Public Housing Assistance, Public Transportation, and the Welfare-to-Work Transition

Using data for welfare recipients who left the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program during 1996 in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio, the authors compare the determinants of labor market outcomes across three classes of housing assistance: those who receive a certificate or voucher, those who reside in a traditional public housing project, and those who reside in a Section 8 housing project. The statistical model includes spatially based measures of job opportunities for welfare recipients as well as measures of access to those opportunities. As might be expected, the authors’ analysis reveals that welfare exiters living in housing projects (either public or Section 8) are more spatially concentrated in Cleveland than those not receiving housing assistance, whereas those receiving certificates and vouchers are more spatially dispersed. Even so, welfare exiters receiving certificates and vouchers are employed closer to their homes, spend less time commuting to work, have superior public transit connections to their jobs, and generally have greater access to job openings relative to those who live in housing projects or receive no assistance. This evidence is consistent with the notion that certificate and voucher recipients have the spatial and economic flexibility in residential choice and that they exercise this choice to reduce commuting distance and time. In statistical models explaining various labor market outcomes, the authors do not find much difference among recipients of the three types of housing assistance. Without statistical controls for general neighborhood conditions, all three types of housing assistance are negatively related to the level of earnings. However, this finding disappears when statistical controls for general neighborhood conditions (poverty rate) are included in the model. This suggests that the lower earnings often attributed to housing assistance are actually a neighborhood-based effect. Public Housing Assistance, Public Transportation, and the Welfare-to-Work Transition Cityscape 7 Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research • Volume 6, Number 2 • 2003 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development • Office of Policy Development and Research Public Housing Assistance, Public Transportation, and the Welfare-to-Work Transition Sction 1— Trasition to W rk Bania, Coulton, and Leete 8 Cityscape Residents of either type of housing project are more likely to return to welfare and will spend more time on welfare following their initial exit. In contrast, recipients of certificates or vouchers are less likely to return to welfare and spend less time on welfare following their initial exit. Finally, regardless of model specification, the authors find no impact of job access on any of the six outcomes. However, they do find that holding a driver’s license strongly improves employment, earnings, and earnings growth but has no effect on recidivism. These findings suggest that certificates and vouchers afford their holders great flexibility in responding to their economic situation (whatever that may be) than is available to either those living in housing projects or those with no housing assistance at all. Because the most recent welfare reforms emphasize work, myriad studies of labor market outcomes for welfare recipients have been undertaken. This article examines the determinants of labor market outcomes for welfare recipients who left the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program during 1996 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. We compare the determinants of labor market outcomes for welfare recipients who receive various types of public housing assistance with those who do not. The models presented focus on spatial determinants of labor market outcomes by including measures of both job opportunities for welfare recipients and access to those opportunities. The spatial mismatch in the labor market is a confluence of several factors, including the increasing surburbanization of low-skill job opportunities, the concentration of welfare recipients in inner-city areas, and reliance on public transportation. These factors may all inhibit the potential success of welfare reform policies. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has already implemented programs such as Bridges to Work to address these problems on a limited basis. The federal government has provided grants to state and local governments to implement special transit programs targeted for welfare recipients, and the Ohio State Legislature has approved the use of funds from the “welfare windfall” to encourage local transit agencies to provide such additional services. However, little statistical evidence exists on the relative importance of job access in determining the labor market success of former welfare recipients. Of particular interest for housing policy is the intersection of public housing assistance and spatially related aspects of residential location such as job access. Because welfare recipients who live in public housing communities or Section 8 housing are more likely to be spatially concentrated than other welfare recipients, their degree of job access may differ from that of welfare recipients not living in public housing. Conversely, welfare recipients who also receive certificate or voucher assistance possess a degree of mobility that might give them an advantage in the labor market. This study uncovers the different levels of job access and their influence on the labor market outcomes of those who receive public housing assistance and those who do not. We find that welfare leavers living in public or Section 8 housing projects are more concentrated in cities than those not receiving housing assistance, whereas those receiving certificates and vouchers are more spatially dispersed outside cities. Despite this spatial dispersion, welfare leavers receiving certificates and vouchers are more likely to be employed closer to their homes, have shorter estimated commutes, be better connected to their first jobs by direct bus routes, and have easier access to more job openings compared with those who receive project-based or no assistance. Welfare leavers living in project-based housing (of both types) also have slightly better conditions than do their counterparts not receiving housing assistance. In the discussion that follows, we will examine the details of this analysis of space, job access, and housing assistance and how it influences labor market and welfare assistance outcomes.