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Does Public Housing Reduce Homelessness?

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Does Public Housing Reduce Homelessness?
Does Public Housing Reduce Homelessness?
An Empirical Study Using Panel Data

Abstract
This paper tries to find out how public housing affects homelessness, conditional on other relevant factors. Five ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models, including bivariate regression, multivariate regression, and fixed effects regression are used to estimate the relationship between public housing and homelessness based on yearly state-level panel data from 2007-2013. The results indicate that public housing plays a significant role in reducing homelessness.

I. Introduction and Background
Public housing is a common-often solution to the problem of homelessness, aiming at providing affordable housing at lower rents to people who have difficulty buying or renting a home at market price. At present, according to the estimation by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are approximately 1.2 million households living in public housing units in the U.S. Designing to directly address homelessness, public housing is often assumed to have a positive impact on reducing the size of the homeless population. With an adequate amount of public housing available, the number of the homeless is expected to drop sufficiently. …show more content…
The purpose of this study is to answer such a question: Have public housing addressed or reduced the problem of homelessness to any important degree, when other relevant factors are accounted for? We are not trying to dig out the nature of homelessness; instead, we will focus specifically on the empirical relationship between public housing and homelessness. Given the fact that the development of public housing programs often requires a large amount of funding, understanding the role of public housing in alleviating homelessness helps policy makers to assess the effectiveness of subsidized housing
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