Sense of Place among Atlanta Public Housing Residents

Abstract

For almost two decades now, cities around the country have been demolishing traditional public housing and relocating residents to subsidized private market rental housing. In this paper, we examine sense of place, consisting of both community and place attachment, among a sample of Atlanta public housing residents prior to relocation (N = 290). We find that 41% of the residents express place attachment, and a large percentage express some level of community attachment, though residents of senior public housing are far more attached than residents of family public housing. Positive neighborhood characteristics, such as collective efficacy and social support, are associated with community attachment, and social support is also associated with place attachment. Negative neighborhood characteristics, such as social disorder and fear of crime, are not consistently associated with sense of place. We argue that embodied in current public housing relocation initiatives is a real sense of loss among the residents. Policy makers may also want to consider the possibilities of drawing upon residents' sense of place as a resource for renovating and revitalizing public housing communities rather than continuing to demolish them and relocating residents to other neighborhoods.

The Urban Built Environment and Associations with Women’s Psychosocial Health

“…30 It may be challenging for residents of high-rental neighborhoods to grow place attachment, which may help explain why more rental housing remained associated with active coping, negative partner support, and perceived racism, even after adjustment. Further, considerable research shows that residential characteristics, like vacancy and incivilities (nuisances), are associated with unhealthy behaviors even after adjustment for individual-level confounders 9,24,31 ; similar mechanisms likely contribute to an unhealthy psychosocial profile as well.…”

Family Resilience Predicts Socioeconomic Mobility of HUD Participants

“…Furthermore, one of the most significant criticisms of recent HUD self-sufficiency and economic mobility initiatives is that many of these programs inadvertently reduce families' current access to community social support (Bennett & Reed, 1999;Chaskin & Joseph, 2011;Clampet-Lundquist, 2007;Greenbaum, Hathaway, Rodriguez, Spalding, & Ward, 2008;Manzo, Kleit, & Couch, 2008;Tester, Ruel, Anderson, Reitzes, & Oakley, 2011). Although most of these initiatives offer better access to resources needed for economic mobility, such benefits often come at the cost of existing familial and community relationships (Fauth et al, 2008;Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2003;Distelberg & Taylor, 2013).…”

“…Findings in resilience research suggest that building family resilience as well as access to social support can directly impact a family's chances for socioeconomic mobility (Distelberg & Taylor, 2013;Johnson, Honnold, & Threlfall, 2011;Keene & Geronimus, 2011;Tester et al, 2011). As a family's level of social support increases, it directly aids the family in (1) maintaining stable employment, (2) receiving adequate housing, (3) increasing education, (4) increasing job skills training, and (5) buffering against physical and mental health limitations (Carlton et al, 2006;Corcoran, 1995;Dominguez & Watkins, 2003;Jackson, Brooks-Gunn, Huang, & Glassman, 2000;Lin, Thompson, & Kaslow, 2009;Paranjape & Kaslow, 2010).…”

A Deeper Look at the Social Support Index: A Multi-Dimensional Assessment

“…While a robust level of description can be found in the conceptual frameworks (Walsh, 2006;McCubbin & Patterson, 1983) and inductive qualitative investigations (Tester et al, 2011), follow up deductive quantitative studies are forced to use measures that are lacking in regards to these robust conceptualization of social support.…”