The definition of mixed-income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Following Brophy and Smith, the following will discuss “non-organic” examples of mixed-income housing, meaning “a deliberate effort to construct and/or own a multifamily development that has the mixing of income groups as a fundamental part of its financial and operating plans”Brophy, P. C., & Smith, R. N. (1997). Mixed-income housing: Factors for success. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research 3 (2): 5 A new, constructed mixed-income housing development includes diverse types of housing units, such as apartments, town homes, and/or single-family homes for people with a range of income levels. Mixed-income housing may include housing that is priced based on the dominant housing market (market-rate units) with only a few units priced for lower-income residents, or it may not include any market-rate units and be built exclusively for low- and moderate-income residents.Joseph, M. L., Chaskin, R. J., & Webber, H. S. (2007). The Theoretical Basis for Addressing Poverty Through Mixed-Income Development. Urban Affairs Review, 42 (3): 371 Calculating Area Median Income (AMI) and pricing units at certain percentages of AMI most often determine the income mix of a mixed-income housing development. Mixed-income housing is one of two primary mechanisms to eliminate neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, combat residential segregation, and avoid the building of public housing that offers 100% of its housing units to those living in poverty. Mixed-income housing is built through federal-, state-, and local-level efforts and through a combination of public-private-non-profit partnerships.
Overview
Definition The definition of mixed income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Generally speaking, a mixed income housing development includes diverse types of housing units, such as apartments, townhomes, and/or single-family homes for a people with a range of income levels. Mixed income housing may include housing that is priced based on the dominant housing market (market-rate units) with only a few units priced for lower-income residents, or it may not include any market-rate units and be built exclusively for low- and moderate-income residents.Joseph, et al., 371
In the field of housing, there exists no single definition of mixed income housing or a mixed income neighborhood.Berube, A. (2006). Comment on Mark Joseph’s “Is Mixed-Income Development an Antidote to Urban Poverty?” Housing Policy Debate, 17 (2): 237; Brophy & Smith, 5 Berube argues that mixed income housing mirrors an organic process in urban America, and that most often “most mixed-income environments do not result from new housing construction, but instead arise organically from migration, income, and household changes at the neighborhood level.” Berube, 237-238 The level of organic economic integration in neighborhoods is contested, however,Gray, T. A. C. (1999). De-Concentrating Poverty and Promoting Mixed-Income Communities in Public Housing: The Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998. Stanford Law and Policy Review, 11 (1): 174 particularly given significant discrimination against minorities (particularly African Americans) in housing location decisions. There exists no clear metric to determine a neighborhood as "mixed income." This article will focus on non-organic mixed income developments that are built as part of a particular policy intervention.
Mixed income housing is one of two primary mechanisms to eliminate neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, combat residential segregation, and avoid the building of public housing that offers 100% of its housing units to those living in poverty. Mixed income housing development is a project-based subsidy, that is the subsidy is tied to the housing unit, not the tenant, while tenant-based assistance, such as Section 8 (housing) comes in the form of vouchers, which provide a housing subsidy that individuals can use on the open market and move to neighborhoods where landlords will take the voucher subsidy as rent payment.Ellickson, R. C. (2010). The False Promise of the Mixed-Income Housing Project. UCLA Law Review, 57: 986 Calculating Area Median Income (AMI) and pricing units at certain percentages of AMI most often determine the income mix of a mixed income housing development.
How mixed income housing gets built Mixed income housing developments are built through a number of mechanisms. Schwartz and Tajbakhsh have identified four main avenues for the development of mixed income housing.Schwartz, A. & Tajbakhsh, K. (1997). Mixed-Income Housing: Unanswered Questions. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research, 3 (2): 73
State and local governments use density bonuses, inclusionary zoning policies, and other land use regulations to require and/or encourage housing developers to build a certain percentage of new housing units at a particular level of affordability. For example, inclusionary zoning will require developers to build a certain percentage (often 10-20%) of new units for low-income families. Density bonuses serve as an incentive, and offer developers the opportunity to build higher density buildings than they would be allowed under normal zoning regulations if they build new units at a certain level of affordability.
Public housing authorities across the country have used the federal HOPE VI program to rehabilitate distressed public housing and revitalize surrounding neighborhoods by building mixed income housing developments.
Some state and local housing finance programs offer incentives or have prerequisites for certain levels of affordability, such as in Massachusetts and New York Schwartz & Tajbakhsh, 73
Private developers and/or non-profit community development corporations build some mixed income housing. Diverse tax credits, tax abatement programs, and funding streams available from local, state, and federal governments support them.
History The promotion of safe and adequate housing has persisted since the late 1800s in the United States, when early interventions focused on tenement reforms. These efforts were primarily the purview of local governments, however, and the federal government did not enter into housing questions until 1937 when Congress passed the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act, which launched the federal public housing program that still exists today.Ellickson, 989 Historically, public housing authorities sought to achieve the goals that efforts of mixed income housing developments seek today, including the mixing of diverse residents, improved neighborhood services, and creating a ladder out of public housing.Vale, L. (2006). Comment on Mark Joseph’s “Is Mixed-Income Development an Antidote to Urban Poverty?” Housing Policy Debate, 17 (2): 264
Mixed income housing started to emerge in the mid-1960s and 1970s with some federal programs and when local jurisdictions initiated inclusionary zoning.Ellickson, 992 In 1983, the New Jersey State Supreme Court determined that the inclusion of affordable housing would satisfy a municipality’s state constitutional obligations to house the poor, and then in 1986, U.S. Congress authorized the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, which provided a tax credit to private developers who included affordable housing in their developments.Ellickson, 993 As evidenced by the LIHTC passage, mixed income housing became a popular policy strategy in the 1980s and 90s in an effort to de-concentrate poverty and redevelop urban neighborhoods. The 1992 the HOPE VI program emerged as the pinnacle of this interest.
With rising poverty rates and increased concentration of poverty in inner city neighborhoods in the 1970s and 80s, mixed income housing captured the imagination of federal policy makers. While the federal government, and specifically the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), had ongoing housing programs, the beginning of the Bill Clinton administration brought renewed attention to the housing needs of the poor.
Three specific movements and sets of scholarship converged to influence HUD's specific strategies, policies, and programs: the scholarship of William Julius Wilson in his book, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy; the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing report that called for a significant portion of the nation’s public housing be repaired; and the emergence of New Urbanism.Fraser, J. & Nelson, M. H. (2008) Can Mixed-Income Housing Ameliorate Concentrated Poverty? The Significance of a Geographically Informed Sense of Community. Geography Compass, 2 (6): 2128 Over time, incremental federal policy set the stage for the mixed income housing developments today.Smith, J. L. (2006). Public Housing Transformation: Evolving National Policy. In Where Are Poor People to Live? Transforming Public Housing Communities, Ed. Larry Bennett, Janet L. Smith, and Patricia A. Wright, pp. 19-40. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe
William Julius Wilson and "The Truly Disadvantaged" In 1987, a prominent scholar William Julius Wilson in his book "The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy," outlined the problems for those living in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Wilson highlights the prevalence of violence out-of-wedlock births, female-headed households, and welfare dependency in inner-city neighborhoods, and the lack of role models with sustainable jobs and advanced education. He also draws connections between these problems and the restructuring of the urban economy and changes in the family and community structure of inner city communities. The deindustrialization of the urban economy and a shift to service sector jobs, have left those without a college degree at a marked disadvantage facing unemployment with little opportunity for additional education. Wilson aims to connect the plight of those living in the inner city to larger macro-economic forces and calls for public policy interventions that impact the economic organization of the United States.Wilson, W. J. (1987). The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Wilson uses the term underclass to describe those living in the inner city, and identifies a set of “collective differences in behavior and outlook” that constitute a specific culture.Katz, M. B. (Ed.) (1993). The “Underclass” Debate: Views from History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Since Oscar Lewis identified a culture of poverty in his seminal 1959 work,Lewis, O. (1961). The Culture of Poverty. In On Understanding Poverty: Perspectives from the Social Sciences, Ed. Daniel P. Moynihan, pp. 187-200. New York: Basic Books scholars have grappled with whether those living in poverty exhibit distinctive characteristics as a subculture or simply demonstrate adaptive coping mechanisms given their situation. Wilson’s bridging of the culture of poverty with macro-economic structures offered a new framework; he also called for “a comprehensive program that combines employment policies with social welfare policies.” Wilson, 163
The National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing