Concentrated Disadvantage or Geography of Opportunity

Have you ever wondered why Gleanings Housing has a vision of scattered housing units? Why in our plan we want to be selective on were we purchase property? It comes down to wanting to combat the idea of concentrated disadvantage.

Research has been uncovering a causal relationship between where one lives and the experiences of disease/illness, educational outcomes, and life expectancy. The neighborhood a child grows up in impacts so many factors of that child adulthood. Neighborhoods of affluence give increased access to opportunity while impoverished neighborhoods seem to have increased barriers to opportunity. Even when a family has been moving out of poverty or is experiencing economic stability, the research is demonstrating that the income of the neighbors influences the direction of their lives. Thus, the average income of the neighborhood in which a child resides affects opportunity, even if the child’s household income is closer to the median income for the area. This is one of the complex factors which contributes to racial/ethnic and economic inequity.

 Neighborhood’s with 40% of households living in poverty or living at/below 50% of area’s median income are identified as concentrated area of poverty. Concentrated disadvantage is a term describing the negative barriers in such neighborhoods and subdivisions. In 2017 the Fair Housing Council shared a report exploring economic and racial housing segregation in Lexington. It mapped the concentrated areas of poverty and affluence in Lexington identifying four long term areas of concentrated poverty from 1970 to 2017 – Georgetown Street, Winburn, East End and Northside. These are not the only areas of concentrated poverty, as Lexington expands and grows pockets appear in various other regions of city. At the same time, the report also identified growing areas of concentrated affluence. A concentrated affluence neighborhood has 40% households with incomes 180% to 200% above the median income for area and less than 5% or no households at poverty level. Growth on both ends of this spectrum signify increase segregation and exacerbate housing affordability issues.

According to the Urban Institute, Lexington has 25 affordable housing units for every 100 extremely low income households. If you remove federal subsidized units from the equation there are 7 units for every 100 families (Urban Institute 2015). The Fair Housing report showed that most of those affordable units continue to exist only in areas of concentrated poverty.

These are the reasons we are choosing to develop scattered site affordable housing. This is also why it becomes very important that as we partner with others – individuals and organizations – we are focusing on building up the neighborhoods and not just our piece of property.

References

https://www.lexingtonky.gov/sites/default/files/2016-09/17-Analysis%20of%20Impediments%20Draft.pdf

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0pxZP26bfQNUHJEQ0xBaDdITFk/view

Kingsley, G. Thomas, and Kathryn L. S. Pettit. 2003. “Concentrated Poverty: A Change in Course.” Neighborhood Change in Urban America. The Urban Institute. Available from: http://www.urban.org/research/publication/concentrated-poverty-change-course.

  Gleanings Housing Pages, no. 2, March 2021