoods .................................................. 1-2
1.2 Choice Neighborhoods Legislation, NOFAs, and Application Process .............. 1-4
1.2.1 Snapshots of the Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Sites .................... 1-9
1.3 Choice Neighborhoods: Building on HOPE VI Success ................................... 1-11
1.3.1 Housing ........................................................................................................ 1-11
1.3.2 People........................................................................................................... 1-12
1.3.3 Neighborhood ..... ......................................................................................... 1-13
1.4 The Urban Institute/MDRC Evaluation and Baseline Data Collection ............. 1-16
1.5 Structure of the Remainder of This Report........................................................ 1-19
2 Baseline Conditions in the Five Implementation Sites .............................................. 2-1
2.1 The Target Development ..................................................................................... 2-1
2.2 Residents of the Target Development.................................................................. 2-3
2.3 Neighborhood and Metropolitan Area Context ................................................... 2-5
2.3.1 Neighborhood Highlights............................................................................... 2-5
2.3.2 Key Data Sources and Neighborhood Definitions......................................... 2-9
2.3.3 Demographics .............................................................................................. 2-10
2.3.4 Improve Residents’ Economic Self-Sufficiency.......................................... 2-15
2.3.5 Create Neighborhoods of Opportunity......................................................... 2-21
2.4 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 2-37
3 Boston: The Quincy Corridor and Woodledge/Morrant Bay .................................... 3-1
3.1 Overview of Place and Need for Intervention ............................................... 3-1
3.1.1 Neighborhood Background ............................................................................ 3-1
3.1.2 Target Development Background and Current Conditions ........................... 3-3
3.1.3 Woodledge/Morrant Bay’s Residents at Baseline ......................................... 3-5
3.2 Description of Choice Neighborhoods Planning Process, Goals, and Plans ....... 3-6
3.2.1 Planning and Development Background in the Jurisdiction and the Neighborhood
........................................................................................................................ 3-6
3.2.2 The Choice Planning Process in Boston ...................................................... 3-10
3.2.3 The Housing Plan......................................................................................... 3-11
3.2.4 The People Plan ........................................................................................... 3-14
3.2.5 The Neighborhood Plan ............................................................................... 3-16
3.2.6 Summary of Theory of Change.................................................................... 3-16
3.3 Early Implementation......................................................................................... 3-19
3.3.1 Relationships and Coordination ................................................................... 3-19
3.3.2 Target Housing: Progress and Challenges ................................................... 3-20
3.3.3 People: Progress and Challenges ................................................................. 3-22
3.3.4 Neighborhood: Progress and Challenges ..................................................... 3-23
3.4 Analysis of Key Accomplishments and Challenges .......................................... 3-25
3.4.1 Assessment of Choice Neighborhoods Plans............................................... 3-25
3.4.2 Assessment of Choice Neighborhoods Implementation .............................. 3-25
4 Chicago: Woodlawn and Grove Parc Plaza ............................................................... 4-1
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4.1 Overview of Place and Need for Intervention ..................................................... 4-1
4.1.1 Neighborhood Background ............................................................................ 4-1
4.1.2 Target Development Background and Current Conditions ........................... 4-4
4.1.3 Grove Parc’s Residents at Baseline ............................................................... 4-5
4.2 Description of Choice Neighborhoods Planning Process, Goals, and Plans ....... 4-7
4.2.1 Planning and Development Background in the Jurisdiction and the Neighborhood
........................................................................................................................ 4-7
4.2.2 The Choice Planning Process in Chicago ...................................................... 4-8
4.2.3 The Housing Plan........................................................................................... 4-9
4.2.4 The People Plan ........................................................................................... 4-13
4.2.5 The Neighborhood Plan ............................................................................... 4-15
4.2.6 Summary of Theory of Change.................................................................... 4-16
4.3 Early Implementation......................................................................................... 4-18
4.3.1 Relationships and Coordination ................................................................... 4-18
4.3.2 Target Housing: Progress and Challenges ................................................... 4-19
4.3.3 People: Progress and Challenges ................................................................. 4-20
4.3.4 Neighborhood: Progress and Challenges ..................................................... 4-21
4.4 Analysis of Key Accomplishments and Challenges .......................................... 4-22
5 New Orleans: Iberville/Tremé ................................................................................... 5-1
5.1 Overview of Place and Need for Intervention ..................................................... 5-1
5.1.1 Neighborhood Background ............................................................................ 5-1
5.1.2 Target Development Background and Current Conditions ........................... 5-3
5.1.3 Iberville’s Residents at Baseline .................................................................... 5-5
5.2 Description of Choice Neighborhoods Planning Process, Goals, and Plans ....... 5-6
5.2.1 Planning and Development Background in the Jurisdiction and the Neighborhood
........................................................................................................................ 5-6
5.2.2 The Choice Planning Process in New Orleans .............................................. 5-9
5.2.3 The Housing Plan......................................................................................... 5-10
5.2.4 The People Plan ........................................................................................... 5-13
5.2.5 The Neighborhood Plan ......................................................................... ...... 5-14
5.2.6 Summary of Theory of Change.................................................................... 5-15
5.3 Early Implementation......................................................................................... 5-18
5.3.1 Relationships and Coordination ................................................................... 5-18
5.3.2 Target Housing: Progress and Challenges ................................................... 5-18
5.3.3 People: Progress and Challenges ................................................................. 5-20
5.3.4 Neighborhood: Progress and Challenges ..................................................... 5-22
5.4 Analysis of Key Accomplishments and Challenges .......................................... 5-23
5.4.1 Assessment of Choice Neighborhoods Plans............................................... 5-23
5.4.2 Assessment of Choice Neighborhoods Implementation .............................. 5-24
6 San Francisco: Eastern Bayview/Alice Griffith......................................................... 6-1
6.1 Overview of Place and Need for Intervention ..................................................... 6-1
6.1.1 Neighborhood Background ............................................................................ 6-1
6.1.2 Target Development Background and Current Conditions ........................... 6-4
6.1.3 Alice Griffith’s Residents at Baseline............................................................ 6-5
6.2 Description of Choice Neighborhoods Planning Process, Goals, and Plans ....... 6-6
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6.2.1 Planning and Development Background in the Jurisdiction and the Neighborhood
........................................................................................................................ 6-6
6.2.2 The Choice Planning Process in San Francisco ............................................. 6-9
6.2.3 The Housing Plan......................................................................................... 6-10
6.2.4 The People Plan ........................................................................................... 6-12
6.2.5 The Neighborhood Plan ............................................................................... 6-14
6.2.6 Summary of Theory of Change.................................................................... 6-15
6.3 Early Implementation......................................................................................... 6-18
6.3.1 Relationships and Coordination ................................................................... 6-18
6.3.2 Target Housing: Progress and Challenges ................................................... 6-19
6.3.3 People: Progress and Challenges ................................................................. 6-20
6.3.4 Neighborhood: Progress and Challenges ..................................................... 6-22
6.4 Analysis of Key Accomplishments and Challenges .......................................... 6-23
7 Seattle: Yesler Neighborhood/Yesler Terrace ........................................................... 7-1
7.1 Overview of Place and Need for Intervention ..................................................... 7-1
7.1.1 Neighborhood Background ............................................................................ 7-1
7.1.2 Target Housing Background and Current Conditions .................. ................. 7-3
7.1.3 Yesler Terrace’s Residents at Baseline.......................................................... 7-5
7.2 Description of Choice Neighborhoods Planning Process, Goals, and Plans ....... 7-6
7.2.1 Planning and Development Background in the Jurisdiction and the Neighborhood
........................................................................................................................ 7-6
7.2.2 The Choice Planning Process in Seattle......................................................... 7-7
7.2.3 The Housing Plan........................................................................................... 7-9
7.2.4 The People Plan ........................................................................................... 7-11
7.2.5 The Neighborhood Plan ............................................................................... 7-13
7.2.6 Summary of Theory of Change.................................................................... 7-14
7.3 Early Implementation......................................................................................... 7-16
7.3.1 Relationships and Coordination ................................................................... 7-17
7.3.2 Target Housing: Progress and Challenges ................................................... 7-18
7.3.3 People: Progress and Challenges ................................................................. 7-18
7.3.4 Neighborhood: Progress and Challenges ..................................................... 7-20
7.4 Analysis of Key Accomplishments and Issues .................................................. 7-22
8 Cross-Site Analysis: The Plans and the Teams.......................................................... 8-1
8.1 Institutional Context for the Choice Neighborhoods Transformation ................. 8-1
8.2 Grantee Teams and Their Planning for Choice.................................................... 8-3
8.3 The Transformation Plans.................................................................................... 8-5
8.3.1 The Transformation Plan: Housing Element ................................................. 8-6
8.3.2 The Transformation Plan: People Element .................................................... 8-9
8.3.3 The Transformation Plan: Neighborhood Element...................................... 8-11
8.4 Summing Up: Different Neighborhoods, Different Approaches ....................... 8-13
9 Toward the 2014 Report ............................................................................................ 9-1
9.1 Looking Forward: Important Questions Raised on Choice Neighborhoods
Implementation ................................................................................................................ 9-1
9.1.1 Choice Neighborhoods Grantee Teams and Leverage Partners: Momentum for
Coordinated Implementation ..................................................................................... 9-2
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9.1.2 Choice Neighborhoods, Policy Reform, and Broader Coordination of
Neighborhood Development ...................................................................................... 9-3
9.1.3 What Implementation Challenges Should Be Followed if Choice Is To Achieve
Ambitious Neighborhood Revitalization Goals? ....................................................... 9-5
9.2 Research Activities in 2013 ................................................................................. 9-7
10 References................................................................................................................ 10-1
Appendix A. Energy Scorecard Report ................................................................................ A-1
Appendix B. Geographies for Choice Neighborhoods Analyses...........................................B-1
Appendix C. Description of Data Sources .............................................................................C-1
Appendix D. Goals and Actions of the Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grants ..... D-1
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1 Choice Neighborhoods: The Initiative and This Evaluation
The overarching goal of the Choice Neighborhoods program (Choice) is to redevelop distressed assisted housing projects and transform the neighborhoods surrounding them into mixed-income, high-opportunity places. Choice builds on lessons learned during HOPE VI, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) long-running program to replace or rehabilitate distressed public housing. It maintains the emphasis of HOPE VI on public-private partnerships and mixed financing for replacing or rehabilitating assisted housing but extends eligibility to privately owned federally subsidized developments. It requires that grantees build at least one subsidized replacement housing unit for every assisted unit demolished in the target
development. It also continues the emphasis of HOPE VI on protecting tenants during the redevelopment process and heightens aspirations to give existing tenants the opportunity to live in the redeveloped project upon its completion. It differs most from HOPE VI by providing funding for projects that create synergy between renovation of the target development and revitalization efforts within the neighborhood surrounding the target development. Beyond providing funding for neighborhood investments, Choice also fosters partnerships among organizations, agencies, and institutions working throughout the neighborhood to build affordable housing, provide social services, care for and educate children and youth, ensure public safety, and revitalize the neighborhood’s commercial opportunities and infrastructure.
This interim report is the work of a team including the Urban Institute (UI) and MDRC. It provides a preliminary view of the first five Choice implementation sites: Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle. The report’s principal objective is to introduce the Choice program, describe selected conditions in the first five sites selected for Choice implementation grants, summarize these sites’ transformation plans, and describe early progress in program implementation. To develop this portrayal, the interim report uses material compiled from the five sites’ round 1 and round 2 applications for funding; interviews with key informants held during visits to each site by UI’s and MDRC’s headquarters researchers in the spring and summer of 2012; additional interviews by UI’s site-based employees conducted up to early October 2012; documents and progress reports submitted by the grantees to HUD; and
quantitative data about the neighborhoods reported by public agencies and private firms.1 As a
description of ongoing efforts in neighborhoods that are constantly changing, the interim report cannot capture the full picture of any of the five implementation efforts. Rather, the report aims to describe key accomplishments made by late 2012 and outline some ongoing challenges.
The team will deliver a baseline report on the five implementation grantees in August 2014, with more current information about baseline conditio ns and progress in implementation. The information in this interim report will be supplemented or replaced by information gathered through (1) surveys of residents at all five sites in mid-2013, (2) additional key-informant interviews, (3) focus groups with Choice tenants and other neighborhood residents, (4) grantee team meetings, (5) community meetings, (6) in-person and remote analyses of the physical
1 A first draft of the full interim report was delivered by UI/MDRC on December 14, 2012, and reviewed by staff in two main HUD offices (Policy Development and Research [PD&R] and Public and Indian Housing [PIH]). Each grantee was also provided a draft of the chapter pertaining to its own activities. Comments were compiled by staff at PD&R to guide UI/MDRC’s revisions, which were incorporated into this report on February 22, 2013. A second series of revisions were made in April 2013 by UI and PD&R staff.
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environment of the neighborhood, and (7) extensive quantitative data from public and private sources. The team will also deliver to HUD a well-organized and well-documented data archive. With the information from the baseline report and data archive, HUD or its contractors will be able to conduct followup research to assess the long-term effects of Choice on these five neighborhoods and their residents.
In this chapter, we review key features of HOPE VI, Choice’s predecessor, going on to describe the Choice program as first adopted in 2009 and carried into the first round of notices of funds availability starting in 2010. We then review key differences and similarities between HOPE VI and Choice. Finally, we review the framework for the Urban Institute’s evaluation of the first five Choice implementation sites and provide an overview of the remainder of this interim report.
1.1 HOPE VI: Precursor to Choice Neighborhoods
The United States created its federal public housing program in 1937 to provide funding to local housing authorities to build housing for the working poor. During the decades that followed, local housing authorities built about 1.5 million public housing units, many of which even today
provide decent and affordable homes for low-income families. But a complex and interrelated set of factors resulted in decline, mismanagement, physical deterioration, and social distress in a minority of public housing projects as early as the 1960s. While the majority of public housing remained viable in the following decades, the physical and social conditions of some of the most distressed developments—especially those in Chicago—became notorious, threatening both the people who lived there and the political viability of public housing. In 1989, Congress created
the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing to study the problem and recommend mechanisms to address it.
The Commission’s report, presented to Congress on August 10, 1992, recommended improvements in resident support services, support for resident-owned businesses, reforms of public housing agency (PHA) management, and rehabilitation and replacement of about 86,000 severely distressed public housing units by 2000, estimating the cost of removing and replacing
these units at $7.5 billion (1992 dollars).2 Congress made its first appropriation only 3 months
later, setting aside $300 million for the Urban Revitalization Demonstration program. Eligibility was limited to PHAs in the 40 most populous cities in the United States or in any city whose PHA was on HUD’s troubled housing authority list as of 1993. In the years that followed, the program expanded to the entire nation, with appropriations totaling nearly $5.5 billion in current dollars between 1993 and 2003 (figure 1.1).3 Commitments between 2004 and 2010 a mounted to slightly more than $800 million in current dollars. During the 17 years between 1993 and 2010,
262 implementation grants were awarded to 133 PHAs for a total of about $6.3 billion in current dollars. Another 287 grants ($395 million) were awarded for demolition only, and 35 grants ($15 million) were awarded for planning.4 By 2007, more than 78,100 distressed public housing units had been demolished, with another 10,400 units still slated for redevelopment.5
2 HUD (2007b); National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing (1992), 17.
3 HUD (2007b).
4 HUD (2012, 2007b).
5 HUD (2007a); Turner et al. (2007).
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Figure 1.1. HOPE VI Implementation/Revitalization Grant Funding, 1993–2010
Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2011)
HOPE VI evolved during this period, shifting in requirements and emphasis because of broader housing policy changes, specific provisions of authorizing language for the program, changes in emphasis at HUD, and learning from practice. Over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, the program was refined and adapted for application in different housing markets, economic situations, and local government structures. This variety of circumstances provides HUD and its many federal, state, local, and private-sector partners in HOPE VI a wealth of experience that provides some of the foundation for Choice. At least three important areas seem especially important as precursors to Choice.
First, HOPE VI resulted in the construction of hundreds of mixed-income housing projects that helped advance the objective of reducing neighborhood poverty rates from levels often well over
40 percent, a degree found by most researchers to be highly unsuitable for families with children.6 To make the redevelopments work financially and institutionally, their developers innovated by building new relationships among PHAs, city and county governments, and private-sector builders, property managers, and investors.7 These partnerships made HOPE VI redevelopment work in settings as diverse as Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago, Baltimore, Denver, St. Louis, and Tucson, requiring solutions sensitive to differences in original project design, surrounding neighborhood conditions, and housing market strength both locally and regionally.
Second, HOPE VI reflected and reinforced the diversification of the nation’s portfolio of housing assistance. Many households who had lived in public housing units demolished in HOPE VI
were provided with tenant-based assistance (now known as Housing Choice Vouchers or HCVs)
that allowed them to afford privately owned apartments, usually in neighborhoods with much lower poverty rates than those in their pre-redevelopment neighborhood. On the footprints of the redeveloped sites, the “hard units” that were built often included both public housing units and units funded by the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the nation’s main source of
6 For extensive reviews and research, see Newburger, Birch, and Wachter, 2011.
7 Turbov and Piper 2005; Abravanel, Levy, and McFarland 2009.
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subsidy for hard units, but also included other federal, state, and local subsidy sources as well as unsubsidized units. The diversity of subsidy types helps reinforce income mixing in both the redevelopment footprint and the “destination” neighborhood of tenants who received HCVs.
Third, HOPE VI provided many important lessons and examples of how to involve and protect tenants during and after the redevelopment process. Public housing is home to some of t he nation’s most vulnerable people. An estimated 21 percent of public housing households in 2010 were disabled, and 30 percent were elderly; over a third of the non-disabled households had children in them.8 In many cases, these vulnerable households need not only affordable housing but also supportive services.9 PHAs and service providers involved in HOPE VI developed deep expertise in case management and relocation thanks in part to the allowance that grantees could spend up to 15 percent of HOPE VI funding for community and supportive services. Like the partnerships built to generate financially feasible projects, the partnerships built to provide services are among the most important legacies of HOPE VI for Choice.
The final round of HOPE VI grants was made in fiscal year (FY) 2010; HUD developed Choice Neighborhoods as the successor to HOPE VI. By the time these final projects have been completed later in this decade, HOPE VI will have made substantial headway on reducing the capital investment backlog in public housing. Based on the two most recent studies of capital needs in public housing, estimates of the total capital need dropped from $36 billion to $26 billion between 1998 and 2010 (constant 2010 dollars). “Part of this decrease reflects the fact that there were 9 percent fewer units in 2010, but the average backlog amount per unit also
decreased, from slightly more than $30,000 per unit to less than $24,000 per unit, a drop of about
21 percent.”10 It is clear that significant progress has been made, but more remains to be done to address the capital needs of public housing. Furthermore, many privately owned rental
developments made affordable by HUD programs dating from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s—
never eligible for HOPE VI—also have capital investment backlogs large enough to warrant investment beyond owners’ capacity or willingness to make capital improvements.11 Choice and another newly initiated program, the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), are meant to address that gap in both public and HUD-assisted housing, but the goals for Choice go beyond
capital improvement to neighborhood transformation.
8 National Low Income Housing Coalition, “Who Lives in Federally Assisted Housing?” Housing Spotlight 2:2 (November 2012), page 2. Available: http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/HousingSpotlight2-2.pdf.
9 Buron et al. 2002; Popkin, Levy, and Buron 2009.
10 Finkel et al. (2010). The “simple” comparison cited here is complicated by changes in estimation methods and choice of cost inflator. According to the report’s authors: “In 1998 we assumed that all over-age systems would be repaired or replaced as part of meeting existing needs. The approach used in the current study allows for some over-
age systems to remain in place if they are still in working condition. It is assumed that they will be replaced at a later date—at their expected failure time.” The authors also note that the Consumer Price Index rose by 34 percent between 1990 and 2010 while the RS Means Construction Cost Index rose by 59 percent.
11 We found no estimates of the total capital needs of the privately owned HUD-assisted stock as of September
2012.
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1.2 Choice Neighborhoods Legislation, NOFAs, and Application Process
Choice was first funded in the FY 2010 HUD appropriations bill,12 which provided up to $65 million. The bill required grantees to commit to at least 20 years of affordability for replacement units. Authorized applicants included local governments, PHAs, nonprofit organizations, and for- profit developers applying jointly with a public entity; applicants were required to “create partnerships with othe r local organizations including assisted housing owners, service agencies and resident organizations” and “undertake comprehensive local planning with input from residents and the community.”
In May 2010, HUD released a pre-notice for the 2010 Choice Neighborhoods Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA). HUD called Choice “a comprehensive approach to community development centered on housing transformation” whose goal is “to transform neighborhoods of poverty into viable mixed-income neighborhoods with access to economic opportunities.” HUD hoped that such transformation would occur by “revitalizing severely distressed public and assisted housing and investing and leveraging investments in well-functioning services, effective schools and education programs, public assets, public transportation, and improved access to
jobs.”13 In addition to that overarching goal, the pre-NOFA specified goals for housing, people, and neighborhood:
• Transform distressed public and assisted housing into energy efficient, mixed-income housing that is physically and financially viable over the long term;
• Support positive outcomes for families who live in the target development and the surrounding neighborhood, particularly outcomes related to residents health, safety, employment, and education; and
• Transform neighborhoods of poverty into viable, mixed-income neighborhoods with access to well-functioning services, effective schools and educational programs, public assets, public transportation, and improved access to jobs.
The first NOFA was published August 25, 2010, specifying that grants would be available for planning and implementation, and that applicants for the implementation grants would compete in two rounds. Planning grants would “enable more communities to create a rigorously developed plan and build support necessary for neighborhood transformation to be successful.” Implementation grants would “support … communities that have undergone a comprehensive local planning process and are now moving forward with their ‘Transformation Plan’ to redevelop the neighborhood.” HUD anticipated that approximately 10 round 1 applicants for implementation grants would be deemed prepared to submit round 2 applications, and that 2 to 4 applicants would ultimately be awarded funds. The maximum implementation grant was set at
$31 million.
The NOFA placed significant weight on the transformation plan, a “comprehensive neighborhood revitalization strategy” meant to serve as “the guiding document for the revitalization of the public and/or assisted housing units, while simultaneously directing the
12 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010. Public Law 117.
13 Henriquez and Galante (2010).
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transformation of the surrounding neighborhood and positive outcomes for families.”14 The NOFA set out aspirational language about the neighborhood: coordinated investment in developmental assets for residents; commercial assets for employment and retail options; recreational and physical assets for enjoyment, amenity, and function; and social assets to heighten social interaction. In addition, the NOFA stressed HUD’s commitment to interagency collaboration, especially with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation program and the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods program and connecting with activities of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Transportation under the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.
The NOFA also set forth HUD’s intention to work with grantees to develop metrics to measure performance across sites and ne ighborhoods. The list of categories for these metrics offers further insight into HUD’s goals for the program.
• Housing: The NOFA listed four main groups of housing metrics. The redeveloped housing should (1) be modernized to improve energy efficiency, indoor air quality, disaster risk, accessibility to disabled people, and access to the Internet; (2) contain a mix of extremely low-income, low-income, and, as appropriate, moderate-income housing;
(3) be physically viable, built with “durable and low-maintenance materials” and receive appropriate maintenance and upgrades over time; and (4) be financially viable, be budgeted appropriately, and meet or exceed industry standards for management and maintenance.
• People: The NOFA specified that HUD and grantees would work together to establish metrics for both baseline residents (those living in the development at the time of application for Choice) and residents of the revitalized development. HUD meant for grantees to track the location of residents—including those who moved out—starting as
early as December 2010, the ultimate deadline for round 1 applications.15 Residents not
returning by their own choice to the redeveloped site were expected to enjoy housing and neighborhood opportunities equal to or better than those experienced by people returning to the redeveloped site. Both baseline residents and residents of the revitalized housing should be at least as healthy as those in similar economic and demographic conditions at baseline, and live in a safer environment than at baseline thanks to improvements in neighborhood safety. Access to opportunity should also increase, resulting in rising
wages over time, better access to high-quality early learning programs and services and good nearby schools, and improved educational outcomes relative to the state average.
• Neighborhood: The NOFA set out seven categories of neighborhood metrics. Those for neighborhood housing include reducing vacancies and abandonment in the housing stock, improving quality, and achieving a sustained mix of household incomes. Those for services—grocery stores, banks, health clinics and doctors’ offices, dentist offices, and early learning programs and services—aim to ensure that the distance traveled from the neighborhood to basic services be no greater than that traveled from the metropolitan area’s median neighborhood. Those for public schools aspire to a safe and welcoming environment in the schools in the neighborhood, and to ensure that these schools have
14 HUD (2010: 2).
15 The round 1 NOFA set the deadline for October 26, 2010, but extended the deadline to December, as discussed below.
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test scores as good as or better than the state average or are implementing reforms to raise student achievement over time, graduating students from high school ready for college
and a career. The metrics for other education programs aim for access to programs and services that improve children’s readiness for school. Those for public assets support
access to high-quality park and recreation facilities. Those for effective transportation alternatives stress access to high-quality public transit, walking, and biking options to
connect them to work and services. Those for job access, finally, aim for employment rates similar to or better than that in other neighborhoods in the jurisdiction and region.
The NOFA sets three roles within the grantee team. The lead applicant is the “primary entity responsible for implementing the activities identified in the Transformation Plan”16 and the only entity with access to HUD’s Line of Credit Control System (LOCCS), allowing for draws on t he committed grant. A co-applicant is “any entity with which the Lead Applicant chooses to apply for funding under this NOFA.” Co-applicants also sign the grant agreement and are responsible for implementing the activities identified in the Transformation Plan but do not have access to LOCCS; co-applicants are optional except when the lead applicant is a for-profit developer. A
principal team member is an entity selected for primary responsibility for coordinating implementation of the core goals for housing, people (including education), and neighborhood. Lead applicants and co-applicants may serve as principal team members.
The NOFA specified that all eligible neighborhoods must contain severely distressed public or HUD-assisted housing; have at least 20 percent of neighborhood residents either living in poverty or earning extremely low incomes; and be considered distressed, as indicated by any of the following:
• Part 1 violent crime rates during the past 3 years exceeding the city (or county/parish)
average by at least 50 percent.
• Long-term residential housing vacancy rates (March 2010) exceeding the city (or county/parish) average by at least 50 percent.
• A low-performing school.
• At least 20 children or 20 percent of children in the target development attending a low- performing school.
Applicants were obligated to have matching funds of at least 5 percent of the requested grant amount, in cash or as in-kind donations.
Required activities for implementation grantees included housing transformation through rehabilitation, preservation, or demolition and replacement of severely distressed housing; one- for-one replacement of all public and assisted dwellings “unless otherwise permitted;” resident involvement in planning and implementing the Transformation Plan; activities ensuring economic, educational, and environmental viability of the neighborhood; activities promoting economic self-sufficiency of residents in the revitalized housing and the neighborhood; partnerships with educators and engagement in community planning to increase access to programs and services improving academic and developmental outcomes for resident children
16 HUD (2010: 11).
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and youth; activities to preserve affordable housing in the neighborhood; service coordination, supportive services, mobility counseling, and housing search assistance for residents displaced because of the housing revitalization; activities demonstrating that each tenant wishing to return to replacement housing could do so if the tenant was lease-compliant at and after the time of departure; tracking of tenants relocated during redevelopment through the life of the grant or until full occupancy of the replacement housing; and activities meeting fair housing and accessibility requirements. A host of additional activities are listed as eligible.
Applicants were required to demonstrate, in specific attachments to their applications, their compliance with requirements for resident and community involvement including at least one meeting with the target development and at least two public meetings with residents of the target housing and the broader community (all on different days from each other and assuring physical accessibility and providing assistance for people with limited English proficiency). At least one public meeting was required to be held at the beginning of or shortly before the transformation planning process. During the course of the minimum three meetings, applicants were expected to have addressed the planning and implementation process, the proposed physical plan, the
planned supportive services activities, other proposed transformation activities, relocation issues, reoccupan cy plans, and opportunities for training, employment, and other economic opportunities.
As with all competitive NOFAs, the Choice Neighborhoods implementation NOFA set out a series of selection criteria with point scoring used for judging one application against another. The round 1 NOFA provided three main categories of criteria: capacity, need, and vision. Capacity was heavily weighted, accounting for 51 of the total 105 possible points. The capacity score highlighted both overall project leadership and the experience of the principal team member for housing, people, and neighborhood. Need accounted for 25 points, with equal emphasis on unit distress and neighborhood distress and 1 point for the community’s affordable housing need. The point scoring gave greater priority to projects with greatest distress and neighborhoods with the highest poverty and vacancy rates and the lowest performing schools. Vision, finally, accounted for 29 points, with 6 points for the quality of the housing plan, 8 for the quality of the people plan (including the educational component), and 9 for the quality of the neighborhood plan. An additional 4 points was offered for the plan’s achievability and 2 for its consistency with other plans. The round 1 NOFA specifies that the applications would be scored and ranked; it did not specify that an application needed to receive a minimum number of points to advance to round 2.
It was logical for HUD to emphasize capacity in round 1 because many applicants would still be working out the details of their transformation plans. In the first year of a new program, none of the competitors would have had an opportunity to engage in Choice-funded planning activities, although many had gained important experience through HOPE VI and similar housing revitalization activities. The NOFA explicitly acknowledges, “Although your Transformation Plan does not need to be complete or ready for implementation for this round 1 application, HUD will assess how you are planning to address the Severe Physical Distress of Public and/or
Assisted Housing units identified in the Need scoring criteria and any additional units
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proposed.”17 Similar language appears in the sections introducing the round 1 NOFA’s criteria for the people and neighborhood plans.
Forty-two applications were received by the December 9, 2010 revised deadline for round 1. Of those, 7 were from public housing agencies and 6 were from local governments. Other applicants included such well-known national affordable housing developers as McCormack Baron Salazar, Inc. (MBS) and Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH), Inc. On March 18, 2011, HUD announced that six applicants had advanced to round 2: the city of Boston (Woodledge/Morrant Bay development in Quincy Corridor), Housing Authority of New Orleans (Iberville Housing Development in Iberville/Tremé), Seattle Housing Authority (Yesler Terrace in the Yesler neighborhood), Tampa Housing Authority (Central Park Village in the Central Park neighborhood), MBS (Alice Griffith public housing in San Francisco’s Eastern Bayview neighborhood), and POAH (Grove Parc Apartments in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood). Applications for round 2 were due June 1, 2011.
The criteria and point scoring for round 2 focused on the quality and achievability of the transformation plan. Criteria for the housing plan accounted for 31 points, with specific consideration of access to opportunity, replacement housing, mixed-income development, long- term affordability, accessibility, green building, land use approvals, and leverage. The people criteria, 27 points total, included resident needs assessment and results, supportive services strategy, education (early learning, schools, and education programs), relocation and reoccupancy, Section 3 plan and complianc e, and leverage. The neighborhood plan criteria (34 points total) included goals and outcomes, alignment with existing efforts, access to amenities, anchor institution engagement, design, transit-served location, LEED-ND (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development), and leverage (CDBG, anticipatory, and neighborhood). A further 28 points were possible for soundness of approach, which included organizational framework for implementation, resident and community involvement, project readiness, program schedule, collection and use of data, affirmatively furthering fair housing,
and impact of the transformation plan. The results of this point scoring were added to points awarded in round 1 for capacity, need, and consistency with planning documents to yield final scores.
In sum, the round 1 and round 2 NOFA meant to create incentives for developing transformation plans for certain kinds of housing developments in certain kinds of neighborhoods. The developments needed to be severely distressed for a reasons ranging from serious unit deficiencies, to safety, to energy efficiency. The grantee needed to be, or be well connected to,
an organization that could credibly claim expertise in redeveloping such housing without harming the vulnerable residents living there. The neighborhood surrounding it needed to be highly distressed, but not so much so that a visionary plan for its redevelopment would appear unfeasible. The points for leverage—which could be documented in large amounts only if some funding momentum had already been gained—and for the presence of an anchor institution underscore this balance between hope and distress.
On August 31, 2011, HUD announced that it had selected five of the six finalists, committing
$122 million to all the projects except the application from the Tampa Housing Authority. The
17 HUD (2010: 59).
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three largest grants were awarded to POAH, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), and MBS, for $30.5 million each. The city of Boston was awarded $20.5 million and the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) was awarded $10.27 million for the first phase of the Yesler Terrace redevelopment. The total award exceeded the expected $65 million for implementation because HUD combined funding from FY 2010 with additional funds from FY 2011. We include snapshots of these five implementation sites in the following paragraphs and describe them in greater detail in subsequent chapters in this report.
1.2.1 Snapshots of the Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Sites
The Quincy Corridor (Boston). The target development in Boston is the Woodledge/Morrant Bay Section 8 development, located in the center of the Quincy Corridor neighborhood in the Dorchester area, about 4 miles south of downtown Boston. Woodledge/Morrant Bay consists of
129 units scattered over 11 three-story walk-up buildings within a three-block radius around
Quincy Street. This development is occupied mostly by families, and nearly two-thirds of the residents are under age 24. There is significant racial and ethnic diversity in the surrounding neighborhood, and two out of five householders do not speak English as their primary language. The neighborhood, a small area with about 9,700 residents in 0.5 square miles, is the densest Choice neighborhood. The units in Woodledge/Morrant Bay account for only 4 percent of the neighborhoods’ 3,500 housing units, 88 percent of which are in multifamily buildings.
Woodlawn (Chicago). Grove Parc Plaza is the target Section 8 development for Choice in Chicago. It originally consisted of 504 units in 24 buildings, spread across five city blocks in the northwest section of the Woodlawn community area (just north of the East 63rd and Cottage Grove El stop on the Green Line). The Woodlawn neighborhood is located about 7 miles south of downtown Chicago and just south of the University of Chicago, with Lake Michigan as its eastern boundary. Nearly all residents of Grove Parc are Black and nearly two-thirds are age 24
or younger. Residents are concerned about safety in Woodlawn, because one-third of households
have experienced a violence-related death in their family. Woodlawn has the largest land area and population of the five Choice areas, with 23,700 people in 2 square miles. Grove Parc constitutes 4 percent of the 12,100 housing units, 89 percent of which are located in multifamily structures.
Iberville/Tremé (New Orleans). Iberville, the public housing development targeted by the HANO Choice grant, is located in the southeast corner of the Iberville/Tremé neighborhood, adjacent to New Orleans’s central business district and the French Quarter. The street grid was removed in Iberville, creating a 23-acre superblock with 821 units in 74 buildings. Interstate 10 (I-10), historic cemeteries, and adjacent vacant lots isolate Iberville from the rest of the Tremé neighborhood. The development is an entirely Black community, with more than one-half of
households consisting of single adults without children. One-third of the residents of Iberville are
disabled. The Iberville/Tremé neighborhood experienced dramatic population shifts after
Hurricane Katrina destroyed or damaged much of the city. Although it has a large land area, at
1.7 square miles, it is the least dense Choice area, and its 2010 population of 11,600 represents a drop of 44 percent since 2000. Most of the 8,200 housing units in the neighborhood are single- family homes, duplexes, or small multifamily buildings. The Iberville community makes up about 10 percent of all housing units in the Choice area.
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Eastern Bayview (San Francisco). The target development in San Francisco is the Alice Griffith public housing community, consisting of 256 townhouse-style units in 33 two-story buildings on 23 acres in the Eastern Bayview neighborhood, bounded on the east by the San Francisco Bay. The development is about 5 miles south of downtown San Francisco and is near the former Hunters Point Shipyard and Candlestick Park. The development has a closed street grid that leaves it poorly integrated into the surrounding neighborhood. Of the households in Alice Griffith, 70 percent are families with children. About three-fourths of the residents are Black, but 20 percent of the children are nonnative English speakers, and many speak Samoan, Spanish, or Cantonese. Eastern Bayview is one of the larger Choice areas, at 1.6 square miles and 17,600 people, and the neighborhood includes several other public housing developments.
More than one-half of Eastern Bayview’s 5,600 housing units are single-family homes, and more
than one-third of the homes are owner occupied (the highest of the Choice areas). Alice Griffith makes up 5 percent of the units in the neighborhood.
Yesler (Seattle). The Choice grant will fund the beginning of the redevelopment of the Yesler Terrace public housing development, which consists of 561 units in 69 two- or three-story buildings on 30 acres located in the Yesler neighborhood. The neighborhood is located just east of downtown Seattle and I-5, north of the International District, and south of Seattle University and Harborview Medical Center. Yesler Terrace has a very diverse set of residents, with immigrants and refugees representing about one-fourth of the population, and there are more
than 20 languages spoken by residents. This development also has a larger elderly population (18
percent) than the other sites. The Choice area is the smallest of the five, at 0.2 square miles with about 2,100 residents. Overall, Yesler consists mainly of large multifamily apartment buildings, with 965 housing units. Unlike the other Choice areas, Yesler Terrace constitutes more than one- half of the neighborhood’s housing units.
1.3 Choice Neighborhoods: Building on HOPE VI Success
Choice Neighborhoods builds on HOPE VI requirements and best practice in its requirements for how grantees should seek to rebuild assisted housing, protect and improve the lives of the people living there, and revitalize surrounding neighborhoods. Because the best practices observed
under HOPE VI have been written into the requirements of Choice, grantees and HUD will face new opportunities and challenges in the early rounds of Choice implementation. Many of the new features promise to yield important insights during the evaluation process.
1.3.1 Housing
Choice applicants faced a list of requirements for the housing portions of their applications that closely resembled the requirements of the final NOFA for HOPE VI. As a consequence, Choice applicants with HOPE VI experience are likely to find the application and implementation processes familiar. Three key aspects of Choice make it differ from HOPE VI on the “housing” aspect.
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1.3.1.1 HUD-Assisted Multifamily Housing
Whereas HOPE VI involved only public housing properties, Choice targets both public housing and rental housing properties subsidized through various HUD multifamily programs. The latter, known as HUD-assisted housing properties, were developed and are owned by both for-profit and nonprofit private corporations, primarily under the National Housing Act’s Section
221(d)(3), Section 236 and Section 8 (new construction or substantial rehabilitation).18 HUD-
assisted properties provide rental housing units to low- and moderate-income households who often reside in the same or same types of neighborhoods as public housing residents.
HUD-assisted housing programs were initiated in the 1960s. Many of the properties they subsidized were constructed after that time but, through rehabilitation options, some that were built earlier were modernized with HUD assistance. Construction or rehabilitation involved
HUD-subsidized mortgage financing and/or guarantees of Section 8 housing assistance payments in exchange for maintaining the units for low- and moderate-income occupants for a certain period of time. HUD-assisted housing properties are now decades old and, like severely
distressed public housing developments that were targets of HOPE VI, some have become
obsolete and are in need of substantial upgrading or replacement. Given similarities in the populations and neighborhoods served by public and HUD-assisted housing, the objectives and resources of Choice were intended to apply to both types of housing. Choice, in this regard, is a programmatic breakthrough offering opportunities for innovation in renewing the nation’s affordable private rental housing stock.
Secretary Donovan argued the logic of making HUD-assisted housing eligible for Choice in a speech in July 2009. Citing a report on the troubled Washington Highlands neighborhood of Washington, DC, he explained that the “worst-case situation” for HUD was difficult to solve in part because “’two separate and distinct HUD program areas…[were] alleged to be contributing to the deterioration of the neighborhood—public housing and Project-based Section 8,
subsidizing private developers and owners.”19 As Secretary Donovan noted, HOPE VI could
redevelop two of the four properties in the neighborhood. It made no sense that the two equally distressed projects just across th e street from the public housing projects could not be redeveloped as well.
Choice’s addition of HUD-assisted developments to the projects eligible for funding also offers an additional promise: an opportunity for innovation in federal affordable housing practice and policy. As the successor to HOPE VI, Choice falls under the purview of HUD’s Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH). HUD-assisted housing, however, is the responsibility of HUD’s Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and its Office of Multifamily Housing Programs. Choice
18 Another major supplier of affordable rental housing, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, is not administered by HUD but by the Internal Revenue Service. Therefore, it is not considered HUD-assisted housing. LIHTC properties, however, may benefit from HUD’s Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program.
19 Prepared Remarks for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan at the Brookings Institution
Metropolitan Policy Program's Discussion - “From Despair to Hope: Two HUD Secretaries on Urban Revitalization and Opportunity”, national Press Club, Washington, DC, July 14, 2009, available:
http://www hud.gov/news/speeches/2009-07-14.cfm.
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is likely to build new organizational and programmatic relationships across the program landscape within HUD.20
1.3.1.2 One-for-One Replacement
HOPE VI sought, and Choice seeks, to reduce the concentration of poverty and to provide assisted tenants with the opportunity to live in lower poverty neighborhoods. HOPE VI did so primarily through dispersing assisted households, either by providing vouchers or by redeveloping public housing as scattered site, low-rise developments. Many of these households did move to neighborhoods with lower poverty rates than the neighborhoods surrounding their former homes in public housing, but some stakeholders have expressed concern about reductions
in the number of “hard units” of public housing.21 Choice requires one-for-one replacement of all
the assisted or affordable housing units present at the time of the first grant application, and requires that lease-compliant tenants have an opportunity to return to the revitalized target development. Replacing up to half the units with vouchers is permitted in metropolitan areas with soft rental housing markets, significant use of vouchers in low poverty neighborhoods, and high voucher success rates.22 Replacement of hard units in Choice can occur through rehabilitation, new construction, or acquisition. Not all replacement units need to be on the footprint of the original development, but they are usually expected to be within the boundaries of the neighborhood. Reconstruction may occur in high-opportunity neighborhoods up to 25
miles from the boundary of the target neighborhood, however, to comply with fair housing requirements, deconcentrate poverty, or redevelop onsite with appropriate densities.23
1.3.1.3 Flexible Funding for Mixed-Income Housing
HOPE VI advanced the practice of using mixed financing techniques to yield housing with a variety of income limits and with no income restrictions (for example, by mixing public housing, tax credit units, market-rate units and homeownership units). Choice also encourages mixed finance in the redeveloped housing, providing incentives to leverage other public subsidies and also encouraging appropriate market-rate units as part of the redevelopment. Choice further supports this practice with a new innovation: Choice funding may be used directly to develop affordable housing for households with income up to 120% of area median income (AMI). These units are not considered replacement housing for the purposes of the one-for-one replacement
requirement.24 This flexibility can help grantees draw additional households with a range of
incomes to the redeveloped neighborhood, and may prove particularly important for weak markets where market rate units are unlikely to attract middle-income households.
1.3.2 People
Choice also strongly resembles HOPE VI in many of its provisions aimed at improving the lives of tenants in the assisted development. Like HOPE VI grantees, Choice grantees must identify
20 This opportunity may also be offered by the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) project. See GAO (2012).
21 Comey (2007).
22 HUD (2010: 25-26).
23 HUD (2010: 25).
24 HUD 2010, page 10, as clarified by the Second Technical Correction to the NOFA, published 11/16/2010.
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strategies for community and supportive services, early childhood education, and income mixing; they also demonstrate capacity, leveraging, resident and community involvement in the redevelopment process, strong plans for relocation, and satisfaction of fair housing and equal opportunity requirements. Choice differs from HOPE VI in ways that build on the experience of the most successful HOPE VI projects at improving tenants’ lives.
1.3.2.1 Post-Redevelopment Relocation Choices
Like HOPE VI, Choice requires grantees to work closely with existing tenants to ensure that
their relocation needs are met. With the one-for-one replacement requirement, however, grantees
now have an expanded opportunity to work with tenants to offer them the option of returning to the redeveloped project if they choose to do so. Under HOPE VI, many households shifted to housing choice vouchers or moved to other traditional public housing projects, with a minority moving back to the new HOPE VI housing.25 Some of the shifting to vouchers and to other
public housing under HOPE VI was a response to the tenants’ preferences.
1.3.2.2 Educational Opportunities for Residents
Perhaps the biggest opportunity area, and one of the strongest emphases in Choice, is improving K–12 education. Many studies show that neighborhoods with better schools have higher property values and greater residential demand than those with weak schools. Starting with some of the earliest projects, leading HOPE VI grantees worked with school districts and universities to improve neighborhood school facilities and enrich school programs aimed at high-risk and low- income youth. Atlanta’s Centennial Place project, for example, included construction of the $13 million Centennial Place Elementary School, which has provided a modern facility and
demonstrated success in meeting educational goals.26 In Louisville, stakeholders in neighborhood
redevelopment had already built relationships that stressed school improvement before HOPE VI began, using the redevelopment of Park DuValle as an opportunity to realize their goals.27 All these efforts aspired to improve outcomes for established residents, including assisted tenants
and other low-income children in the neighborhood; some also aimed to attract middle-income families to the new developments.
Many of the efforts to link HOPE VI and school redevelopment demonstrated that linking public housing revitalization to neighborhood school improvement is complex, context dependent, and time consuming.28 By including school improvement and partnerships among the goals and requirements of Choice, the program’s designers give applicants strong incentives to bring schools into their transformation planning efforts early. HUD has also worked to coordinate Choice with the Department of Education's Promise Neighborhoods program, which is focused on improving educational oppo rtunities in neighborhoods like those where Choice is being implemented. Choice and Promise are conceptually aligned, and in some cases even provide
funding to the same communities. This increased emphasis on educational opportunity should
25 See for example Buron et al. (2002); Comey (2007).
26 Turbov and Piper (2005).
27 Varady et al. (2005).
28 Abravanel, Smith, and Cove (2006).
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encourage all the stakeholders in neighborhood redevelopment to capitalize on opportunities for synergy that can come from both school improvement and neighborhood revitalization.
1.3.2.3 Improving Services for Residents Throughout the Neighborhood.
Another feature distinguishing Choice’s people elements from those of HOPE VI is the intention that the programs and services created and enhanced by Choice will help not only the tenants of the target development but also residents of the neighborhood at large. The program’s aspirations for improvements in early childhood care and K–12 education, physical and mental health, and economic self-sufficiency clearly apply not only to assisted tenants but also, to some extent, to everyone in the neighborhood. Although most of the people funding within Choice grants is clearly aimed at providing adequate case management and relocation services for tenants of the target development, the NOFA also clearly gives applicants incentives to form partnerships with service providers and school districts to ensure high-quality and coordinated services for all in
the neighborhood who need them.
1.3.3 Neighborhood
The most significant difference between HOPE VI and Choice Neighborhoods, of course, is the goal that Choice “transform neighborhoods of poverty into functioning, sustainable mixed- income neighborhoods with appropriate services, public assets, transportation and access to jobs, and schools, including public schools, community schools, and charter schools.”29 Again, leading
HOPE VI projects were carried out as instrumental components of neighborhood revitalization programs with exactly these goals, leading to important early examples of the kinds of partnerships and leveraging that Choice’s designers and implementers hope to foster with every Choice grant. Choice supports this goal by allowing grantees to allocate as much as 15 percent of funds for Critical Community Improvements (CCIs), defined as “activities to promote economic development, such as development or improvement of transit, retail, community financial
institutions, public services, facilities, assets or other community resources.”30 Choice also
requires grantees to designate a lead organization or agency to carry out the Transformation
Plan’s neighborhood activities.
Choice also differs from HOPE VI in that it is being implemented within the context of broader strategies to improve distressed neighborhoods and their surrounding regions. The Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, the Obama Administration’s “place-based strategy to support local communities in developing and obtaining the tools they need to revitalize neighborhoods of
concentrated poverty into neighborhoods of opportunity.”31 The NRI is led by the White House
Domestic Policy Council with participation by the White House Office of Urban Affairs and the Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Education (ED), Justice (DOJ), Health and Human Services (HHS) and Treasury. Aside from Choice, other important programs within the NRI include ED’s Promise Neighborhoods, DOJ’s Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation
30 HUD 2010, page 46.
31 The White House Neighborhood Revitalizat ion Initiative, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/nri_description.pdf, accessed June 22, 2013.
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program, and investments by HHS in community health centers and behavioral health services. The programs support one another through NOFA criteria and to an extent by awarding point bonuses to sites that have received place-based program awards from other agencies.
The federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities, second, works to coordinate federal housing, transportation, water, and other infrastructure investments and activities by HUD, the US Department of Transportation (DOT), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in pursuit of six livability principles: provide more transportation choices; promote equitable, affordable housing; enhance economic competitiveness; support existing communities; coordinate and leverage federal policies and investment; and value communities and neighborhoods.32 Each of the three agencies has incorporated the livability principles into various existing and new grant programs. In the cities and regions surrounding the five first-
round Choice implementation neighborhoods, for example, HUD has funded regional planning grants in Boston, Chicago, and Seattle, a Community Challenge Grant for Boston’s Fairmount Corridor, and a HUD/DOT Planning Challenge Grant to study the Claiborne Corridor (I-10) in New Orleans, which bisects the Iberville/Tremé Choice Neighborhood.33
Neighborhood transformation is much more complex than redeveloping a public or HUD- assisted housing project. Listing all the ways in which this innovation of Choice might affect neighborhood outcomes would be impossible. Even so, a few elements of Choice’s program design merit further discussion because of their potential for improving community development practice.
1.3.3.1 Public Safety
Choice builds on HOPE VI by explicitly focusing on public safety. Choice Neighborhoods grantees are expected to partner closely with law enforcement officials to lower crime rates in the neighborhood during and after redevelopment. Through funding from DOJ, HUD is providing Public Safety Enhancement (PSE) grants to the first set of Choice Neighborhoods
implementation grantees to develop and implement comprehensive public safety strategies in the
their neighborhoods. HUD has also worked to coordinate Choice with DOJ's Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation program, another pillar of the Obama Administration’s larger Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (NRI) that supports the development of comprehensive strategies to address priority crime problems in distressed communities. Similar to coordination work with Promise Neighborhoods in the education realm, Choice and Byrne are conceptually aligned around the nexus between public safety and neighborhood transformation.
1.3.3.2 The Importance of Context
To the extent that HOPE VI has fostered transformation of neighborhoods beyond the footprint of the target developments, it has done so only indirectly because HOPE VI funds were targeted to physical redevelopment and services for the target development. Case studies have shown that
32 Partnership for Sustainable Communities, “About Us,” http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov/aboutUs html, accessed June 22, 2013.
33 See http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov/map html for more information about investments by the PSC
partner agencies. Accessed June 22, 2013.
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HOPE VI has resulted in positive spillovers, especially in areas where market conditions were generally strong and when anchor institutions helped stabilize the neighborhood.34 One study comparing spillovers from HOPE VI in Baltimore confirms the importance of context, finding that a mixed-income redevelopment with a strong services component in a moderately distressed
neighborhood had more positive property value impacts than two other redevelopments, both of which had mainly low-income residents, had weaker services, and were surrounded by very distressed neighborhoods.35 Over time, HOPE VI practitioners grew increasingly sensitive to the context of their development sites—from the neighborhood, to the city, to the metropolitan area—taking careful account of the conditions surrounding the target development during the process of site planning and project feasibility. As a consequence, many HOPE VI developments have helped their neighborhoods become more attractive for investment and preserved
significant amounts of affordable housing as market rents began rising. These transformative effects have not been universal, however. Many HOPE VI projects today are more attractive
housing developments than the ones they replaced, but are surrounded by a still-run-down
neighborhood.
Choice is designed to be sensitive to city and metropolitan institutional and market contexts, and to maximize the possibility for positive spillover from the target development to the neighborhood. Its site-selection criteria favor locations with stronger markets, good services, and robust anchor institutions—that is, sites like those found by Turbov, Piper, Zielenbach, Voith, and Castells to be most likely to see positive spillovers from HOPE VI redevelopments. Choice goes beyond spillover, however. It allows grantees to spend up to 15 percent of their HUD funds on CCIs, direct and long-lasting capital investments in the neighborhood that can also presumably have spillover impacts of their own. Choice also encourages grantees to forge new relationships with agencies, organizations, and institutions working on a broad array of efforts to improve distressed neighborhoods, thereby reducing siloing that makes community development
inefficient.36 All these aspects of Choice are meant to produce both a better neighborhood for all established residents and an attractive neighborhood for nonpoor residents, gradually reducing
poverty rates by increasing the number of nonpoor residents living in the neighborhood.
The combination of one-for-one replacement and strategies to attract middle-income households, along with other efforts to increase investment in the neighborhood surrounding the target development, is likely to retain or even increase neighborhood population density. With a greater concentration of people in the neighborhood, the public and private sectors will see greater returns from costly investments in new facilities whose markets are defined by geographic boundaries. These facilities include, for example, grocery stores, public schools, and police substations. In all, these adaptations and extensions to HOPE VI add up to a program that aspires to live up to its name—creating “choice neighborhoods”—as the main mechanism to provide a mixed-income environment for residents in some of the nation’s distressed federally assisted housing developments.
34 Turbov and Piper (2005); Zielenbach and Voith (2010). Each of these studies evaluates the neighborhood effects of four HOPE VI developments, and both find positive spillovers. No systematic study of the neighborhood effects of HOPE VI has yet been conducted.
35 Castells (2010).
36 Of course, HOPE VI offers many excellent examples of both institutional collaboration and market sensitivity, so like the other departures we discuss here, this must be considered an extension of good HOPE VI practice into the core requirements of Choice rather than a novel feature.
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1.4 The Urban Institute/MDRC Evaluation and Baseline Data Collection
In September 2011, HUD issued a contract to a team from the Urban Institute and MDRC for the first phase of an evaluation of Choice. The contract’s period of performance runs through September 2014. This task order first included only three sites (Boston, Chicago, and New Orleans) because, at the time of proposal submission, the number of Choice implementation sites to be selected had not been determined. Seattle was not selected as a site at that time because it received only partial funding. San Francisco was not selected because an evaluation sponsored
by philanthropy was already in progress on HOPE SF, a public housing redevelopment program—patterned after HOPE VI and led by the Mayor's Office of Housing—that includes the target development, Alice Griffith. In May 2012, however, the first task order was modified to include Seattle and San Francisco, enabling UI and MDRC to extend the work to all five sites.
The first objective of this task order is to evaluate the implementation of the first round of
Choice implementation grants. The task order’s research questions on implementation include:
• What are the goals of the grantee’s program? What particular problems do they intend to remedy?
• What types of activities are funded by the Choice grant? To what extent does the Choice investment leverage other funding, particularly private investment? How effectively are these various activities coordinated?
• What policy reforms and innovations accompany the intervention?
• Choice is designed to be more flexible than HOPE VI. What is the impact of this flexibility on program performance?
• Choice emphasizes partnerships and collaboration. How does the grantee utilize partnerships to improve program performance?
The second objective of the task order is to collect and analyze baseline data on the first five implementation sites. These data collection efforts are meant to provide material that will enable future researchers to answer key questions about the impact of Choice on the target development, its residents, and the neighborhood more broadly:
• Housing:
o What is the change in the quality of public and assisted housing?
o How do hard costs of rehabilitation and redevelopment compare with other
programs?
o What is the change in the quality of unassisted housing units in the target neighborhood?
o To what extent does the Choice investment catalyze private investment in these unassisted units?
o What other changes in the housing market are observed during the course of the study period (that is, housing affordability, tenure, size of units/number of bedrooms)?
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o What proportion of original residents of public and assisted housing return to redeveloped properties? What factors influence this rate of return?
o What are residents’ experiences with either temporary or permanent relocation?
• Support systems:
o What institutional supports are (or will be) available to former public/assisted housing residents, both in temporary housing and in the completed neighborhood?
o What is the income/racial/ethnic diversity of the neighborhood, at the beginning and end of the study period? If the neighborhood becomes more diverse, how do these changes influence social cohesion and interaction?
o Do residents in the neighborhood exhibit informal networks and support systems (noninstitutional, nongovernmental)? Are these support networks inclusive of a variety of incomes and racial/ethnic/social groups?
• Opportunity and Livability:
o How does the intervention affect educational opportunities for youth in the neighborhood?
o How does the intervention affect employment opportunities for adults in the neighborhood?
o How does the intervention affect residents’ attitudes toward the future? Are original residents more optimistic about their own opportunities? Are they more optimistic about their children’s opportunities?
o How does the intervention affect violent crime and property crime in the target neighborhood and surrounding areas?
o How does the intervention affect neighborhood physical conditions (for example, graffiti, road conditions, vacant lots, parks, open space, playgrounds, urban agriculture, community gardens, sidewalks)? How do these changes specifically
affect the quality of the pedestrian environment, including actual and perceived pedestrian safety?
o How does the intervention affect the mental and physical health of residents?
To the extent possible, this task order will also observe whether these outcomes are evident even as early as December 2013, but we expect that a robust assessment of the outcomes of Choice in these cities will need to wait for a future task order.
The Urban Institute’s plan to accomplish these objectives uses the following methods:
• Review of key documents guiding the transformation plan. The team relies heavily on materials submitted to HUD as part of the application process—materials that include information on the needs of the assisted housing development, the residents and the neighborhood; the goals, activities, and vision of the grantees; the housing investments and site plans; and the capacity of the grantees and their partners. Other key documents that may be reviewed include local planning documents (for example, comprehensive plans, consolidated plan, PHA plans, zoning ordinance and map, housing code, building code) and information about the neighborhood (news stories and historical accounts).
• Interviews of HUD staff, grantee staff, and key community stakeholders, conducted by headquarters researchers (that is, those based in Washington [UI] and New York [MDRC] and site-based researchers working with the UI/MDRC team. These interviews
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provide insight into why the grantee chose certain strategies, including the particular property and neighborhood targeted for redevelopment, the partnerships developed and the roles designated to each partner organization, and any policy changes implemented (whether related to housing, education, transportation, general land use, or other). The interviews also seek to characterize the broader context in which the Choice transformation plan is being implemented: the housing market conditions, the general economic situation, and any overarching housing and community development strategies being pursued across sites.
• A survey of residents of the Choice neighborhood, with an emphasis on the residents of the public or assisted property targeted for redevelopment (that is, the target development). This survey will develop a detailed baseline of the conditions experienced by the residents around the time that Choice transformation begins. Survey topics include residents’ physical and mental health; employment, income, and public assistance; education; services received, and levels of civic engagement and community
involvement; and residents’ experiences in the neighborhood related to safety, housing quality, and access to services and amenities. The survey will be completed in 2013.
• Collection and analysis of quantitative and geographic data from government agenci es, commercial firms, and the grantees to describe the focus development, the assisted residents, and the surrounding neighborhood at baseline. The work also includes requesting deidentified or nonconfidential data from local agencies, such as school attendance and performance, crime, and property sales and characteristics.
• Collection and analysis of administrative data relating to the Choice area and residents.
Through key informant interviews and document review, we will document the sites’
planned and actual use of matched administrative data to track their goals for the target
developments’ residents. We will request address-level administrative records from various public agencies.
• Focus groups of neighborhood residents, and separate focus groups of individuals and organizations engaged in providing services to the community as part of the transformation plan. These focus groups will provide an opportunity for residents and stakeholders to provide the research team with semistructured feedback on the status of the transformation and how it is affecting them.
• Direct observations of neighborhood conditions, including a standardized assessment of pedestrian conditions and a block-front survey of general physical conditions in the surrounding neighborhood.
Interviews and meeting observations have taken place in two main formats. First, researchers from UI’s Washington headquarters and MDRC’s New York office conducted in-person visits to each of the first three sites in March 2012, in July 2012 to Seattle, and in August 2012 to San Francisco. Second, site-based researchers have conducted many followup interviews and
attended meetings in all five sites. Except in San Francisco, these researchers are employees of
the Urban Institute. Learning for Action (LFA) Group, which is conducting an evaluation of HOPE SF with support from the Enterprise Foundation, is conducting providing the site-based researcher in San Francisco. Actions and decisions that took place on or before September 30,
2012 are reflected in this report, although on occasion we received updated information after
September and included it when appropriate. In addition, we have not yet learned about some
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actions and decisions that the sites took before September 30, 2012, but subsequent findings about prior events will be incorporated into the baseline report.
The UI/MDRC team will submit three deliverables to HUD: this interim report (February 2013), a baseline report (August 2014), and a baseline database. This interim report provides:
• A first portrayal of the target developments, their residents, and the target neighborhoods.
• An analysis of the planning context, the Choice planning process, the capacity of the grantee team, and the transformation plan as submitted by the grantees to HUD in early
2011 as their applications for funding.
• Observations on early progress and challenges in implementation. The baseline report and the baseline database are described in chapter 9.
1.5 Structure of the Remainder of This Report
The remainder of this report consists of eight chapters. Chapter 2 provides an overview of conditions in all five Choice sites as of September 2012. The chapter briefly portrays each target development, the residents of each target development, and each neighborhood and continues with a longer treatment of how the sites differ in their social, economic, and physical conditions and in their metropolitan contexts. Chapters 3 through 7 provide detailed reviews of each of the five implementation sites. Each of these chapters describes a site’s condition s as of September
2012, Choice planning context and process, transformation plan, and early implementation progress and challenges. Chapter 8 presents our cross-site analysis of the plans and grantee teams. Chapter 9 discusses the next steps in the research.
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2 Baseline Conditions in the Five Implementation Sites
In this chapter, we provide a broad overview of similarities and differences among the baseline conditions of the five Choice Neighborhoods (Choice) implementation sites based on the grant applications and secondary data. The range of conditions suggests that this first set of implementation grants will provide excellent material to explore how Choice unfolds under diverse contexts as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Congress consider new rounds of Choice funding. We begin with two brief sections of cross-site analysis on the target developments and residents in those developments. The next section includes a review of the highlights of cross-site analysis and then discusses each set of neighborhood and metropolitan conditions in more depth. We conclude with brief thoughts on implications of the baseline conditions for Choice planning and implementation. Chapters 3 through 7 provide more detail on housing, people, and neighborhoods in each site.
Our observations that follow provide an initial view of the neighborhoods around the time of the grant application in 2010, but the forthcoming household survey will enable us to paint a much richer picture of the residents in both the neighborhoods and the target developments.
2.1 The Target Development
Before receiving Choice grants, target housing developments at all five sites had in common their uniformly low-income occupancy and their compelling need for either extensive physical upgrading or outright replacement. That said, however, the developments differed from one another in terms of their ownership and management structures, when they were built, their building styles and integration with the neighborhood, and their energy inefficiency.
The programs supporting PHA and HUD-assisted developments differ regarding subsidy mechanisms, regulatory regimes, and occupancy rules, and this basic distinction between public housing and assisted housing programs can have a bearing on property attributes and conditions. It is of interest, therefore, that of the five target developments, those in New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle are owned and managed by PHAs and those in Boston and Chicago are owned and managed by private entities.
Although all five of the target developments have been housing low-income households for decades, their ages vary dramatically. The oldest, Woodledge/Morrant Bay Apartments in Boston, was constructed in the 1920s—well before creation of federal programs to assist multifamily housing developments in the 1960s. Iberville public housing in New Orleans and Yesler Terrace public housing in Seattle were constructed in 1940 and 1941, respectively, very shortly after enactment of the public housing program in 1937. Alice Griffith public housing in San Francisco and Grove Parc assisted-housing in Chicago (previously known as Woodlawn Gardens) were constructed much later—in 1962 and 1969, respectively. Note that even the youngest such development is more than 40 years old.
Although built at different points in time, the apartment configurations are similar in that none are high-rises. Most were two- or three-story walk-up apartments, with Grove Parc also having
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two four-story elevator buildings (table 2.1). On the other hand, the developments do not all look alike. Three are of br ick construction and two are wood frame. Other differences pertain to the number of buildings and units per site, vacancy rates, and the distribution of unit sizes. As of December 2010, the number of buildings varied from 11 at Woodledge/Morrant Bay to 74 at Iberville; the number of units varied from 129 at the former to 821 at the latter; and vacancy rates varied from a low of less than one percent at Yesler Terrace to a high of 44 percent at Iberville. These project attributes are widely varied. Most units in the five sites have 2 or 3 bedrooms, but there are some studio apartments at Grove Parc and Yesler Terrace, some four-bedroom units at Woodledge/Morrant Bay and Yesler Terrace, and some five-bedroom units at Alice Griffith.
Table 0.1. Characteristics of the Choice Neighborhood Target Developments, December 2010
Target Developme nt
Number of Buildings
Exterior Constructio n
Number of Stories
Unit
Sizes
Number of Units
Percent
Vacant
Relative Energy Efficiency*
Woodledge/ Morrant Bay
11
Brick
3
1–4 bedrooms
129
2
Considerably less efficient
Walk-up
Grove Parc
24
Brick
bldgs.
(3);
elevator
0–3 bedrooms
504
22
Considerably less efficient
bldgs. (4)
Iberville
74
Brick
2–3
1–3
bedrooms
821
44
Somewhat
less efficient
Alice Griffith
33
Wood frame
with stucco/
wood siding
2
1–5 bedrooms
256
8
Almost as efficient
Yesler
Terrace
69
Wood frame
2–3
0–4
bedrooms
561
1
Equally
efficient
Notes: Energy efficiency is relative to other similar buildings in the area. The vacancy rate reported by the
grantee for Grove Parc was based on only the 378 units in the development that were part of the Choice
Neighborhoods application, not on all 504 units.
Source: Choice Neighborhoods round 1 and 2 implementation grant applications
With the exception of Woodledge/Morrant Bay, which is relatively well integrated into the target neighborhood, the remaining developments stand out from the surrounding housing. For
example, there are glaring visual differences between Grove Parc’s unornamented, minimally
fenestrated brick buildings placed within expanses of parking lots along both sides of a 1/3-mile stretch of Cottage Grove Avenue and the surrounding housing stock. The latter consists of attractive and varied prewar masonry buildings with small private front and rear yards. Iberville, designed as a superblock, consists of repetitive brick buildings in contrast to the rich variety of the surrounding neighborhood. Likewise, the two-story townhouse buildings of Alice Griffith have no design similarities to the surrounding single-family homes; sidewalks and parking areas are also incongruent with, and have no connection to the target neighborhood.
Although all target developments had reason to improve their energy efficiency, energy use varied substantially across the sites and in comparison with similar buildings both locally and
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nationally.37 Measured in terms of Energy Use Intensity ( EUI) scores,38 Woodledge/Morrant Bay in Boston and Grove Parc in Chicago were considerably less energy efficient than averages for both similar buildings within their areas and across the nation. Iberville was somewhat less energy efficient than the average similar building in New Orleans but equal to the national average. Alice Griffith’s EUI score was close to the average for similar buildings in San Francisco but less energy efficient than the average similar building nationwide. Finally, Yesler Terrace’s EUI score was equivalent to the average of similar buildings in Seattle; however, both Yesler Terrace and the average EUI score for similar Seattle buildings indicated considerably more energy efficiency than the average similar building nationwide.
2.2 Residents of the Target Development39
In addition to differences in the physical characteristics of the target developments, the residents of the Choice target developments differ considerably in their racial and ethnic composition (table 2.2). Iberville (New Orleans) and Grove Parc (Chicago) are almost exclusively Black.40
Most residents of Alice Griffith (San Francisco) are also Black; however, about one-fifth of the residents are Chinese, Filipino, Samoan, Vietnamese, or of other Asian descent, while about 16 percent are White and 11 percent are Hispanic. In contrast, the Woodledge/Morrant Bay (Boston) resident population is quite ethnically diverse—one-third of residents are White, one- third are Black, a little more than 10 percent are Asian or Pacific Islanders, and one in eight is Hispanic. Yesler Terrace (Seattle) is the most diverse, with a substantial population of refugee families; nearly one-half of its population is foreign born and 12 percent of householders are not U.S. citizens. About one-half of Yesler Terrace residents are Black, 41 percent are Asian, 10 percent are White, and 3 percent are American Indian or Alaska Native.
The Alice Griffith, Woodledge/Morrant Bay, and Yesler Terrace developments also have considerable linguistic diversity. Although most Alice Griffith residents report English as their primary language (84 percent), other primary languages include Samoan, Spanish, and Cantonese. More than one-third of Woodledge/Morrant Bay household heads are non-English speakers and one in four children has limited English proficiency. The primary languages for these households include Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Cape Verdean Creole. Because of its substantial immigrant and refugee population, Yesler Terrace is the most linguistically diverse development among the five sites; only a small portion of residents (4 percent) report English as their primary language. About one-fourth of household heads speak an East African language
37 The fact that energy use is greatly influenced by the climate and weather patterns affecting each site needs to be taken into account when comparing target developments with similar buildings nationwide.
38 EUI is measured in thousand British Thermal Units, or BTUs, per square foot per year. EUI scores reported in
appendix A, Energy Scorecard Report, document the pre-Choice energy use of an average target development building at each site.
39 All target development resident demographic and characteristics data are collected from sites’ Choice round 2
application unless otherwise indicated.
40 For simplicity, we use the terms Black, White, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native, or Hispanic in this report to describe the race and ethnicity of particular groups. These terms are shorthand for non- Hispanic Black (either African or African American), non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islander, and non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native.
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(such as Somali, Tigrin ya, Amharic, or Oromo) and one-fourth speak an Asian language (such as
Vietnamese or Cantonese) as their primary language.
Table 2.2. Characteristics of Choice Neighborhoods Target Development Residents, May 2011
Woodledge/ Grove Iberville Alice Yesler Morrant Parc Griffith Terrace Bay
Note: Variation exists in the definition of children and seniors across the sites. See related text.
Sources: Choice Neighborhoods round 2 applications from results reported on sites’ needs assessments; race/ethnicity data for Alice Griffith are from LFA Group (2012); wage data are from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Public and Indian Housing Information Center, or PIC, and Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System, or TRACS, databases (2010 data)
Young and school-age children comprise about 40 percent of the residents in the Choice target developments: 47 percent of Woodledge/Morrant Bay residents, 44 percent of Grove Parc residents, and 42 percent of Alice Griffith residents are less than age 15; 40 percent of Iberville residents and 29 percent of Yesler Terrace residents are less than age 17. By contrast, older adults are a much smaller proportion of the resident population across the five sites: less than 10 percent of target development residents in Woodledge/Morrant Bay and Iberville are age 65 or older or age 62 or older in Grove Parc and Alice Griffith, respectively. The proportion of seniors in Seattle’s Yesler Terrace is higher; one in five residents is age 62 or older.
Across all five sites, the Choice target development residents have very low incomes and have low employment rates. Most residents are impoverished; more than 80 percent of Woodledge/Morrant Bay and Iberville residents have extremely low incomes.41 Three-fourths of Yesler Terrace residents have incomes below the federal poverty line, and about two-thirds of
Alice Griffith households’ incomes are below the federal poverty line.
According to data from HUD’s Public and Indian Housing Information Center, or PIC, and
Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System, or TRACS, databases, about one-third of Grove
41 Reported incomes are less than 30 percent of the Area Median Income.
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Parc, Yesler Terrace, Iberville, and Alice Griffith households report wages in their as a source of income. Although employment rates are slightly higher in Woodledge/Morrant Bay, they are still low, and only one-half of households report annual wage income. A substantial portion of residents reported disabilities: 30 percent of household heads in Iberville, 22 percent of adults in Alice Griffith, and 17 percent of residents in Yesler Terrace. These percentages are lower in Grove Parc (10 percent of residents) and Woodledge/Morrant Bay (5 percent of working age adults).
2.3 Neighborhood and Metropolitan Area Context
The Choice Neighborhoods program differs from HOPE VI because it includes neighborhood revitalization as a program goal alongside the redevelopment of a distressed subsidized housing community and improved outcomes for its residents. The characteristics of the Choice target neighborhoods and their surrounding metropolitan areas will present both challenges and opportunities for the grantees’ implementation of their plans (to be described in chapters 8 and
9). Thus, future evaluation of the progress toward their program goals will require a thorough understanding of the initial context of the neighborhood at baseline.42
This section begins with a cross-site summary of key neighborhood conditions, which should provide sufficient background on neighborhood conditions for readers requiring only a broad ove rview. After a brief discussion of data sources and methods, the remainder of the section provides an in-depth look at conditions within each issue area. As background, we first review the basic demographics and household composition for residents in the Choice areas. The remainder of the section is organized by two overarching Choice aspirations: to improve residents’ economic self-sufficiency and to create neighborhoods of opportunity. The former includes income and poverty levels, employment trends in the Choice areas and metropolitan areas, and barriers to residents’ employment. The latter covers the housing markets of the neighborhood and metropolitan area, the state of public safety and education, and access to other amenities.
2.3.1 Neighborhood Highlights
In some ways the Choice areas are similar. In addition to containing a severely distressed public housing or HUD-assisted development as described in section 2.1, neighborhoods had to meet certain criteria to be eligible for Choice as described in section 1.2. The five areas selected all had poverty rates in 2000 that were much higher than 20 percent, and all contained a low- performing school. Quincy Corridor (Boston), Woodlawn (Chicago), and Eastern Bayview (San Francisco) met the criteria for relatively high residential vacancy rates and those three plus Yesler (Seattle) met the criteria for relatively high violent crime rates.43
42 The indicators presented in this chapter are not intended to be proposed performance measures, but to generally cover the topic areas mentioned in the Choice NOFA. HUD is conducting a separate process to specify performance measures for the grantees, which will be discussed in the final report.
43 Iberville/Tremé (New Orleans) had a low performing school but did not meet the eligibility criteria of having
violent crime or vacancy rates that were 1.5 times the county rate, even if those rates could be considered high.
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Although the sites all demonstrated neighborhood distress by meeting the Choice eligibility criteria, the severity of conditions and the trajectories of the neighborhoods vary (tables 2.3 and
2.4). The cross-site highlights that follow this section review key indicators of neighborhood context and distress.
Table 2.3. Baseline Context Indicators for Choice Neighborhoods
Year
Quincy
Woodlawn
Iberville/ Eastern
Yesler
Corridor Tremé Bayview
Housing characteristics
Square miles
0.5
2.0
1.7
1.6
0.2
Housing units (1,000s) Subsidized housing as percentage of occupied
rental units
2010
2010
3.1
47
11.9
36
9.9
28
5.4
70
0.9
57
Housing by structure type
2006–2010
Percent single family
12
11
42
56
9
Percent 2–4 units
65
43
34
19
9
Percent 5+ units
24
47
23
24
81
Resident characteristics
Total population (1000s) Percent change
2010
2000 to
2010
9.7
8.1
23.7 (12.4)
11.6 (44.2)
17.6 (2.3)
2.1 (3.8)
Population by race
2010
Percent Hispanic Percent non-Hispa nic Black
Percent non-Hispanic
Asian or Pacific Islander Percent families with children
Percentage point
change
2010
2000 to
2010
34
53
1
51 (2.2)
2
87
2
34 (3.8)
7
77
1
24 (16.6)
27
45
19
47 (6.4)
7
38
27
23 (6.0)
Note: Data from the American Community Survey (ACS) are for tract-based definitions of neighborhoods. See appendix B for more details.
Sources: 2000 Decennial Census; 2010 Decennial Census; 2006–2010 ACS; the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Public and Indian Housing Information Center, or PIC, and Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System, or TRACS, databases
Neighborhood context indicators
• Housing characteristics. The Quincy Corridor and Yesler are quite small compared with the other three areas, so the scale of revitalization differs from the other sites. Yesler Terrace accounts for more than one-half of the housing in the Choice-defined neighborhood, so the project’s redevelopment should have a dramatic effect. A
substantial 70 percent of the occupied rental housing in Eastern Bayview is also public or subsidized, with Alice Griffith accounting for only a very small share of it. The built
environment for the sites will also shape the transformation plans. Yesler, the Quincy
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Corridor, and Woodlawn have largely multifamily housing compared with the significant shares of single-family housing in Iberville/Tremé and Eastern Bayview.
• Population. The Choice neighborhoods do not uniformly fit the stereotype of population flight from distressed inner-city areas. The population in the Quincy Corridor increased
by 8.1 percent from 2000 to 2010—the only Choice neighborhood that grew in the 2000s. At the other extreme, the population in Iberville/Tremé fell dramatically in the mid-2000s
as a result of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction. The neighborhood’s 2010 population was
44 percent less than what it had been in 2000, although there are indications that growth
emerged again toward the end of the decade. For example, after declining by 22 percent from 2002 to 2006, the number of employed residents in the neighborhood grew by 13 percent from 2006 to 2010. Woodlawn experienced the second most serious population decline during the 2000s (by 12 percent). Eastern Bayview and Yesler also lost population, but at a relatively modest rate.
• Racial composition. All the neighborhoods have predominantly minority populations, but three were quite diverse in 2010. In the Quincy Corridor, Hispanic residents accounted for about one-third of the population and Black residents for about one-half, with the remaining population being a mix of White and other race. Shares in Eastern Bayview were roughly the same for Hispanic and Black residents as in the Quincy Corridor, but the remaining population was largely Asian and Pacific Islander residents. In these two areas, the share of Black residents dropped significantly during the decade, accompanied by a sharp growth in Hispanic residents. Yesler had higher share of Asian residents, and a sizeable number of Black residents, but few Hispanic residents. Immigration had been important in these three sites, with roughly 30 percent of residents born outside of the United States. Although the residents of Iberville/Tremé and Woodlawn are still predominantly Black, these neighborhoods have seen decline s in the share of Black residents, with increased shares of Hispanic and White residents.
• Age and household composition. Children declined as a share of total population in these neighborhoods during the 2000s, by a dramatic 13 percentage points in Iberville/Tremé and 5 to 6 percentage points in the other sites. Iberville/Tremé and Yesler also experienced sharp declines in the share of families with children. By 2010, both had strikingly low shares of family households with less than one-half of the households in Iberville/Tremé and only about one-third in Yesler. Families made up nearly three-
fourths of households in the Quincy Corridor and Eastern Bayview and more than one- half of households in Woodlawn.
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Table 2.4. Baseline Distress Indicators for Choice Neighborhoods44
Year
Quincy
Corridor
Woodlawn
Iberville/ Tremé
Eastern
Bayview
Yesler
Poverty rate
2006–2010
38
29
42
26
36
Percentage point change
2000 to
2006–2010
6
(9)
(12)
(3)
(0)
Unemployment rate
2006–2010
21
17
20
16
10
Percentage point change
2000 to
2006–2010
10
(2)
2
4
(2)
Vacancy rate
2010
10
22
38
7
10
Percentage point change
2000 to
2010
2
8
20
4
6
Violent crime rate per 1,000 population
2011
16
24
15
14
7
HUD school proficiency index neighborhood score
2008
14
17
71
7
36
Point difference from city score
(7)
(14)
(20)
(42)
(19)
HUD = U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Notes: The HUD school proficiency index scores for neighborhoods are relative to their states overall. Data from the American Community Survey (ACS) are for tract-based definitions of neighborhoods. Sources: 2000 Decennial Census; 2010 Decennial Census; 2006–2010 ACS; HUD Fair Housing Equity Assessment, or FHEA, Indices; local crime statistics
Distress indicators
• Poverty and unemployment. At least one-fourth of the population in the Choice neighborhoods were living in poverty in the period from 2006 through 2010 (period estimates from the American Community Survey will be referred to by the period included—in this case, 2006-2010) and at least 10 percent of the labor force were unemployed. The Quincy Corridor’s distress by these measures was among the worst of the five neighborhoods, and it was the only one to experience significant increase in distress during the decade. Its poverty rate went up 6 points to 38 percent from 2000 to
2006-2010 and its unemployment rate went up 10 points to 21 percent. This neighborhood also has the largest disparity in these two measures compared with the metropolitan rates.
In both Iberville/Tremé and Woodlawn, poverty rates dropped significantly, but without a corresponding improvement in unemployment. Iberville/Tremé’s 42-percent poverty rate in 2006-2010 is comparab le to the Quincy Corridor, but also showed the greatest drop since 2000 as lower income households were less likely to return after Hurricane Katrina occurred. Woodlawn also saw a major reduction in poverty during the decade, ending at a rate of 29 percent. Both neighborhoods had high unemployment rates with little change since 2000.
44 Two years separated by a dash (e.g. 2006-2010) indicate a period estimate from the American Community Survey. Two years (or a year and a period estimate) separated by the word to (e.g. 2000 to 2006-2010) indicate change from the first date to the second date (or period).
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Not surprising, given the dominance of public housing, Yesler has a high poverty rate of
36 percent in 2006-2010 that has not changed since 2000. Given the level of poverty, Yesler residents have an unexpected lower rate of unemployment than the rest of the neighborhoods at 10 percent. Eastern Bayview has the lowest poverty rate of all the Choice sites, and an unemployment rate in the middle of the pack.
• Violent crime. Violent crime is a big problem in all these neighborhoods, whose rates are about twice those of the cities. Woodlawn stands out with the highest crime rate in 2011
of the five sites, at 24 violent crimes per 1,000 population, followed by the Quincy Corridor, Iberville/Tremé and Eastern Bayview.45 Violent crime rates did improve between 2010 and 2011, falling about 3 points in the Quincy Corridor, Woodlawn, and Eastern Bayview, but increasing slightly in Iberville/Tremé.
• Vacancy. Among the Choice areas, the Woodlawn and Iberville/Tremé areas exhibit alarming rates of vacancy, consistent with the population loss described previously. In Woodlawn, 22 percent of the housing units were vacant in 2010, up 8 percentage points in 2000 and nearly twice the Chicago rate. In Iberville/Tremé, 38 percent of the units were vacant in 2010, but even before Hurricane Katrina occurred, it had very high
vacancy rates. Although not as extreme, the Quincy Corridor and Yesler Terrace also had high vacancy rates of about 10 percent, and for Yesler, the figure was nearly three times the 2000 level. Eastern Bayview’s vacancy rate went up modestly, but it has a much tighter housing market than the other Choice areas.
• Education. The public school system’s policies on school choice affect the share of children attending neighborhood schools, and the role that neighborhood schools play in the community. New Orleans has the highest degree of school choice, with the largest share of students attending charter schools in the nation. Some measure of parental choice in assignment is available in all the other Choice cities except Seattle. An index of school quality developed by HUD compares schools on proficiency test performance in relation to other schools in their state. These indices show that all the Choice neighborhood schools are of lower quality than the city schools overall, with Yesler and Iberville/Tremé ranking higher than the schools in the other Choice areas. Schools in Eastern Bayview
had both the lowest score of all the Choice neighborhoods, and also the largest gap with
the city score.
2.3.2 Key Data Sources and Neighborhood Definitions
Indicators of race, age, household type, housing tenure, and vacancy are derived from the Decennial Census Summary File 1. Local Employment Dynamics data provide several of the employment indicators. Indicators from these sources are published at the block level and
45 Preliminary analysis of violent crime data from Seattle resulted in large discrepancies (41 percent) between the local data and published FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Therefore, local data for Seattle are not reported here.
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reported for the grantee-defined neighborhood boundaries.46 Most of the other population and housing characteristics are based on the 2000 Decennial Census Summary File 3 and the American Community Survey (ACS) 2006-2010 5-year estimates. For these sources, the data are calculated for an approximation of the neighborhood constructed from census tracts. In Woodlawn, Iberville/Tremé, and Eastern Bayview, the areas are not substantially different. For the two smallest areas, the tract-based areas are significantly larger. For the Quincy Corridor, the tract-based neighborhood has 23 percent more people than the official Choice boundary. The Yesler Choice area does not align well with census tracts, resulting in the tract-based population
of nearly 14,000, nearly 7 times the total for the official area.47 Appendix C describes the report’s data sources and appendix B discusses Choice tract-based neighborhood definitions.
Throughout the rest of this section, we compare the Choice neighborhoods with their cities and metropolitan areas to provide context in which to interpret the indicators for the neighborhoods. For some indicators, it is more helpful to draw comparisons between the Choice areas and other high-poverty neighborhoods in that city. We have defined high-poverty neighborhoods to be census tracts with poverty rates in 2006-2010 over 30 percent.
2.3.3 Demographics
2.3.3.1 Population and Mobility
The metropolitan areas with Choice neighborhoods are some of the largest in the country, with 4 ranking among the top 15 largest by population in 2010. As table 2.5 shows, the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco metropolitan areas all saw moderate population growth during the past decade, but they grew less than the average growth rate for the 100 largest metropolitan areas (1.0 percent per year). Seattle had the fastest growth rate among Choice metropolitan areas at 1.2 percent per year. The New Orleans metropolitan area lost population after Hurricane Katrina occurred in 2005 and finished the decade with a population loss rate of 1.2 percent per year.
46 We used the official census block list found in attachment 9 of the round 1 Choice applications to define the neighborhoods. After completing our analysis, we discovered that a portion of the Yesler Terrace development is excluded from the Yesler neighborhood because is not contained in the census blocks listed in attachment 9. Therefore, about 18 percent of the households in Yesler Terrace are not represented in our descriptions of the neighborhood when using block definitions.
47 Although using the tract-based definition is not ideal for Yesler, for some important indicators, like poverty, tracts
are the lowest level of geography available with reliable data. Block group data is available for the ACS, but still would not match the Choice boundaries and it would have unacceptably wide confidence intervals around the estimates. We have erred on the side of caution in our analysis on indicators where we believe using the tract-based neighborhood and the block-defined neighborhood of Yesler would produce different results.
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Table 2.5. Population and Population Change in Metropolitan Areas and Neighborhoods
Metropolitan areas
Year Boston Chicago
New San
Orleans Francisco
Seattle
Total population (1,000s) 2000 4,552 9,461 1,168 4,335 3,440
Change in population (%/year) 2000 to 0.4 0.4 (1.2) 0.5 1.2