Out of the Projects, Still in the Hood: The Spatial Constraints on Public-Housing Residents’ Relocation in Chicago

:Public housing, usually located in predominantly poor, minority neighborhoods, has long been associated with concentrated poverty and spatially constraining opportunities for upward mobility. The federal government created HOPE VI in 1992 to transform the physical and social shape of public housing, demolishing existing projects and replacing them with mixed-income developments. To accomplish this public-housing residents are relocated with housing voucher subsidies to the private market and only a small portion will be able to return to the new mixed income developments. To what extent do these voucher subsidies simply reinforce a stratified housing market by limiting the types of neighborhoods available to former public-housing residents? Using spatial analytic techniques, this study examines the spatial patterns and neighborhood conditions of voucher housing and how these patterns link to public-housing relocatees’ destinations. Findings indicate that voucher housing tends to be clustered in poor African-American neighborhoods where the majority of relocated public-housing residents settle. Thus, there appear to be spatial constraints on relocatees’ residential options.