INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH

Improving Neighborhoods to Improve Lives

IPR Capitol Hill research briefing explores evidence-driven solutions to reduce inequality

 

IPR faculty Andrew Papachristos (left) and Kirabo Jackson (right) participate in a Capitol Hill policy briefing on Oct. 9. 

Neighborhoods are more than just physical spaces—they are communities shaped by people, institutions, and the connections that bind them together. These relationships, along with access to both internal and external resources, define these communities and shape the lives and wellbeing of their residents.

At an October 9 research briefing on Capitol Hill, sociologist Andrew Papachristos, director of the Institute for Policy Research (IPR), highlighted the persistent disparities in communities’ resources and opportunities.

“It's policy that determines who can vote where, who has access to clean food, who has access to medicine, who has access to particular sets of schools,” he said during opening remarks to the nearly three dozen researchers, congressional staffers, and government employees attending. “Policies we make have a tremendous impact, not just on the people living in particular physical neighborhoods, but on America more broadly, and the inequality we see.”

Studies have shown that residents of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the U.S. face poorer health, more stress, higher rates of violence, and shorter life expectancies. During the briefing, Papachristos, alongside IPR economist and then-White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) member Kirabo Jackson, Johns Hopkins sociologist Stefanie DeLuca, and Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon, explored how policies addressing housing, education, and public safety can help bridge the gap.

Kirabo Jackson: Investing in Children | Stefanie DeLuca: Housing Policies | Andrew Papachristos: Community Violence | Sean Reardon: Educational Opportunity 

Kirabo Jackson: The Economic Benefits of Investing in Children

The impact of place is well-documented; even siblings raised in different neighborhoods face vastly different futures.

“What this means is that we can do something to improve the lives of Americans and also enhance prosperity and equity by improving the mobility of those who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods,” Jackson said.

He highlighted key initiatives from the Biden-Harris administration aimed at addressing these disparities, including the Justice40 program and childcare block grants, and then described the key role school funding plays.

In reviewing evidence on the impact of school finance reforms, Jackson pointed to how increased K–12 spending improves outcomes, especially for low-income students. A groundbreaking study he co-authored shows that a 10% increase in funding per student spread across all 12 years of their schooling led to some big results: Low-income children who attended schools with such funding were 10 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school and earn 13% more per hour as adults. The same study shows access to Head Start also increases high school graduation rates and wages for low-income children.

“When we invest in children in their places, both in early childhood and also in the K–12 space, we increase the likelihood that people who are born into poverty are going to make it out,” Jackson said.

Beyond children, universal pre-K programs also benefit adults. According to a CEA brief Jackson co-authored, these programs significantly boost employment, particularly among mothers with young children, and are linked to a rise in openings of local business.

“These investments are good for neighborhoods, they're good for families, they're good for business, and they're good for the overall economy, both today and in the future,” Jackson said.

Stefanie DeLuca: The Geography of Opportunity

DeLuca further stressed Jackson’s point: Place matters. “We know that in the U.S., where a child grows up matters over and above the family she's born into and her own characteristics,” she said. “Children benefit when they leave high poverty, high crime neighborhoods and move to places that are more diverse in terms of race and economic characteristics.”

DeLuca, who received her PhD from Northwestern in 2002, dug into the research of the Poverty and Inequality Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University that she directs. She offered that existing housing subsidies may not be enough to help families move to better neighborhoods.

“The geography of opportunity is unequal,” she said. “For example, we only have housing subsidies in the U.S. at the federal level to cover about one out of four households who are eligible for it. So, [for eligible families] it's kind of like winning a lottery ticket.”

DeLuca described two programs that provide lessons for how we can low-income families have access to better neighborhoods and to better lives.

In 2023, DeLuca, along with collaborators at Harvard’s Opportunity Insights, partnered with the Seattle Housing Authority and King County Housing Authority to examine Creating Moves to Opportunity (CMTO), a housing voucher program that improved upon the earlier MTO program. CMTO provided additional support services, like housing search assistance and guidance on how to communicate with landlords. The study finds that with these added supports, 53% of treatment group families moved to “opportunity areas” compared to 15% of those who only received vouchers. According to DeLuca, the “secret sauce” was having program navigators to help families. “People matter,” she said.

She also discussed early results from a new Opportunity Insights study of HOPE VI on how it might affect residents’ future earnings. One of the country’s largest urban policy investments, the federal program aimed to revitalize public housing and create mixed-income communities to alleviate poverty and promote self-sufficiency.

Perhaps most encouraging is the finding that children who moved with their family into a HOPE VI residence interacted more with friends and acquaintances from different income backgrounds. DeLuca emphasized that we have increasing evidence that such social interactions, including more contact with employed adults, are crucial for economic mobility.

“We can move forward in helping people access opportunity through seemingly small investments in already existing voucher programs,” DeLuca said. “The way we get there is through mixed methods, interdisciplinary research designed to help us translate science to policy.”

Andrew Papachristos: Strengthening Neighborhoods and Building a Civilian Public Safety Infrastructure​

Nearly 60% of the American population knows someone who has been directly impacted by gun violence or gun-related suicide, and firearm injury is the leading cause of death for children and teenagers, Papachristos pointed out.

“It touches so many of us, and it impacts us in profound ways,” he explained. “But given the theme of the panel, we're not surprised that gun violence is stubbornly and persistently concentrated in particular neighborhoods.”

Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs have emerged as a powerful strategy to combat gun violence. The approach leverages the expertise of those with firsthand experience with gun violence, Papachristos said. CVI programs, like those in Chicago and Boston, position them as frontline workers who engage at-risk individuals and connect them with life-saving services. 

These programs are showing promise in creating safer neighborhoods. Papachristos and his team at the Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science (CORNERS) estimate that CVI programs prevented 383 homicides and non-fatal shootings in Chicago since 2017.

While interest in the field—and federal funding for it—is growing, Papachristos noted that it is important for CVI not just to develop as a field, but also to create a workforce. To that end, CORNERS is collaborating with local leaders on the Violence Intervention Worker Study (VIeWS).

Their data reveal that CVI workers are primarily Black and Latino men, with 70% having been incarcerated, 71% involved with gangs, and 74% having a high school diploma or less. Nearly all are their families’ breadwinners, yet 87% report they do not make enough to cover basic needs.

The survey also highlights how much violence these workers face on the job: a third have witnessed shootings, a quarter have seen killings, a fifth have been shot at, and 2% have been injured by gunfire. Despite the critical nature of their work, CVI workers lack standard labor protections like paid time off and health insurance, in addition to a living wage.

Without adequate support for the workers, sustained funding, and policy changes, Papachristos says efforts to reduce gun violence in neighborhoods risk falling short. 

Sean Reardon: Place, Policy, and Educational Opportunity

Why do third graders in affluent districts perform similarly to eighth graders in poorer ones?

Reardon tackled this substantial achievement gap between schools in the nation’s wealthiest and poorest communities by sharing findings from a dataset covering all of the nation’s 13,000 public school districts.

Kids in different communities do not vary dramatically in their “innate endowments,” Reardon said. “The kinds of educational opportunities available to kids growing up in richer and poorer communities vary dramatically.” 

Comparing data across states, Reardon explained that these disparities often begin before children even enter kindergarten. In Washington state, where there are large disparities in early child opportunities, he observed gaps in math and literacy skills that remain steady in third through eighth grade. In Kentucky, where early childhood gaps are smaller, he also saw smaller gaps in students’ academic performance as they move through elementary school.

“Educational opportunity is really shaped by what happens early in kids' lives. School systems obviously make a difference,” he said.

Reardon also pointed out that if place matters, then segregation matters. Even though people are living in less segregated neighborhoods today, schools have become 35% more segregated over the past 30 years. He explained that is mostly because of the growth of school choice and charter schools and declining efforts to integrate schools. 

Reardon also explored COVID-19’s impact. His research shows that test scores in high-poverty districts dropped by twice as much as those in wealthier ones during the pandemic. However, federal aid, such as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding, helped mitigate some setbacks. These funds were targeted toward the most disadvantaged districts and helped students recover from the pandemic, reducing the inequality caused by the crisis. Policy, therefore, matters.

Reardon advocated for broad place-based policies that target the needs of high-poverty communities. These could include efforts to reduce segregation, access to affordable housing, and investments in early childhood education.

By providing targeted resources to the most vulnerable communities, he believes that we can help close gaps in education and create more chances for people to succeed. He argued that policies like the proposed Strength and Diversity Act and initiatives to expand access to high-quality early childcare are critical to addressing these long-standing inequalities.

Kirabo Jackson is the Abraham Harris Professor of Education and Social Policy and professor of economics. Stefanie DeLuca is the James Coleman Professor of Sociology and Social Policy and director of the Poverty and Inequality Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University. Andrew Papachristos is the John G. Searle Professor of Sociology, IPR director, and director of the Center for Engaged (CORNERS). Sean Reardon is professor of poverty and inequality in education and of sociology at Stanford University and faculty director of the Educational Opportunity Project.

Photo credit: Leslie Kossoff

Published: October 31, 2024.