The Ups and Downs of Housing: How Rehabilitation, Foreclosure, and Gentrification Affect Health

Surprisingly little is known about the mechanisms through which housing policy and neighborhood features impact health. This study will examine several housing policies in New York City­ focused on the physical characteristics of housing, and on the conditions of neighborhoods.

The New York City Housing Authority recently received funds to rehabilitate many of its most distressed public housing developments, and the NYU Furman Center has compiled data on the allocation of these funds. The researchers will map this data to the New York State Medicaid data to assess if those who lived in renovated housing saw improvements in health outcomes relative to those whose housing was not renovated. The researchers will also look at the timing of the refurbishment to make inferences about the effects of the housing improvements.

Regarding neighborhood conditions, the NYU Furman Center has previously conducted research demonstrating that home foreclosures contribute to increases in crime. Using the RealtyTrac foreclosure dataset, which includes information on every foreclosure action in the U.S. between 2006 and 2015, the team will link addresses to the Medicaid data to compare the health care utilization and outcomes of residents who experienced foreclosure to those who have not.

The research team will also investigate the impacts of the Great Recession and gentrification, particularly within New York City. By examining residency patterns paired with voucher receipt, the team will study the effects on gentrification and other neighborhood changes on health and well-being.

Finally, the researchers will develop a measure of housing-sensitive health conditions using predictive analytics, and test them by examining how policy changes impact outcomes.