The Benefits of Rental Assistance for Children's Health and School Attendance in the United States

Abstract

Programs that provide affordable and stable housing may contribute to better child health and thus to fewer missed days of school. Drawing on a unique linkage of survey and administrative data, we use a quasi-experimental approach to examine the impact of rental assistance programs on missed days of school due to illness. We compare missed school days due to illness among children receiving rental assistance with those who will enter assistance within two years of their interview, the average length of waitlists for federal rental assistance. Overall, we find that children who receive rental assistance miss fewer days of school due to illness relative to those in the pseudo-waitlist group. We demonstrate that rental assistance leads to a reduction in the number of health problems among children and thus to fewer days of school missed due to illness. We find that the effect of rental assistance on missed school days is stronger for adolescents than for younger children. Additionally, race-stratified analyses reveal that rental assistance leads to fewer missed days due to illness among non-Hispanic White and Hispanic/Latino children; this effect, however, is not evident for non-Hispanic Black children, the largest racial/ethnic group receiving assistance. These findings suggest that underinvestment in affordable housing may impede socioeconomic mobility among disadvantaged non-Hispanic White and Hispanic/Latino children. In contrast, increases in rental assistance may widen racial/ethnic disparities in health among disadvantaged children, and future research should examine why this benefit is not evident for Black children.

Better Together? Multiplier and Spillover Effects in Two-Generation Initiatives

“…2021; Fenelon et al. 2018, 2021). Others have found that children growing up in public housing have better educational outcomes and better economic outcomes in adulthood (Currie and Yelowitz 2000; Newman and Harkness 2002; Newman and Holupka 2021; Schwartz et al.…”

Multi-tiered systems of support for school attendance and its problems: An unlearning perspective for areas of high chronic absenteeism

“…As such, shared alliances are necessary to address multilayered characteristics and can include collaborations among agencies (e.g., education, housing, legal, public health, welfare) to better track students removed from the educational process and to develop comprehensive early warning and intervention systems salient to a particular area. An example involves multiagency collaboration in areas of housing instability and residential mobility to facilitate rental assistance and transportation to a previous school for vulnerable students (Fenelon et al, 2021). Kearney and Graczyk (2020) noted as well that the very nature of a school's purpose must change in MD-MTSS frameworks of school attendance/problems in areas of high absenteeism severity.…”

Integration and coordination across public benefit programs: Insights from state and local government leaders in the United States

“…( National Academies of Sciences E, and Medicine, 2019, and Medicine, 2019 ) Multiple studies using quasi-experimental designs have demonstrated the impacts of enrollment in a single program, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or federal rental assistance, on health, social, and economic outcomes including adult earnings, asthma risk, school absenteeism, and mental health. ( Hoynes et al, 2016 , Fenelon et al, 2021 , Fenelon et al, 2017 , Boudreaux et al, 2020 , Denary et al, 2021 ) Moreover, as concluded through simulation modeling by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, concurrent enrollment in multiple safety net programs may have even greater impacts due to synergies between health and economic benefits. ( National Academies of Sciences E, and Medicine, 2019 ) For example, a pre/post study in the San Francisco Bay area found receipt of both SNAP and Supplement Security Income (SSI) improved household food security and self-rated health and reduced psychological distress compared to only receiving SSI.…”