Housing, social networks, and access to opportunity: The impact of living in scattered-site public housing

In response to increasing poverty concentration in metropolitan areas, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development adopted the goal of creating housing opportunities for poor people among those who are not poor in order to provide access to social and economic opportunity. This study takes the perspective that neighborhood social networks may be in part responsible for the availability of social and economic opportunity because people are embedded in social networks that act as vital links to larger social systems. Do the low-income residents of scattered-site public housing have greater access to beneficial social ties through their neighborhood social networks than do residents of small clusters of public housing in non-poor areas? If scattered-site public housing residents have more access to more beneficial ties through their neighborhood social networks, do they use them in job finding?;Using the results of in-person surveys with 253 women between the ages of 18 and 55 living in scattered-site and clustered public housing in Montgomery County, Maryland, this study compares the neighborhood social networks of residents of the two types of housing. The design is quasi-experimental: the treatment group lives in scattered-site public housing that is located throughout the wealthy county, while the comparison group enters public housing from the same waiting list, but lives in developments ranging from 20 to 70 units in size.;Scattered-site public housing residents are no more involved in overlapping relations or isolated from their neighbors than are clustered residents, and the two groups differ little in dependence on neighborhood networks for help with tasks of everyday life. At the same time, scattered-site residents have neighborhood social networks that indicate greater access to diverse sources of information than clustered residents have. Scattered-site residents, however, use their neighbors less frequently in looking for a job than do clustered residents. Social network closeness and diversity were associated with the types of ties used in job finding, regardless of housing type. Implications for theory, policy, and practice are discussed.