Date of Award

2010

Degree Type

Dissertation

Department

Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs

First Advisor

Keating, Dennis

Subject Headings

Low-income housing -- Ohio -- Cleveland, Public housing -- Ohio -- Cleveland, Housing subsidies -- Ohio -- Cleveland

Abstract

Housing Choice Voucher Program is the single largest housing subsidy program in the USA with the goal of poverty deconcentration and race desegregation. This study aims to identify the presence and locations of voucher holders' spatial concentration, and to investigate the factors associated with the location outcomes of voucher recipients in Cleveland from 2005 to 2009. Analyzing voucher recipients' information from Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority, this dissertation found meaningful results for the voucher program performances. Hotspot analysis indicated that location patterns of voucher recipients do not show even distribution over the study area. Additionally, voucher holders have clustered together and their concentrations have changed during the five years. Voucher recipients were highly concentrated in the east part of Cuyahoga County, and over time, concentration patterns spread out from the central city to suburbs. Spatial concentrations were significantly different by race and ethnicity, but not by income. Regression analysis identified several factors associated with voucher recipients' concentration, which include race, availability of affordable housing, poverty rates, vacancy rates, and accessibility to public transportation. The spatial error model estimation and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) account for spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity. The GWR model substantially improved the explanatory power compared to the OLS and spatial models, and revealed spatial variation of estimated coefficients. Factors showing a spatial non-stationarity were confirmed by Monte Carlo tests. Results from the dissertation presented the limited potential of the voucher program since voucher holders are still clustered in specific neighborhoods, even though they tend to move in less poor neighborhoods over time. However, in terms of poverty deconcentration, the voucher program has been successful to disperse low-income households in suburbs. On the other hand, desegregating minority popu

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