How do Mixed-Income Neighborhood Initiatives Reduce Educational Inequality for Low-Income Black Youth?

The legacy of systemic inequality in housing and neighborhood development has contributed to a persistent educational opportunity gap between Black and White students. Federally sponsored housing programs have sought to address these barriers by disrupting concentrated poverty and racial segregation, but one challenge has been their focus on housing, rather than neighborhood conditions like access to information and resources. HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) was established to address these limitations by strengthening community social cohesion through cross-sector collaboration. Leveraging the community-engaged research infrastructure of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research (PEER), Lenhoff and colleagues will ask whether CNI can mitigate educational disparities created by a legacy of systemic inequality in housing and neighborhood development. In a longitudinal mixed-methods study, the team will examine whether key components of CNI, including improved and expanded housing, opportunities for building neighborhood cohesion, and educational supports, improve educational opportunities for Black youth from low-income families by transforming their social networks. Findings will provide an in-depth examination of the processes through which such initiatives create, deepen, or disrupt social ties and shed light on the promise of cross-sector initiatives to reduce inequalities.