Moving Towards Housing and Social Equity
March 11, 2021Image by Andrea Leopardi on Unsplash
Dr. Michael Overton, assistant professor of Political Science and Public Administration, was awarded nearly $250,000 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to study the impacts of certain HUD grants on housing and social equity. This grant was submitted through IBEST because of the project’s requirements for Big Data management and support that IBEST’s services centers provide.
Co-PIs on this project include Dr. Eric Stokan from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Dr. Megan Hatch from Cleveland State University, and University of Idaho GIS Librarian Bruce Godfrey. Over the next two years, the team will try to uncover what impacts Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) and HOME activities have on equity outcomes—defined by metrics that capture the disparity of social or economic conditions between disadvantaged and more privileged groups. They will conduct their research in three phases. They will first develop indices of neighborhood deprivation and economic growth potential; second, examine the differential impact of CDBG and HOME activities on a broad range of housing and social equity outcomes; and third, identify the threshold effects of CDBG and HOME required to impact equity outcomes.
Researchers generally measure the effectiveness of CDBG programs and HOME activities by economic indicators and property sale prices, respectively. However, these methods do not account for the housing and social impacts that CDBG and HOME have across income groups, gender, race, and ethnicity. Through their research, Overton and his team plan to bridge this gap in knowledge and help HUD and local administrators strategically address equity.