Affordable Housing

Developing pathways to affordable housing for low-income families may reduce the presence and severity of many risk factors associated with child abuse and neglect. Ensuring affordable and quality housing may also increase protective factors associated with housing and economic stability.

Individual and family-related risk factors may be exacerbated by the stress associated with housing instability, inhabitability, and unaffordability. For instance, parental stress is identified as a risk factor for child abuse and neglect, and access to affordable housing may reduce parental depression and stress, as well as rates of partner violence.

Below are some additional implications associated with a lack of affordable and safe housing:

• Having to make trade-offs between basic needs (like food, health care, medications) and rent
• Experiencing frequent moves, being evicted, experiencing homelessness, or having trouble paying the rent or mortgage—factors associated with an 83% increased likelihood of being investigated by child protective services
• Getting priced out of safe housing and neighborhoods
• Living in subpar conditions, whether due to housing habitability violations, over-crowding, or lack of a feeling of safety or security

Local and state governments can use one or more of the following strategies to create and preserve affordable housing for low-income residents, as well as to increase mobility from neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty.

Implementation Strategies

Housing Vouchers and Subsidies

Housing vouchers and subsidies enable families to secure affordable, quality, and safe housing in an area of their choosing. Through this federal rental assistance program, participants dedicate 30% of their income to rent and the remaining balance is paid for through the voucher. While this is a federal program, implementation effectiveness is largely dependent on local public housing agencies, which are responsible for administering the program.

Considerations:

• Vouchers and subsidies have been shown to reduce parental depression (a risk factor for child abuse and neglect) and, for children younger than 12, can potentially break the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
• Increasing voucher acceptance rates in rental properties and reducing discrimination can bolster implementation effectiveness.

Tax Breaks to Incentivize Development of Affordable Housing in Mixed-Income Communities

Developed in 1986 by the Tax Reform Act, the low-income housing tax credit enables local municipalities to provide tax incentives for the development of affordable housing through new construction, rehabilitation, and acquisition of properties.

Considerations:

• Partnerships with social and health service providers can facilitate access and use for residents, improving health and eventually reducing health care costs.
• Public-private partnerships may enable local housing authorities to increase their capacity to meet housing demands, since private and for-profit developers may be able to scale up more easily.
• Tax breaks can be used in combination with strategies that help address rising construction costs and other concerns that make development more challenging.

Inclusionary Zoning

Inclusionary zoning refers to local policies that require developers to set aside a certain percentage of market-rate projects for affordable housing—generally between 10 and 25 percent of units. Inclusionary zoning programs may be mandatory or optional. Compliance incentives may include administrative benefits such as expedited application and project approval, as well as fee waivers to offset some of the cost of the program.

Considerations:

• These policies have been shown to directly improve health among residents of the new affordable units.
• Research shows that mandatory policies have created more affordable housing than those that offer developers alternatives for compliance.
• These programs can require less public subsidy than other affordable housing programs, which may make it a more fiscally sustainable option in some communities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognizes ChangeLab Solutions for their assistance in developing the Policy in Action for Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect content.