Urban Institute experts study public policies' effects on families and parents. We analyze family-leave policies, public supports for families, and government policies aimed at strengthening marriage. Our Low-Income Working Families project explores the hardships of employed families struggling to make ends meet.
A third of all families with children (13.4 million families) have incomes less than twice the federal poverty line. A sudden job loss or health crisis could derail them. Tax credits, food stamps, child care subsidies, and other work supports help. But they don't always close the gap between earnings and basic needs. Urban Institute analysts have proposed new initiatives to protect low-income working families and help them get ahead.
Intervening in the parent generation can improve current and future prospects in the child generation. Such two-generation strategies target either parents’ life circumstances or parenting behaviors. Because many immigrants do not have the English capabilities, inside knowledge about schools, or social standing, engaging them more fully in the educational process in the home, school, and community could bring academic returns for children. This paper describes two-generation approaches to the education of young children from immigrant families that center on parental involvement in education. It focuses on Latin American and Asian immigrants, who make up the bulk of the immigrant population.
A main goal of the HOPE VI program was to improve public housing by replacing failed developments with healthy and safe communities that offer a better quality of life for residents. This brief explores whether the safety gains for early relocates have been sustained and whether those who moved later have benefited equally— because these residents tended to be among the most vulnerable, there was good reason to think that they would not fare as well. We find that almost all former residents are now living in safer conditions and that improved safety and quality of life has been the greatest benefit of the Plan for Transformation for CHA residents.
Eight years after the Madden/Wells redevelopment started, this brief presents what has happened to the original residents, including the type of housing assistance they received and where they lived in 2009. Despite a number of challenges, we found that by 2009, all of the residents had relocated and nearly one in five former Madden/Wells residents was living in a new mixed-income housing development. Most of the former Madden/Wells residents reported that their current housing and neighborhood was better than Madden/Wells. However, only a minority lived in economically or racially diverse neighborhoods that offer real opportunities for themselves and their children.
This overview presents findings from the Chicago Panel Study, a follow up to the Urban Institute’s five-site HOPE VI Panel Study, to assess how the residents are faring as the Plan for Transformation progresses. We find that after 10 years, the story for CHA families is far more positive than many observers—including ourselves— would have predicted at the outset. Regardless of where they have moved, most families in our study are living in considerably better circumstances. However, the study also highlights the serious challenges that remain, most significantly, residents’ extremely poor health and persistently low rates of employment.
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