Residential mobility and opportunities: Early impacts of the moving to Opportunity Demonstration Program in Chicago

This article uses survey data from the Moving to Opportunity demonstration program in Chicago to explore changes for households moving from public hou sing. The focus is on two key areas: housing and neighborhood conditions, a nd labor force participation and employment of householders. The experiment al design of the program allows the differences between comparison househol ds, which moved with a regular Section 8 voucher, and experimental househol ds, which moved to low-poverty neighborhoods with housing counseling assist ance, to be examined. The findings, based on interviews an average of 18 months after families mo ved, reveal dramatic improvements in neighborhood and housing conditions fo r all participating families; experimental families experienced even greate r gains in terms of housing and especially neighborhood conditions. Labor f orce participation and employment increased for householders in both groups , likely fueled by the robust economy throughout much of the country and su pporting similar findings for program participants in New York and Boston.