Overview

"An in-depth look at America's largest rental assistance program and how it shapes the lives of residents in one low-income Baltimore neighborhoodHousing vouchers are a cornerstone of US federal housing policy, offering aid to more than two million households. Vouchers are meant to provide the poor with increased choice in the private rental marketplace, enabling access to safe neighborhoods with good schools and higher-paying jobs. But do they?The Voucher Promise examines the Housing Choice Voucher Program, colloquially known as ""Section 8,"" and how it shapes the lives of families living in a Baltimore neighborhood called Park Heights. Eva Rosen tells stories about the daily lives of homeowners, voucher holders, renters who receive no housing assistance, and the landlords who provide housing. While vouchers are a powerful tool with great promise, she demonstrates how the housing policy can replicate the very inequalities it has the power to solve.Rosen spent more than a year living in Park Heights, sitting on front stoops, getting to know families, accompanying them on housing searches, speaking to landlords, and learning about the neighborhood's history. Voucher holders disproportionately end up in this area despite rampant unemployment, drugs, crime, and abandoned housing. Exploring why they are unable to relocate to other neighborhoods, Rosen illustrates the challenges in obtaining vouchers and the difficulties faced by recipients in using them when and where they want to. Yet, despite the program's real shortcomings, she argues that vouchers offer basic stability for families and should remain integral to solutions for the nation's housing crisis.Delving into the connections between safe, affordable housing and social mobility, The Voucher Promise investigates the profound benefits and formidable obstacles involved in housing America's poor."

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9780691214986

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Reviews

Winner of the Paul Davidoff Book Award, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Winner of the Outstanding Book Award, Inequality, Poverty, and Social Mobility Section of the American Sociological Association An engaging read. Most compellingly, Rosen offers a moving psychological portrait of her interlocutors, revealing how people cope with neighborhood change and reconcile limited opportunities and chronic disappointments. ---Maya Dukmasova, Chicago Reader Rosen's ethnographic study helps to correct a weak point in the literature on the HCV program. . . . The Voucher Promise provides a look at the HCV program from many perspectives including the participating voucher households and the renter households not lucky enough to receive a voucher. The book studies the landlords who choose to participate as well as those who do not. Finally, the book explores the households, especially long-term homeowners, who populate the neighborhoods where the HCV voucher households locate. This mix of perspectives is the strength of the book. ---Kirk McClure, Social Forces This work, although a valuable contribution to the sociology literature, is also an important book for urban planners and policy scholars and practitioners. Rosen has managed the difficult task of creating rigorous research that is highly critical of an important federal program but at the same time recognized how vital the program is to the lives of so many economically fragile families. . . . a must read for anyone interested in housing markets and housing policy. It is refreshingly well written and at the same time highly substantive. ---Dan Immergluck, Journal of the American Planning Association A fine study with important insights for scholars and practitioners, regardless of their disciplinary leanings. Readers may find themselves comparing [The Voucher Promise] favorably to the highly acclaimed Evicted: Poverty and Poverty in the American City by Matthew Desmond. ---Dennis E. Gale, Journal of Planning Education and Research [Rosen] bring[s] to the table workable and much needed suggestions for changes to a flawed policy. ---Lisa Lucile Owens, Critical Sociology

Winner of the Paul Davidoff Book Award, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning An engaging read. Most compellingly, Rosen offers a moving psychological portrait of her interlocutors, revealing how people cope with neighborhood change and reconcile limited opportunities and chronic disappointments. ---Maya Dukmasova, Chicago Reader Rosen's ethnographic study helps to correct a weak point in the literature on the HCV program. . . . The Voucher Promise provides a look at the HCV program from many perspectives including the participating voucher households and the renter households not lucky enough to receive a voucher. The book studies the landlords who choose to participate as well as those who do not. Finally, the book explores the households, especially long-term homeowners, who populate the neighborhoods where the HCV voucher households locate. This mix of perspectives is the strength of the book. ---Kirk McClure, Social Forces This work, although a valuable contribution to the sociology literature, is also an important book for urban planners and policy scholars and practitioners. Rosen has managed the difficult task of creating rigorous research that is highly critical of an important federal program but at the same time recognized how vital the program is to the lives of so many economically fragile families. . . . a must read for anyone interested in housing markets and housing policy. It is refreshingly well written and at the same time highly substantive. ---Dan Immergluck, Journal of the American Planning Association A fine study with important insights for scholars and practitioners, regardless of their disciplinary leanings. Readers may find themselves comparing [The Voucher Promise] favorably to the highly acclaimed Evicted: Poverty and Poverty in the American City by Matthew Desmond. ---Dennis E. Gale, Journal of Planning Education and Research [Rosen] bring[s] to the table workable and much needed suggestions for changes to a flawed policy. ---Lisa Lucile Owens, Critical Sociology

Author Information

Eva Rosen is assistant professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. She lives in Washington, DC. Twitter @eva_rosen

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