In collaboration with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s How Housing Matters Initiative, Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity will be running a series of commentaries for the next two months exploring the relationship between housing and three topics: health, economic opportunity, and education. This commentary is the introduction for the series, which is entitled “How Housing Matters to Families and Communities.”

The MacArthur Foundation’s interest in housing dates back more than 20 years. By 2012, we will have invested $300 million in housing research, policy, and practice—more than two-thirds since 2000. This investment is an expression of concern about both people and place.

In 2004, we took the next step in this work, and embarked on an effort to define the boundaries and research priorities for a new interdisciplinary research program called How Housing Matters to Families and Communities, which is the focus of this commentary series.

This process involved consultation with more than 70 scholars from an array of disciplines, and we explored a wide range of topics, including: the relationship between housing and labor markets and the impacts of housing programs on work incentives and labor market supply; how state and local regulatory regimes affect land supply, and the cost and access to affordable housing; the housing cost-transportation nexus, and the effects of extended commute times on family life; housing and health issues, including housing’s role in triggering respiratory disease among children; and a broader range of child development issues. 

In particular, two literature reviews were useful in informing the contours of the How Housing Matters research program. Johns Hopkins University’s Sandra Newman considered the evidence on how housing matters for human development outcomes, and a team from Harvard’s Joint Center on Housing Studies documented the evidence of housing’s relationship to community outcomes.

Both papers pointed to gaps in the quantity and quality of the evidence about housing’s role in human and community development.  

First, less was known about the connection of housing to human development than to community outcomes, although rigorous research on how neighborhoods directly or indirectly influence family outcomes was also lacking. 

Second, there was an absence of scientific data and validated measures in housing studies related to various dimensions of physical and mental health, and to a broad range of child development issues.

Third, studies had also not been replicated in different types of communities and markets to measure and confirm the stability and generalizability of outcomes. 

Through this exploration, we concluded that there was a solid core of high-quality research in these areas that creative researchers with strong backgrounds in both theory and analytical techniques would be able to produce important empirical results of use to policymakers. 

As a result the Foundation announced How Housing Matters to Families and Communities in early 2009, a five-year $25 million research commitment with two complementary strands of work: a competitive research program and an interdisciplinary research network. 

The goal of both is to deepen empirical evidence of whether and how stable, affordable housing may be an essential “platform” that promotes a wide array of positive human outcomes, both directly and indirectly, by helping to ensure greater returns from other social and public investments. In short, we wanted to understand the value of housing, beyond providing shelter alone.

We plan to achieve these goals through a range of key investments.

First, the How Housing Matters Research Network - comprised of economists, developmental psychologists, sociologists, and epidemiologists - is looking at how housing matters for young children in the context of their immediate and extended families. This interdisciplinary network, organized in the tradition of MacArthur's more than 25 such efforts, and chaired by Northwestern University professor Thomas Cook, will infuse new ideas, better methods, and a stock of empirical knowledge into a field that has lagged behind.

By focusing on young children, the Research Network will be more likely to isolate causal pathways between housing and key developmental outcomes in young children than if it focused on adults or older kids. The groundwork has already been laid by other prominent scholars demonstrating the return on investment for interventions that focus on younger children.

Second, under the competitive research program, the Foundation has made more than 30 grants to research projects totaling over $18 million on topics including the relationship of housing to child well-being, physical and behavioral health, economic opportunity, and neighborhood stability. Each of these projects is exploring a research question that has direct policy implications for how we design housing assistance programs, and whether or not integrating service delivery across policy domains could lead to improved outcomes for children, families, and communities.

In an era of fiscal constraint at all levels of government, building an evidence base and understanding the implications for policy are more important than ever if we hope to meet our nation’s goals for healthy, safe, and economically secure families and communities.

As today’s How Housing Matters conference confirms, the MacArthur Foundation’s research investments are beginning to bear fruit. At the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, more than 500 researchers, policymakers, housing and service providers gathered to discuss this growing evidence base of How Housing Matters in three important areas - education, health, and economic opportunity - and the best ways to improve policy and practice in an increasingly challenging budgetary environment.

A highlight of the conference was an unprecedented public conversation about the importance of housing to family health and community well-being by Secretary Shaun Donovan of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Over the coming weeks, this How Housing Matters commentary series will highlight the important research and best practices that were discussed by these Cabinet members, and by scholars and practitioners at the conference. We are glad to be a part of this important discussion and hope this commentary series will spark further conversation.

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Michael A. Stegman is the director of policy and housing at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.