{"id":84737,"date":"2023-03-27T16:20:21","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T16:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=84737"},"modified":"2023-03-30T15:20:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T15:20:02","slug":"uri-researchers-help-r-i-town-to-chart-new-directions-in-public-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2023\/03\/uri-researchers-help-r-i-town-to-chart-new-directions-in-public-housing\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 researchers help R.I. town to chart new directions in public housing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I.<\/strong> \u2013 March 27, 2023 \u2013 Research by a team of 溏心vlog免费B站 faculty and students is helping the South Kingstown Housing Authority to chart a new course for its public housing program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the request of the housing authority, the research team of economists, political scientists, and historians spent more than two years developing a survey<\/a> to help better understand the needs of public housing residents, compiling an oral history of public housing in South Kingstown, and producing a research paper<\/a> exploring best practices in public housing across the U.S. and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal of the project was to provide practical, evidence-based guidance for the housing authority as it begins the process of rethinking its approach to public housing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think this project fits very well with the University\u2019s public commitment,\u201d said Richard McIntyre, a professor of economics and member of the research team. \u201cI see this as part of our job as the state\u2019s land grant institution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project got started in 2020, when the housing authority began looking at the status of the town\u2019s public housing stock\u2014particularly its two concentrated housing development complexes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a lot of data confirming that these units were in bad shape and should be torn down,\u201d said Christopher Little, chair of the South Kingstown Housing Authority. \u201cBut we needed to think about where we were going in terms of addressing the needs of the residents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Little reached out to McIntyre, who Little has known for many years. McIntyre in turn reached out to Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, then a political science professor at 溏心vlog免费B站 (now at the University of Maryland) and director at the time of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Social Science Institute for Research, Education, and Policy<\/a> (SSIREP). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SSIREP encourages cross-disciplinary research as well as outreach to communities outside the University. A project that applied faculty expertise in helping to solve a challenge faced by a neighboring town was directly in the institute\u2019s wheelhouse, McIntyre said. Pearson-Merkowitz assembled a team of researchers including McIntyre, fellow Political Science Professor Skip Mark, historian Robert Widell, and several undergraduate and graduate students. With financial support from the University as well as the Rhode Island Foundation, the Jonnycake Center and the Town of South Kingstown, the team got to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the project was a review of public housing practices across the U.S., coauthored by McIntyre and Pearson-Merkowitz. In particular, the research compared the outcomes of clustered housing developments with those of more distributed housing models such as voucher programs, which enable residents to use subsidies to pay private landlords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analysis produced findings that were a bit surprising to McIntyre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the conventional wisdom would hold that more scattered housing is probably the way to go because you avoid situations where you might be concentrating poverty in one area,\u201d McIntyre said. \u201cBut we found that those benefits may be a bit overblown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For one thing, McIntyre said, residents often have difficulties with landlords who are reluctant to accept vouchers. In addition, distributed models can blunt the positive outcomes associated with community-based housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re breaking up networks of mutual aid\u2014things like communal food pantries and community-based activities\u2014that can be really beneficial,\u201d McIntyre said. \u201cWe also found examples of clustered housing that can actually work pretty well, particularly when they involve tenants in the management of the complex.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little said he found the analysis similarly eye-opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI went into this process with a sense that scattered-site housing would likely be better,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the analysis showed that\u2019s not necessarily the case. It turns out the residents like a sense of community and to have a feeling that they\u2019re participating in governance. That, to me, was very helpful to know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings dovetail with data that emerged from the survey of South Kingstown public housing residents conducted as part of the project. The survey found that while most residents were dissatisfied with the condition of their public housing units (which Little said was not surprising given the age of those units), a solid majority\u201465%\u2014said they were happy with the units\u2019 location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also echoed in the survey was the importance of including tenants in decision-making processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe majority of residents were willing to donate their time to helping to improve their complexes, wanted to be involved in decision-making, and often felt unheard,\u201d said Skip Mark, who led the survey work. \u201cI think the survey shows that participatory decision making in housing would go a long way to improving public housing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McIntyre says he hopes the materials will provide important guidance for the housing authority\u2019s decision-making moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t feel like it was our job to tell the housing authority what to do,\u201d McIntyre said. \u201cBut we wanted to distill some lessons learned from many places around the U.S. so they could think about how they might apply to South Kingstown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little said he and the other members of the housing authority board were pleased with the input.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s very useful for us, not only in terms of our own knowledge on how to proceed,\u201d Little said, \u201cbut also in giving us something that helps us explain to funders why we are doing what we’re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project was also beneficial to the students\u2014particularly the undergraduates\u2014who got the chance to work on it. Mary Lind, who is now a political science graduate student at 溏心vlog免费B站, was one of those undergraduate researchers. Lind says the project provided a boost heading into graduate school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving had the experience of administering the surveys, analyzing the results, and then writing my own paper based on this project also really sparked my interest in conducting research and continuing to study political science at the graduate level,\u201d they said. \u201c[It was] definitely one of the best experiences I’ve had at 溏心vlog免费B站.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 27, 2023 \u2013 Research by a team of 溏心vlog免费B站 faculty and students is helping the South Kingstown Housing Authority to chart a new course for its public housing program. At the request of the housing authority, the research team of economists, political scientists, and historians spent more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":84738,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84737"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84744,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84737\/revisions\/84744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}