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The Public Policy Research Center strongly supports the research efforts of UM-St. Louis faculty members. In 1990, the PPRC made a formal commitment to faculty research by implementing the Faculty Fellows Program.

Recently the Fellows program was restructured, and in the spring of 2007, the Public Policy Administration (PPA) department was awared a PPRC fellowship for an interdisciplinary project that examines low-income and minority homeownership in St. Louis City and County. The project calls upon faculty expertise across a number of disciplines, including public policy, political science, economics, nonprofit management and GIS. The study also utilized the students enrolled in the PPA Evaluation Research course during the Spring 2007 semester. Twenty students participated, collecting and analyzing data.

The team is in the process of inventorying and developing a taxonomy of existing programs aimed at increasing low-income and minority homeownership. The project encompasses a set of neighborhoods in the City of St. Louis and several low-income municipalities in St. Louis County.

The team will provide a final project report in September, 2007. The report will contain an analysis of current national programs (including incentives in the federal tax law), local assistance programs; measures of impact on neighborhoods and municipalities; and analyses of research on the impact of affordable housing assistance programs on the region’s periphery. The report will conclude with a discussion of opportunities for needed future research. For more details on the research project, visit the PPRC website.

PROJECT DESIGN

The project will use nationally-available information to develop an inventory of the types of available assistance for the promotion of low-income minority homeownership. After compiling this data, information will be obtained on the extent to which the available tools are in fact being utilized in the St. Louis region. This exercise will produce taxonomy of St. Louis homeownership programs.

Upon completion of this taxonomy, specific neighborhoods in the region will be targeted for more intensive examination. For two targeted low-income minority neighborhoods in the City of St. Louis, and two targeted low-income minority municipalities in St. Louis County, data will be obtained on changes in rates of homeownership, and the role of public and nonprofit programs in promoting additional homeownership in these communities. Data will also be obtained on school performance and crime rates in the communities as well as involvement in the neighborhood. Quantitative data will be supplemented with interview data with community representatives, public and nonprofit officials, and other local experts. Information will be analyzed to provide indications as to the extent to which programs promoting homeownership are achieving their goals, as well as examining the extent to which increases in homeownership in targeted communities are associated with positive spillover effects in other policy arenas, such as educational achievement, stability, and crime rates. This research will also ascertain whether the effects of new affordable and/or market rate housing for purchase affect existing dwellings and general community life.

The study will also report on longer term evaluation designs that could be used in further studies following up on the work proposed here.

Finally, the project will examine issues of affordable housing on the region’s periphery and efforts to increase the available supply of housing in areas of greatest regional job growth. Activities of this type in the St. Louis region will be compared to other regions where such activities are underway. The study will document the extent of such projects, and consider the extent to which they include a low-income minority homeownership component, and the impact of such components on access to employment opportunities.

FACULTY

Professor Andrew Glassberg – Public Policy Administration and Political Science
Professor William Rogers - Economics
Professor Lana Stein – Political Science and Public Policy Administration
Professor Nancy Kinney, Public Policy Administration
Dr. John McClusky, Academic Director, Public Policy Administration
Professor Brady Baybeck, Political Science
Jeremy Main, Doctoral Student, Political Science