The Importance of Stable Housing for Children and Families

Children Need Safe, Decent and Affordable Housing

Affordable housing is critically important to the well being and health of children and families. Without decent and affordable housing, families have trouble managing their daily lives and their children’s safety, health and development suffer. Families who pay more than they can afford for housing have too little left over for other necessities such as food, clothing and health care. They may not be able to pay for transportation and child care, making it harder to go to work and school each day. As a result families can end up becoming homeless or living in substandard housing. [1] According to the most recent data available from the American Housing Survey, 2.5 million households with children live in substandard housing, 741,000 of which live in severely substandard housing. In Minnesota, almost 300,000 low-income households are living in unaffordable housing. [2] On any given night in Minnesota more than 20,000 people are homeless or precariously housed and over 3,000 are children. [3]

One study found that when parents who are former welfare recipients can not pay their rent, and move frequently their children were twice as likely to change schools in the prior six months as were comparable families with less housing need. [4] As was also demonstrated by the Kids Mobility Project, completed in 1999 by the Family Housing Fund and other partners, children who move frequently tend to do worse in school.

The goal of the Kid’s Mobility Project was to provide sound information from which implications and recommendations could emerge for policies and programs that will help stabilize children and families in Minneapolis. The results confirmed the researchers’ suspicions that frequent moves affect school performance and that poor housing and family instability lead to frequent residential moves. Among the findings are:

Housing Costs Affect Health and Nutrition: Parents under economic stress are frequently unable to provide adequate physical care, including nutrition, and they may be too preoccupied to provide the nurturing and support their children need to form secure attachments, especially at young ages. [5] When too much of the family income is spent on housing, parents are forced to skimp on food, and children suffer from poor nutrition, which can lead to chronic health problems and decreased school performance. [6]

Unstable Housing and Child Health: Inadequate housing often poses health risks for children who live there. These risks may include asthma, lead poisoning, mold allergies, increased respiratory or other infections, or diseases carried by cockroaches or other pests. Health risks are particularly problematic in substandard housing, which is often the only option for families at the lowest income levels. [7]

Unstable Housing and Child School Performance: Insecure housing and frequent mobility have been shown to result in frequent absences and poorer school performance. When children don’t have stable and secure shelter, they are much less able to learn than children who do. With reading and math performance lower, their ability to succeed in high stakes testing will be impaired. Overall literacy is also impaired. [8]

Unstable Housing and Parenting Challenges: Parents struggling to provide adequate housing may be unable to give their children the kind of support they need to learn well, and do not maintain connections with school, read to the children, provide consistent support for homework, a positive home learning environment, or appropriate modeling. [9]

Economic Stress and Sobriety: A correlation has been found between economic stress in the family and negative behaviors such as alcoholism in adolescents in the families affected. [10]

Poverty and an Unstable Neighborhood: When people live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, they are at greater risk of becoming involved in criminal behavior, including violent crime and drug use. This is due in part to the lack of role models and other stabilizing influences. [11]


Read GMHF's
Briefing Paper on the Importance of Stable Housing for Minnesota Families (.pdf)

Mayo pediatrician
Dr. Patricia Simmons, MD, addresses the importance of safe and stable housing for children at GMHF's Rochester Conference,
May 17, 2004 (.pdf)
“The loss of one child’s potential... is only a shadow of the loss to that child’s potential as an educated, productive world
citizen. Our businesses have one less skilled worker. Our communities have one less person to contribute time, energy and money to sustain a high quality of life. Our state has one less citizen to engage meaningfully in public decision-making. There is one more adult at risk of... straying into crime or
requiring continuing public subsidy.”
-Rip Rapson, President,
The McKnight Foundation
"When children have a stable home, they do better in school, have fewer health problems,
and are more likely to pursue higher education and be a part of a healthy workforce."
-Children, Youth and Family Consortium, University of Minnesota
“When housing needs are appropriately met, children are more likely to be healthy and perform well in school and parents are more likely to be productive members of a strong workforce.”
-Sandra Christenson, A Family View of Mobility Among Low-Income Children

“When too much family income is spent on housing, parents are forced to skimp on food, and children suffer from poor nutrition, which can lead to chronic health problems and decreased school performance.”
-Children, Youth and Family Consortium, University of Minnesota
“Homeownership has been found to encourage stronger families, more success in K-12 school performance, and greater success later in life.”
-Alan Scholttmann, University of Tennessee
“Inadequate housing often poses health risks for children, including asthma, lead poisoning, mold allergies, increased respiratory or other infections, and injuries from unsafe conditions.”
-Children, Youth and Family Consortium, University of Minnesota

Homeownership

Homeownership has been found to encourage stronger families, more success in k-12 school performance and greater success later in life. Compared to the children of renters (of the same age, income, race, etc.), the children of homeowners are:

25% more likely to graduate from high school [12] ;
116% more likely to graduate from college [13] ;
20% less likely to become teenage mothers [14] ; and
59% more likely to own a home within 10 years of moving from their parent’s household [15] .

Children of homeowners have been shown to have higher math and reading scores [16] , fewer behavioral problems [17] , and are less likely to have alcohol and substance-abuse problems [18] .

Homeownership also builds wealth for low-income families. GMHF’s research [19] reveals that low income “starter home” buyers in Greater Minnesota will accumulate more than $90,000 in home equity during the first ten years of homeownership and over $300,000 of equity over 30 years of homeownership. This new wealth will serve the family by providing a family built safety net when health or other problems arise, provide for first-generation college graduates and business ownership, and provide retirement savings.

Housing for Families with Children Is Important to the General Public

In 2003 the Fannie Mae Foundation, with Peter D. Hart Research Associates, conducted an extensive national public opinion survey to probe Americans’ perceptions of affordable housing and instruct the Foundation and other organizations on the best means of creating a favorable environment for affordable housing. One aim of the research is to identify concerns that resonate with the public and therefore have the potential to move the affordable housing issue off the nation’s back burner. Hart consistently found that the public responds strongly when presented with evidence that the lack of affordable quality housing disrupts family life and unfairly burdens hard-working men and women. People care about families and children, not abstract entities like communities or business sectors. Two statistically based statements that strongly ignited public concern are:

Families Unfairly Strained: No parent in America working full time at minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment renting at the “fair market rent’ without overburdening the rest of the family budget (of the respondents, 75 % agreed that this a big or fairly big problem). [20]

Too Many Pay Too Much: There has been a 68% increase in just the past four years in the number of working-class families who spend more than half of their income on housing. (Seventy-eight percent of the respondents agreed that this is a very big or fairly big problem). [21]

Other Survey Statistics showed that the public feels housing costs should not: 

… Prevent Education or Retirement: Of the people interviewed, 79% were concerned a great deal or a fair amount by families having to spend so much of their incomes on housing that they cannot save for retirement or for their children’s education. [22]

… Prevent Meeting Other Basic Expenses: 76% of respondents were concerned a great deal or fair amount by families having to spend so much of their income on housing that they have to struggle to meet their other expenses. [23]

… Prevent Spending Time with Children: Of the respondents, 69% were concerned a great deal or a fair amount by two other issues – families having to spend time away from children because of long commutes and families with children having to live in unsafe or crowded conditions to be close to jobs. [24]


[4] Children’s Defense Fund, “Families Struggling to Make it in the Workforce: A Post-Welfare Report), 2000.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Buerkle, Karla and Sandra Christenson, “A Family View of Mobility Among Low-Income Children”, 1999.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Boehm, Thomas P. and Alan Schlottmann, “Does Home Ownership by Parents Have An Economic Impact on Their Children?” Department of Finance, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 1999.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.