Quarterly Housing Market and Research Update

You are invited to view a live webcast of the HUD Office of Policy Development & Research briefing.

Please join us for a compelling discussion on the long-term findings from one of HUD’s boldest research endeavors, a research study that began in the 1990s and carried through until 2012. The Moving To Opportunity (MTO) Demonstration provided families living in some of HUD’s most distressed and highest poverty public housing an opportunity to move to low-poverty neighborhoods with a Housing Voucher. The research endeavor was made possible because more families applied than vouchers were available. By randomly selecting the families that received a voucher, an interdisciplinary research team has been able to scientifically measure how much of a difference it makes to live in a different neighborhood by comparing those who were offered a voucher to those not offered a voucher. This study looks at impacts related to employment, education, health, delinquency, happiness, and safety among other things. The New England Journal of Medicine recently published results from the study showing that the intervention substantially reduced the likelihood of having diabetes or becoming severely obese.

In addition to the compelling impacts and surprising non-impacts, MTO is also a study about HUD coordination with other federal agencies and philanthropic institutions, and the sustainability of a compelling research project across multiple administrations.

The Quarterly Housing Market and Research Update includes the following:

• Changes in the State of the Nation’s Housing Markets: 1st Quarter 2012 Update
• Moving To Opportunity: Where a Person Lives Matters — A Policy Discussion featuring Lawrence Katz, Michael
    Stegman, and Susan Clampet-Lundquist

Panelists:

Todd Richardson is Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and will moderate the panel. He served at the COTR overseeing most of the interim and final evaluations from 2000 to 2011.

Lawrence F. Katz is the Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics at Harvard University and Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. In 1993-1994 he served as Chief Economist for the Department of Labor. He was the Principal Investigator on the Moving To Opportunity Final Evaluation that was recently completed.

Michael A. Stegman is currently a Special Advisor to Treasury Secretary Geitner on housing policy. Prior to that appointment he served as Director of Policy and Housing, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. From 1993 to 1997 he served as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research where he instrumental in creating the Moving To Opportunity Demonstration.

Susan Clampet-Lundquist is Assistant Professor of Sociology at St. Joseph’s University. She has published a number of papers based on qualitative field work interviewing Moving To Opportunity participant families. “

More Information:

Follow the event on Twitter #PDRupdate and email in questions during the event to PDRQuarterlyUpdate@hud.gov