Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Vol. 23(3), Fall 2002 � 2002 Human Sciences Press, Inc. 285
Meeting Family Housing Needs: Experiences ofRural Women in the Midst of Welfare Reform
Christine C. CookSue R. CrullCynthia N. FletcherThessalenuere Hinnant-BernardJennifer Peterson
Iowa State University
ABSTRACT: Though sometimes overlooked, the availability, affordability, and qualityof housing in rural communities are a potential barrier to transitioning from welfare towork. In this investigation we examine housing issues confronting 17 rural women andtheir families who were recipients of welfare benefits in 1997. Respondents’ housingaccounts illustrate the significance of reliance on both government housing subsidiesand informal subsidies supplied by friends, family, and more distant relatives. Thestudy focuses on concerns women have in meeting their families shelter needs and thecomplexities involved in doing so. The findings of the research suggest that additionalhousing policy initiatives, as well as a targeted research agenda are needed, especiallyfor families whose welfare benefits are nearing termination.
KEY WORDS: housing; welfare reform; women and housing.
The mailing address of all the authors is Department of Human Development andFamily Studies, Iowa State University, 1086 Lebaron Hall, Ames, IA 50011.
Christine C. Cook is Associate Professor (e-mail: cccook�iastate.edu). Her primaryresearch focus is housing problems of low-income families, women, and children. Alongwith a number of Midwestern collaborators, she has ongoing research on the role ofhousing in rural community vitality.
Sue R. Crull is Associate Professor (e-mail: suecrull�iastate.edu). Her research andteaching emphases are housing and consumer issues. She is currently investigatingnonmetropolitan home mortgage lending patterns. Along with other Midwestern collab-orators she has on-going research on rural community vitality and housing.
Cynthia N. Fletcher is Professor and Extension Specialist (e-mail: cynthia�iastate.edu). Her research and outreach activities focus on family economic well-being andpublic policies.
Thessalenuere Hinnant-Bernard is a doctoral student (e-mail: thinnant�iastate.edu). Her research interests include housing, discrimination, and family economic self-sufficiency. She has fulfilled her course requirements and is currently completing dis-sertation research on predatory lending in the home mortgage market.
Jennifer Peterson is a research assistant. She participated in the data collection andcontent analyses of the investigation.
286 Journal of Family and Economic Issues
Meeting housing needs is critical for welfare families on the road toeconomic self-sufficiency. The cost of housing is usually the biggestitem in most families’ budgets and the hardest to adjust. Housingexpenditures, rent or mortgage payments, utilities, and gas, are often“the first claim on our incomes so that everything else has to be paidout of what is left after paying for housing” (Stone, 1993, p. 2).Changes in income support programs and food stamps brought aboutby the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Recon-ciliation Act (PRWORA) may mean for some families a reduction inthe funds they have available to pay housing costs (Housing Assis-tance Council, 1997). The inability to secure housing is more than aneconomic problem. It “has implications for families’ social and psycho-logical well-being, labor market position, socioeconomic mobility pros-pects, and future income streams” (Shlay, 1995, p. 704). Housingshould not be overlooked in the evaluation of welfare reform out-comes.
Special challenges face rural welfare families in securing housingand at the same time making the transition from welfare to work.Substantial structural barriers exist in small towns and rural com-munities:1 fewer and lower-wage jobs, longer distances to services andjobs, less automobile access, little public transportation, and a lack ofchild care options. Although often overlooked, the availability, afford-ability, and quality of housing in rural communities is also potentiallyan important structural barrier to the success of low-income families.
While the cost of housing is substantially lower in small towns com-pared to the metropolis, often neither income from low-wage employ-ment nor welfare is sufficient to afford to own or rent available hous-ing. Rural housing data are difficult to find but HUD reports that theoverall number of units with rents below $300 is shrinking, decliningby 13% between 1996 and 1998 alone (U. S. Department of Housingand Urban Development, 1999). The average wage of Iowa residentsleaving welfare averages $7.50 per hour (Kauff et al., 2001). At thatrate Iowa terminees can barely afford a $300 unit and cannot affordthe average fair market rent, for which they must earn at least $9.21per hour (Kaufman, 1997). “More than four of every ten rural poverty-level households pay over 50% of their meager incomes for housing”(Housing Assistance Council, 1997, p. 2). Poor rural households alsomust often choose between housing that is affordable and housingthat is structurally sound (Shinn & Weitzman, 1994). Rural house-holds are more likely than urban dwellers to live in inadequate hous-
Christine C. Cook et al. 287
ing, housing with severe structural defects, lead paint problems, andinfested with vermin (Housing Assistance Council, 1997).
Reducing housing costs may be one of the most important stepsthat families can take toward economic security. In order to makeends meet, families may employ more and less successful strategiesranging from doubling up to accepting housing-quality deficiencies,paying more for housing than can be sustained, or borrowing cashfrom friends and family. As a last resort poor families who fail to paythe rent or mortgage can be evicted resulting in homelessness. In thisinvestigation we examine the housing strategies employed currentlyand in the past by 17 rural Iowa women and their families who wererecipients of welfare benefits in 1997, the time of the study’s incep-tion. We derive our ideas about housing survival strategies fromNelson and Smith (1999, p. 6) who refer to “household strategies” asthe activities families develop to ensure and enhance daily survival,including use of the formal or informal economy, self-provisioning ef-forts, and nonmonetary exchanges with other households.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with respondents thatprovide accounts of current housing circ*mstances and housing histo-ries since leaving their parental home. A qualitative methodology andcontent analysis were employed to allow us to document how womenmeet the day-to-day challenges of housing themselves and their fami-lies. One of the particular objectives of the study was to learn moreabout the housing experiences of rural families in the transition fromwelfare to work. Common themes emerged from responses includingconcerns about housing cost and quality, limited interior space forfamilies and for children’s play indoors and outside, and the conse-quences of frequent housing moves.
In reading the transcripts, we were struck by the number of infor-mal arrangements respondents had made with families and friends tosecure housing.2 Although six of the respondents received federalhousing assistance, seven of the 17 respondents were living in hous-ing rented to them by family or friends. We speculate that the helpprovided by family and friends makes important contributions to afamily’s ability to stabilize its situation and transition off welfare.The evidence suggests, however, that the arrangements tend to betemporary, or at least thought of as such. These informal housingstrategies appear to be fragile or short-term in nature because of thepersistent mobility of respondents brought about by marriages andseparations, the birth of children, changes in employment, and dissat-
288 Journal of Family and Economic Issues
isfaction with current housing and location. Starting over in a newplace with new possibilities seemed to be important to some familieswe interviewed and whether this reflects their resilience or speaks toprecarious housing options or some combination of both is not entirelyclear.
Following a brief review of recent research assessing welfare re-form outcomes and on the intersection of federal housing assistanceand welfare reform, we turn to the housing circ*mstances of thewomen interviewed. A composite portrait of respondents’ housing ex-periences and situations is created emphasizing differences and sim-ilarities among those who received government housing assistancecompared to those who received informal housing assistance. We closewith a discussion of how policy makers, advocates, and researchersmight use these data to better understand and meet the housingneeds of poor women and their families transitioning from welfare towork.
Leaving Welfare
In August 1996, when the Personal Responsibility and Work Oppor-tunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was signed into law, most localwelfare offices across the country had already started replacing the61 year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). In1993 AFDC was replaced with the Family Investment Program (FIP).Like the national movement that followed, the focus of welfare reformin Iowa was the shift from ongoing cash assistance to economic self-sufficiency. “Quick job placement, coupled with availability of jobtraining opportunities, was the initial focus of the Iowa reform”(Fletcher et al., 1999, p. 12).3 The shift to work-oriented assistancehas been accompanied by a 49% decline in the number of familiesnationally receiving cash assistance (Pavetti, 2000). In Iowa in 1994there were 39,600 TANF recipients and 5 years later in 1999 therewere 22,000, a decline of almost 40% (U.S. Congress, 2000, Section 7,Table 7.5).
Early studies on families exiting welfare in Iowa suggested various‘points of vulnerability’ (Litt et al., 2000). A lack of jobs available andlack of job skills may limit welfare recipients’ ability to become self-sufficient. Particularly in rural areas, restructuring of the economy,with shifts from high-wage to low-wage industries and to the servicesector, has had a disproportionately negative effect on poor families
Christine C. Cook et al. 289
and families headed by women. Litt, Gaddis, Fletcher, and Winter(2000) found that respondents moving from welfare to work did notexpect wage increases or job advancements.4 Respondents cited trans-portation problems and lack of available, affordable childcare as bar-riers to entering the labor force. There was evidence too that “whilemany have a strong network of friends and family that provide finan-cial and emotional support, others seem very isolated from the neigh-borhoods and communities in which they live” (Fletcher et al., 1999,p. 3).
The research community has largely ignored welfare recipients liv-ing in non-metropolitan settings. Tickamyer, Henderson, White, andTadlock (2000) conducted focus groups in 1998 and 1999 with ruralwomen receiving welfare in Appalachian Ohio. The investigatorsfound that “welfare participants identify with mainstream values . . .family, fear of crime and violence, condemnation of dependence andfraud, support for a work ethic and respect for fairness and impar-tiality . . .” (p. 187). However, the responses from women indicatedthey were uncertain about the purpose, goals and outcomes of welfarereform. Furthermore they failed to see any logic in sanctions. Thewomen indicated that their “primary allegiance was to their childrenand other family members, not to the society or system” (Tickamyeret al., 2000, p. 178). Economic incentives and sanctions were ineffec-tive because welfare participants placed the needs of their familiesahead of economic interests. For example, barriers to employmentsuch as transportation were viewed as insurmountable yet often acommon source of sanctions among participants. Participants arguedthat sanctions put their families’ economic livelihood at risk, yet thatis what welfare reform purports to protect.
Analyzing information from a number of early national data sources,Cancian et al. (1999) determined that, despite differences in evalua-tion research approaches: 1) about two-thirds of the leavers continueto receive some type of welfare benefits such as Food Stamps andMedicaid; 2) about two-thirds of the women exiting AFDC work part-time; 3) the wage rates of leavers differ across states but generally liein the range of $6.50 to $7.50 per hour; and 4) on average, the fami-lies of leavers without a spouse or cohabiting mate have from $14,000to $17,000 of annual income, and the average is only somewhathigher for those with mates. More than 50% of leavers live below thepoverty threshold. “A few years after exiting, about 40% of the leaversremain poor” (Cancian et al., 1999, p. 24).
For families that left welfare soon after reform, outcomes may be
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different than those of more recent groups of leavers. It is feared thatmore recent leavers would not be as job-ready as those that left first.They would have more personal barriers to work and the labor mar-ket would not be able absorb them as readily as the early group ofleavers. Loprest (2001) compared what has happened to families leav-ing welfare between 1997 and 1999 to those who left between 1995and 1997. Although she did not find many differences between thetwo groups, she did find that one-third of current leavers describedtheir poor physical and mental health as a barrier to employmentcompared to just over one-in-four of the earlier leavers. The economicwell-being of the two groups, as measured by wages, was not differ-ent. In 1999 dollars, median hourly wages were $7.15 for the recentgroup compared to $7.08 for the earlier group. Despite similar levelsof work, earnings, and income, economic struggles were evidentamong the most recent group exiting welfare. They worried abouthaving enough food and almost half indicated they were unable topay their rent, mortgage, or utility bills in the past year. Further-more, 40% of the group that left welfare recently was still poor.
To date, all of the research on families leaving, returning, and stay-ing on welfare has been conducted in an environment of unprece-dented economic prosperity in the United States.5 Some experts havesounded a warning about the likely effect of an economic downturn(Wilson & Cherlin, 2001). It is noted that, “for a large group of women. . . the transition to work has not been successful even with the helpof the boom” (Wilson & Cherlin, 2001:op-ed). It is not clear whether,how, or to what extent the events of September 11, 2001, will impactthe economy and by extension families receiving welfare. Sharp in-creases in joblessness among former welfare recipients seems likelyand it is equally certain that policy makers will resist increases inbudgets for support services needed by poor families.
Previous research on welfare reform outcomes also continues tooverlook the “gendered social and spatial relations in poverty re-search and the policy debate . . . “The ways that gender influenceswelfare policy and the ways that women are affected by these policiesremain distorted, obscured, or neglected” (Tickamyer, 1995–6, p. 23).Although the importance of spatial arrangements to social status, ac-cess to resources, and allocation of time and labor within the house-hold and the public domain is documented, current research haslargely ignored the existence and implications of spatial variation.This is perhaps most clear in the dearth of studies investigating rural
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women’s experiences of welfare reform. Most public debate has fo-cused on urban issues or assumes a national context (Tickamyer,1995–6). Consequently the specific circ*mstances and needs of differ-ent groups are not well understood nor served by welfare policy.
Housing Assistance and Welfare Reform
Evidence suggests that housing assistance will be necessary as wel-fare recipients move from welfare-to-work (Edin & Lein, 1997; New-man, 1999; Sard & Lubell, 2000; Shlay, 1993). Approximately 25% ofthe nation’s 7.6 million welfare recipients receive direct housing sub-sidies through public and assisted housing programs (U.S. Dept. ofHousing & Urban Development, 2001). The Department of Housingand Urban Development (HUD) argues that these programs helpfamilies move from welfare to work.
States differ in the use of TANF and matching funds to providehousing assistance to families moving from welfare to work. Kingsleyand Tatian (1999) examined data from the nation’s 100 largest cities.They found that housing assistance intensity, defined as the propor-tion of HUD eligible families actually served, varied by city. “Where itwas low—where the smallest share of HUD eligible families wereserved—families faced the most formidable housing-related problemsas welfare reform was implemented (Kingsley & Tatian, 1999, p. 107).Though implications for nonmetropolitan families were not described,Kingsley and Tatian (1999) concluded that the cost of shelter wouldput pressure on those who lose welfare income. Families with exces-sive rent burdens would be particularly vulnerable to income reduc-tion. “The areas that have both low current housing assistance inten-sity and high-rent housing markets are the areas that need to bewatched particularly closely” (Kingsley & Tantian, 1999, p. 108).
It is unclear whether government housing assistance perpetuateslong-term reliance on welfare or facilitates the goals of transitioningfrom welfare-to-work. Work by Newman and Harkness (1999) sug-gests that long-term government and welfare assistance are corre-lated. Welfare households who are also receiving housing assistanceare particularly vulnerable under TANF. Many of these housing andwelfare recipients are not working, have little outside income, andhave been on welfare for long periods. “Their current average spell ofwelfare receipt bumps up against the TANF five-year limit” (Newman
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& Harkness, 1999, p. 55). Newman and Harkness’ (1999) researchsuggests that recipients of housing and welfare assistance may beamong the “hard to serve.”
Sard and Lubell (2000) examine the value of housing subsidies tothe welfare reform effort. The implications of their research findingsdiffer from those of Newman and Harkness (1999) in that they sug-gest that housing subsidies help families to obtain and retain employ-ment. Though rural residents were not the focus, the findings showedthat “on average, families receiving both Aid to Families with De-pendent Children (AFDC) benefits and Section 8 housing subsidiesworked significantly more hours than AFDC families in other formsof housing, including unsubsidized housing” (Sard & Lubell, 2000,viii). They speculated that: (1) making housing affordable stabilizeslow-income families, improving their ability to secure and retain jobs;(2) reducing housing costs frees up money in the family budget forwork-related expenses such as childcare and transportation; and (3)subsidies, such as Section 8 which can under certain circ*mstancesbe transported, allow families to move to areas with greater job op-portunities yet retain their rent subsidy.
Among housing researchers, the primary focus of investigation hasbeen the portion of welfare recipients that also receive housing assis-tance. The majority of welfare recipients, however, do not receive gov-ernment housing assistance. Data show that nonassisted householdsoften spend more than half their income on housing (U.S. Dept. ofHousing and Urban Development, 1998). Nearly “5.3 million renterhouseholds do not receive housing assistance and have ‘worst casehousing needs,’ meaning they live in seriously substandard housingor pay an extremely high share of their monthly income on rent”(Kingsley, 1997).
It seems likely that welfare reform outcomes and opportunities willbe quite different for families who do not receive housing assistance.At the outset of welfare reform, researchers speculated that federalhousing assistance would provide an important cushion for recipientsas well as access to needed support services6 (Kingsley, 1997; New-man, 1999). Fiscal uncertainty in the delivery of housing programswould mean, however, that there would be very few new families re-ceiving housing assistance. Therefore, those not currently receivinghousing assistance would be at an increased risk of housing hardshipwithout any government response.
Christine C. Cook et al. 293
Women’s Search for Housing and the Rural Landscape
Housing needs are met through a complex set of decisions that re-quire processing information about housing and neighborhoods, indi-vidual and family characteristics, and the local housing markets. Atthe household level, families assess their needs relative to a vast ar-ray of conditions, resources, and constraints. Reassessment by fami-lies of their housing needs is an on-going process usually precipitatedby changes in family configuration, current housing and neighbor-hood conditions, employment or other situations inside or outside thehousehold. “The household endeavors to make the residential situa-tion and the aspiration picture as congruent as possible” (Priemus,1986, p. 31). Adjustments to housing exist along a continuum that isanchored by staying in place at one end and moving at the other end(Morris & Winter, 1978). Adjustments range from active to passivemethods, e.g., moving one’s family; learning to live with a less thanoptimal situation.
There is considerable evidence that finding suitable housing is anenormous challenge for women who are poor and living in nonmetro-politan settings (Housing Assistance Council, 1997; Fitchen, 1992).The rural poor live in three distinct settlement patterns—open coun-try neighborhoods of dilapidated farmhouses, isolated trailers, andmixed clusters of houses and trailers; low-cost trailer parks, either inthe countryside or in small communities; and small, economically de-pressed areas within small towns (Fitchen, 1992). They choose theselocations and their housing to keep costs low. Often families mustchoose between poor housing and affordable housing. Peeling paint,leaking roofs, holes in the walls and floors, broken windows, andheating and cooling system malfunctions are just some of the inade-quate housing conditions families must chose to secure low-cost hous-ing.
Making ends meet on a welfare check is nothing short of a miracle(Edin & Lein, 1997) and usually “only a handful of mothers . . .[come] close to meeting their expenses” (Edin & Lein, 1997, p. 39).“When mothers received their check, they prioritized their expenses,usually paying for housing (rent, electricity, gas) and purchasing foodbefore attending to their other bills” (p. 39). There is evidence thathousing costs can rob families of money needed to provide nutritiousfood for families (Myers et al., 1995). Moving is also a common re-sponse when families can no longer afford the rent or utilities or aredistressed by the physical and social context of their housing (Colton,
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1996; Bartlett, 1997). Moving is not without psychic and economicconsequences, however (Makowsky et al., 1988). It is stressful andusually involves some real costs such as security deposits, utilityhook-up charges, and replacement of household items. For the verypoor in rural settings, however, the decision to move is more complexthan seen at first glance. “For these families it is often a question ofweighing the untenable against the unknown” (Bartlett, 1997, p.128).
Surviving in small town America often involves “doubling” up sofamilies can share expenses by moving in with other families or hav-ing others move in with them (Nelson & Smith, 1999). These strate-gies to house their families may exhibit women’s resiliency yet havethe potential for being enormously problematic. Housing exchangescan involve unanticipated formal and “assumed” obligations. Singlemothers that double up with family find themselves the recipients of“free” advice on child-rearing and housekeeping; others live in hous-ing for which they must exchange work to improve the housing.Nelson and Smith (1999) cite situations where families who providedhousing expected help from recipients whenever requested, e.g., “itwas basically if they needed a hand they’d holler” (p. 116).
An idyllic view of life in small town America is a widely held per-ception. Poverty, near homelessness, and poor conditions are well hid-den from the untrained eye (Ziebarth, 2000; Fitchen, 1992). “How-ever, a growing number of rural low-income people have housing thatis so inadequate in quality, so insecure in tenure, and so temporary induration that keeping a roof over their heads is a preoccupying andprecarious accomplishment (Fitchen, 1992, p. 173). It is to this popu-lation that we turn our research attention.
Data and Method
This investigation is part of a larger study on Family Well-Being and Wel-fare Reform in Iowa (Fletcher et al., 1999; Fletcher, Winter, & Gaddis, 1998).Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered from five low-income fami-lies in seven communities in a series of four interviews, approximately everysix months, beginning in 1997. The initial purpose of the project was to moni-tor welfare reform in Iowa by researching the influences of government poli-cies and social programs on communities and families within them (Fletcher,Winter, & Gaddis, 1998). Each of the seven communities is a county seat andwas selected based on various demographic characteristics such as popula-tion, ethnicity and adjacency or nonadjacency to a metropolitan area, andgeographic location, (Fletcher et al., 1998). Families in each of the seven com-
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munities were randomly selected from a list of Family Investment Program(FIP) participants provided by the Iowa Department of Human Services(DHS). The potential families received a letter with information about theproject and plan of interviews.
Beginning in 1997, Iowa State University Extension field staff conducted 60to 90 minute interviews until five families from each community were com-pleted. A total of 35 families were interviewed in Wave I. The questions in thefirst wave of the interview were adapted from the protocols of Edin and Lein(1997) and Weisner et al. (1995). Interviews were audio-recorded and summa-rized by two interviewers. The first interview probed various domains withan emphasis on general difficulties in living on welfare. Approximately sixmonths later a second wave of interviews focused on employment, includingcurrent employment information and employment history. The third wave ofinterviews was about experiences of child rearing and the fourth wave wasabout current housing and housing histories of these families. Of the 35 origi-nal respondents, there were 21 remaining who were interviewed about theirhousing. Data from 17 respondents were used in the analyses reported herebecause they met our criteria: e.g., each was a nonmetropolitan woman.Through careful reading of the transcripts, several recurring housing issueswere identified; e.g., cost, quality and safety, and mobility. We examine theseissues for those who receive government housing assistance and for those whodo not. We begin our discussion with information about the communities inwhich respondents live and a general sociodemographic profile of the womeninterviewed.
The Respondents and the Communities in Which They Live
Respondents were selected from six nonmetropolitan Iowa commu-nities ranging in population from 1,822 to 26,009 (see Table 1). Mostof the towns had experienced a loss in population from 1980 and1990. Very small increases in population were indicated in thesetowns in the 2000 census. The slow growth and population losses inthese communities affect both the supply of and demand for housingand represent the context in which poor families must compete forhousing.
Available Housing
The amount of vacant (i.e., available) housing is important in deter-mining the degree to which housing choices are available to families.Characteristics of the available housing units such as cost, number ofbedrooms, and its location are considered when families weigh avail-able options. Vacancies between four and five percent are usually con-sidered adequate to meet changes in housing demand among renters
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TABLE 1
Community characteristics, 1990
CommunityPopulation
2000Population
1990Population
1980
% Owner-Occupied
1990
% Rentalvacancy
1990
% Ownervacancy
1990Fair Market Rents
1999 2&3 bed
Fort Madison 10,715 11,618 13,520 69.8% 6.1% 3.9% $422/528Hampton 4,218 4,133 4,630 69.6% 8.4% 4.3% $409/519Manchester 5,257 5,137 4,942 70.6% 13.8% 6.3% $409/519Marshalltown 26,009 25,178 26,938 68.3% 11.4% 5.8% $451/572Mount Ayr 1,822 1,796 1,938 72.1% 8.3% 3.8% $409/519Storm Lake 10,076 8,769 8,814 63.2% 11.6% 7.2% $409/519
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and homebuyers (So & Getzel, 1988). The vacancy rates for owner-occupied units in the sampled communities ranged from 6.1% to13.8% and 3.8 to 7.2% in rental-occupied units.7 Although the vacancyrate in owner and rental housing appears adequate in simple supply-side terms, it does not give a complete picture of what poor familiesface when searching for housing. The proportion of units that arerenter-occupied in rural communities is relatively small; renting isnot the norm. In general, the proportion of renter-occupied housingunits is about 30% of the total occupied-housing in respondents’ com-munities. Most units for sale would be out of reach for the familiesinterviewed and many of the rental units available would fail to meettheir family’s specific requirements since most will be only one or twobedrooms and cost more than they can afford. The 1999 Fair MarketRents (FMR) for 2- and 3-bedroom units are indicated in Table 1 aswell. For most towns the FMR is $409 for a 2-bedroom unit and $519for a three-bedroom unit. Rents in this range require that an individ-ual working for minimum wage clock at least 70 hours per week onthe job. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition(2001), a three-person household living in nonmetropolitan Iowa re-ceiving the maximum 1999 TANF benefits can afford a monthly rentof not more than $128.
Sociodemographic Characteristics of Respondents
Respondents ranged in age from 21 to 45 years. Eight said theywere single, six divorced, and three married. One of the single womenand four of the six divorced women had live-in male partners (seeTable 2). Sizes of households ranged from one to five persons. Amongthe 17 respondents, ten families had children less than six years, notyet attending school. Respondents reported a number of health prob-lems, both for themselves and their children, that they explained af-fected their housing choices and mobility. During the fourth inter-view, none of the respondents said their health was excellent butinstead usually indicated it was fair or good. Questions about theirhealth and the health of their children were usually followed by alitany of medical events that had occurred between interviews. Theseproblems ranged from diabetes, kidney and back problems to chronicstress-related ailments among respondents. Children also experi-enced a variety of physical problems and cognitive delays includingautism, attention deficit disorder, and seizures.
Six of the respondents were working full time at the time of the
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TABLE 2
Sociodemographic Characteristics of Study Participant Families
Familycode
Maritalstatus
Healthstatus–mom(1)
Healthstatus—child/ren
Hh size(child �6years)(2)
Welfare4th wave Benefits 4th wave(3) Job status
6 Married Fair Good 3 (0) No None Laid-off7 Single Good Good 2 (1) No M, FS, WIC Unemployed student9 Divorced Bad None 1 (0) No M, FS, HS, SSI, SS Unemployed homemaker
10 Divorced Fair Fair/ex 4* (2) Yes FIP, PJ, M, FS, WIC Unemployed11 Divorced Fair Bad 2(1) No FIP, M, FS, WIC Unemployed12 Divorced Good Good 5* (0) Housekeeper14 Single Good Good 2 (1) No None Sales associate full-time15 Married Good Good/good 4(0) No M, EA, SSI Unemployed20 Single Good Good/good 3(0) No None O.T. asst.21 Single Fair Ex 5* (2) Yes FS, PJ, M Unemployed22 Single Good Good 3 (1) No Fs, M, S, HSt Unemployed27 Divorced Fair Good 5 (1) Yes FIP, M, FS, WIC, HS,
EA, SSIUnemployed
28 Divorced Fair Good 2 (0) Yes FIP, M, FS, WIC, HS,EA, SSI
Unemployed homemaker
29 Single Fair Excel 4 (0) Yes FIP, PJ, M, FS, WIC, HS,EA,
Full time program aide
33 Single Fair Bad/g/good
4 (3) Yes FIP, M, FS, WIC, HS, SSI Unemployed homemaker
34 Married Good Good/ex 4(1) No WIC Child-care provider35 Divorced Good Good/ex 4* (1) No None Child care full-time
1. Bad, fair, good, ex(cellent).2. Asterick indicates partners that share household expenses.3. EA; energy assistance; FS � food stamps; HST � head start; PJ � promise jobs; M � Medicaid; S � school breakfast andlunch; SS � Social Security; SSI � Social Security insurance; WIC � Women, Infant, and Children program.
Christine C. Cook et al. 299
interview, three were unemployed and looking for work, and sevenwere unemployed and said they were not currently looking for workand one said she was on a leave of absence. Six of 17 women were nolonger receiving TANF funds. Wages varied considerably among re-spondents from $1.75 per hour for childcare work to $12.50 per hourfor an occupational therapist assistant—a job for which a respondenthad recently completed training. Respondents were working or hadworked as family day care providers, in sales and factory work, andas clerks, waitresses, and nurse assistants. The number of hoursworked per week often varied from interview to interview dependingon the respondent’s health or the health of her children. Though notthe focus of the fourth interview, there is reference to instability injobs due to layoffs and child care problems.
Only one of the respondents that we interviewed was a homeowner.Six of the 17 lived in apartments, eight in houses and three in mobilehomes (see Table 3). Most homes were modest in size with just twobedrooms. Though most respondents did not know the age of thehomes they lived in, most indicated they were old. The small apart-ment complexes tended to date from the 1960s and 1970s. Quite typ-ically for Iowa, where much of the housing stock was built before1940, the houses in which respondents lived were quite old.
Housing Affordability Among Respondents
The definition of “affordable” housing is a moving target. It is arelative measure based on the ratio of shelter costs to household in-come. Standards of housing affordability have changed and todayHUD uses 30% of gross family income as the standard that subsidizedhouseholds must pay, with a number of caveats that adjust householdincome such as family size and medical needs. Regardless of howhousing expenditures are calculated, there is widespread agreementthat low-income renters experience the worst housing affordabilityproblems (Housing Assistance Council, 1997; Stone, 1993).
One of the most apparent issues for respondents was the housingcosts they paid, particular those costs above and beyond the rent.Since 16 of the 17 respondents were renters, rent constituted the bulkof their housing expenditures. The housing costs of the 11 respon-dents who received no federal housing subsidy ranged from $150 to$600 per month. Six of the 17 respondents received governmentrental assistance, Section 8 certificates from the Department of Hous-
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TABLE 3
Housing Characteristics of Study Participant Families
Familycode
Source ofsubsidy
Housingtype
� ofbedrms
Currenthousing
cost
Housingexpense—
electric
Housingexpense—
gas
Housingexpense—
water � of moves Time at address
11 None Apt. 1 $230 $30 15 in 7 yrs 1 mos15 None House 3 N/A
Owned9 in 19 yrs 11 yrs
20 None Apt. 2 $550 $90 &heat
$24 9 in 14 yrs
34 None House 3 $600 $65 $80 $30–35 12 in 9 yrs6 Family Mobile 2 $235 $48 to
1438 in 13 yrs 2 yrs
10 Family Apt. 2 $355 $65 22 in 10 yrs 9 mos14 Family House 2 $280 $106 $25–30 6 in 8 yrs 3�yrs35 Family House 3 $250 $70 $45 $35 10 in 16 yrs 2 yrs12 Landlord Mobile
w/add on2 $150 $62–110
seasonal$27–37 9 in 14 yrs 7 yrs
21 Friend House 4 $275 Included 10 in 4 yrs 4–5 mos22 Friend House 3 $150 $180 8 in 7 yrs 12–18 mos7 Gov’t Apt. 2 $46 $120 Included
in rent$35 5 in 4 yrs 2 yrs
9 Gov’t Apt. 2 $83 $76 $40 $20 7 in 24 yrs 14 yrs27 Gov’t House 3 $155 $105 Included
in rent$40–50 10 in 8 yrs 4 yrs
28 Gov’t Mobile N/A $70 $75–80 $33 12 in 27 yrs 7 mos29 Gov’t House NA $0 $50–80 6 in 17 yrs 1 yr 2 mos33 Gov’t Apt. 2 $132 Paid by
payee9 in 5 yrs 3 yrs
Christine C. Cook et al. 301
ing and Urban Development. Federal subsidies reduced rent and usu-ally gas heating bills significantly (see Table 3). The families thatreceived federal subsidies paid rents ranging from $0 to $155 permonth. Iowa welfare recipients who receive federal housing assistancefurther benefit because it is not calculated as part of their income.8
Few respondents, however, paid rent without some kind of assis-tance, either from the federal government or from family and friends.Two of the four respondents who had no apparent help paid $550 and$600 per month for rent. Another of the respondents with no helpfrom outside sources lived in a house that her husband owned beforethey married (Family 15).
Paula recently moved to a metropolitan community to take a job (Fam-ily 20).9 She pays $90 for the electric bill and $25 for water. Her phonebill is about $40. She has private health insurance and pays $90 everytwo weeks, and is paying off a student loan. In her new job she says shewill earn $26,000 per year.
Even with her promising new career, Paula earns just a little overhalf of the 1999 median family income for a family of three, $40,460.Without a housing subsidy, Paula’s new housing costs and householdexpenditures keep her too close to the “financial-edge” for comfort.
Informally Provided Housing Assistance
When asked the question “since moving here have you receivedhousing assistance from family, friends, or the government,” all re-spondents said “no.” Apparently, though housing affordability is defi-nitely enhanced by help from families and friends, respondents do notusually think of these arrangements to reduce housing costs as ‘hous-ing assistance.’ Four of the 17 respondents received help from par-ents, step-parents, in-laws and other members of their extended fam-ily. Three other respondents had informal assistance from friends orlong-standing arrangements with landlords. These informal arrange-ments, like federally subsidized housing, appear to tie recipients toboth the location and, for the most part, the specific unit itself. Thereseems to be little doubt that help from family and friends enhanceshousing affordability. The arrangements are each a little different butbring at least temporary stability to these poor families.
For $280 a month, Jill (Family 14) rents a two-bedroom house fromher mom and dad from whom she expects and receives both housing,home maintenance and repairs. The house is old but kept in excellent
302 Journal of Family and Economic Issues
repair. She hopes to buy it from her parents eventually. Darlene(Family 35) receives an informal subsidy by renting from her part-ner’s parents and the arrangement is similar to Jill’s:
The landlord is his mother, so we’re going to try to buy the house fromher real soon. He grew up in it since he was a baby. If something breaks,Daniel fixes it.
The rent is $250 and Darlene pays that. Daniel pays the utilities,electric ($70 per month) and gas ($45 per month).
Receiving housing assistance from family can be a mixed blessing.Jenna (Family 6) lives in a mobile home that her step-dad owns andpays $235 per month. She moved back to Iowa from Arkansas be-cause her mom and step-dad had an extra trailer and her mom andstep-dad paid the first two months rent. There appears to be nothingabout this place she likes:
I don’t like trailers; I don’t like living next to a railroad track. I’m readyto move. The central air is the worst thing. It costs a lot of money. It’soutrageous. My dad just put a new air conditioner in there. He thinksits helping, but its not. . . . When you’ve got a step-dad for a landlordand he never wants to do anything, then when he does do something, itslike I don’t need an air conditioner stuck in the middle of the wall, Ineed all of it to work.” I’ve been there almost two years,” she says. I amready to move.
Glenda (Family 21) also isn’t satisfied with her housing arrange-ment. She is expecting that her dad will give her a trailer, but in themeantime she lives with a man who invited her to live in the housethat he owns in exchange for care of his child. She also pays somerent. Previously, her rent was $450 and with the new arrangementcosts $275 per month with the owner paying utilities. About that ar-rangement she says:
When he asked us to move in, we were going to help each other out. Iwas his nanny and his housekeeper and his maid. It was pretty muchhe had us move in to help him. He didn’t want to help us, he wanted tohelp himself.
Respondents generally did not view financial assistance that paysliving expenses as housing assistance. Dana (Family 10) says “most ofour spending money comes from our parents.” Her husband’s motherpays for the telephone:
Christine C. Cook et al. 303
Like I said, I get $426.00 a month. The rent here is $355.00 and myelectricity is on a budget—it’s $65.00 a month. So I have $8.00 left atthe beginning of the month. That’s my money.
Several residents have other informal arrangements with propertyowners to keep housing affordable. “[I]f I want to paint the house orchange the wallpaper, I did it at my expense, and so he kept the rentdown.” Though the house is small, Kyra and her family (Family 12)have lived in the same place since 1992 and are very satisfied with it.She pays $150 per month. Prior to moving to this place, she paid $300a month plus utility costs.
Housing Structural Inadequacy Among Respondents
Physical inadequacy of housing often goes hand-in-hand with af-fordability since one strategy a poor family can use to reduce housingcosts is to live in substandard housing. The strategy is not foolproof,however, because increased demand for less expensive housing cancreate a submarket in which the price of housing actually rises(Bourne, 1981). Unsafe housing due to faulty wiring, plumbing andheating systems, and the presence of lead paint and vermin, threatennot only physical safety but also emotional security (Stone, 1993).When landlords fail to make critical repairs or when homeownershave neither the money, skill, nor time to maintain their housing,women and children alike suffer.
It is more common for respondents receiving informal subsidies tolive in houses or mobile homes than their formally subsidized coun-terparts who live in small apartment complexes. The houses are usu-ally built before the 1940s; several are mobile homes that are por-trayed as being of questionable quality. Those who rent houses fromtheir families expect to live in the community for a long time andperhaps buy the houses from them. Jill (Family 14) illustrates herecommitment to stay in the community in the house her parents cur-rently own.
It’s 117 years old and it’s probably one of the nicest little dinky housesaround. There are two bedrooms. It’s roomy and it’s fantastic for Meggie[her daughter]. The house is a definite improvement over the last placeshe lived. I would love to buy this house. I don’t know if I want thatresponsibility quite yet. I can’t afford to right now . . . but if things arebetter for me, I would have a fairly good chance to buy the house. Thatwould be great.
304 Journal of Family and Economic Issues
Respondents receiving government-assisted housing mostly indi-cate that their housing is in livable condition. Their homes are usu-ally a unit in a small apartment complex. Often they say that the unitis better than those lived in previously. Compared to where she livedbefore, Lisa (Family 7) says the minor problems with plumbing leaksin the ceiling—which the landlord cannot seem to locate—and beingwithout hot water sometimes because the pilot goes out—are insig-nificant. The home she moved from could not meet Section 8 stan-dards because the radon or carbon monoxide rates were very high. Atleast one of the respondents rented from a notorious slumlord that isrevered by many for keeping rents low and loathed by others for thequality of the units he rents. This same landlord, however, did bring aunit up to code so that one respondent could use her Section 8 certifi-cate. She is very pleased with the unit.
Respondents receiving Section 8 certificates and some who are sub-sidized by friends indicate that landlords are slow to respond prob-lems. It seems too that some housing problems are recurring, nevergetting resolved. Lisa’s comments illustrate a recurring theme:
Any problems we’ve ever had with this place, the landlord or anybodyelse just can’t figure out where it’s coming from. It’s almost like I’mlying about it, yet they see the problem. But they don’t know how to fixit. Even Section 8 comes, they see the problem, but when they come andcheck it, it’s fixed. By the time they leave, it’s broke again . . . I swearevery time they fix it, it leaks worse afterward.
The two women who paid market rent for units indicated the unitswere new and the quality very good. For them, the housing issue wasaffordability and the opportunity for homeownership. “I think wewould probably pay less if we bought a house or it would be about thesame. It’s just such a waste” (Paula, Family 20).
“Moving On” and the Role of Housing Assistance
Recent literature suggests that the pattern of chronic mobilityamong poor families is linked to physical housing and neighborhoodconditions, energy costs, and sociopsychological issues (Bartlett, 1997;Colton, 1996). Theories abound to explain the factors that promptfamilies to move (Morris & Winter, 1978; Quercia & Rohe, 1993;Rossi, 1980). Changes in employment and/or changes in family hous-
Christine C. Cook et al. 305
ing needs are two major reasons given for moving. Typically, however,family mobility slows when children reach school age.
A pattern of frequent moving since the birth of a first child appearsto be the norm among respondents. Many of the respondents indicatemoving from their parents’ home at a very young age, before theyreached their 18th birthday. Though most respondents do not neces-sarily move far, from one small town to another within the samecounty or from one house to another in the same community, theygenerally do not stay more than one or two years at one location.Some move as often as every six to eight months (see Table 3). Theexplanations for moving vary but appear to be precipitated by changessuch as marital status or relationships or the birth of a child. Inade-quate housing, housing that fails to meet a family’s requirements,and neighbors or neighborhoods sometime triggered moves. A portionof Paula’s history illustrates a mix of family and neighborhood situa-tions that lead her to nine places in fourteen years:
Right after Jamie was born I lived with my sister for a couple monthsuntil we got an apartment and everything set up. [Then] We lived in a2-bedroom apartment upstairs. That was a good place to live . . . Therewas a retired sheriff underneath us and some other new familiesaround us. It was a quiet place to live—on the outskirts of town. [Thenshe moved to a nearby town.] I was working in a factory . . . workingnights. It was an apartment building—there were four apartments [ineach building]. It wasn’t a very safe place. The other building had a lotof druggies in it. We didn’t live there very long. I think we moved whenJamie was one and we moved to [another nearby community] when shewas two. In that community she lived in “a two-bedroom apartmentupstairs with some pretty steep steps. It was a nice place. The heatdidn’t work very good. We had a pretty good landlord, but he justcouldn’t get the heat to work very good. It was an older house that hehad redone. The upstairs was actually redone. I paid $235. I was proba-bly making $4.75 an hour at that time—working nights [as a bar-tender]. It was not a good time. Family was helping a lot with the sit-ting. After a while they were babysitting all the time at night—it wasn’ta good life for me either. [Paula lived in this apartment for about 2years then moved to a 3-bedroom apartment in the same community.]. . . then Tess was born. When we first moved in it was actually a niceplace to live. Then the kind of people that moved into the apartment—there was a lot of drugs. It wasn’t a good place at all.
Another respondent, Peggy, has moved 15 times in seven years.She is 24 years old at the time of the housing interview. When askedabout her frequent moves she minimizes their importance by noting“I’ve actually been close to here. I haven’t made a big move.” At least
306 Journal of Family and Economic Issues
two of her moves were related to poor neighborhood conditions. Inaddition, she has moved her family to correct housing deficiencies insafety and quality, only to find that the new housing situation hasother unacceptable qualities.
This is a one-bedroom apartment, it’s too small, and as soon as I find abigger one that I like, I’m moving. [Peggy has lived in this location onemonth. About her previous housing she says,] I liked the duplex thing,but I didn’t like the basem*nt. I don’t like basem*nts . . . dirty ones.That was a dirty, filthy basem*nt. I didn’t like the living room. It wasshaped so oddly. [About the unit’s safety, she says] . . . As you get closerto the weekends it would get worse. Somebody stole my CD player and14 brand new CDs. I hadn’t even paid for my CD player. Previous tothat I had half the house at the duplex. I paid $16 because of assistance.The utilities were terrible. They were awful. I paid about as much as mymom did for a house. Right out my kitchen door and across the street,those people were dealing drugs or something. They had a lot of peopleover there. Sometimes they would turn their radio up so loud it wouldrattle my stuff. I didn’t like that.
Previous research on mobility suggests that government subsidiesmay promote stability and reduce the negative effects of chronic mo-bility (Bartlett, 1997). Providing a steady place for children to attendschool, for social relationships to form with neighbors, and for fami-lies to become immersed in community activities can provide oppor-tunities to build “social capital” (Saegert & Winkel, 1998). Some re-search indicates, however, that this stability may not be entirelypositive because it ties families to communities where there may notbe jobs or adequate opportunities to develop human and/or social cap-ital (South & Crowder, 1997, 1998). Subsidies may tie them to dis-tressed areas that residents feel powerless to leave (Ross, Reynolds, &Geis, 2000).
For some respondents, government housing subsidies appear tohave promoted staying at one address. Three of the six respondentshave lived two or more years in their current government-subsidizedunit. Of the seven families in informal housing arrangements onlyone has lived at the current address seven years and the remainderhave lived three years or less at the current address.10 At least onefamily used the provision of moving from one unit to another andretained their rental subsidy.
When families found housing that was less expensive, i.e., a mobilehome offered by a family member, families were quick to pick up andmove. Informal housing arrangements, however, may be especially
Christine C. Cook et al. 307
fragile if the goodwill of family and friends wears thin. Furthermore,respondents in informal housing arrangements seem to be more criti-cal of their housing quality than the families in government subsi-dized housing. Glenda (Family 21) illustrates that housing conditions,perceived safety, and a general disdain for the housing arrangementthat may prompt her to move after just four or five months.
[W]e moved in and I didn’t think it was going to be as bad as it was. Hewould just go and leave whenever he wanted to . . . like he didn’t havekids. We’re moving again. I don’t like it here. It’s not safe. The windowsare way too low to the floor. I don’t like it. Upstairs in the bedrooms, thewindows are coming out of the frames.
Implications of Welfare Reform and Housing
Housing matters in any discussion assessing welfare reform out-comes. While some households may successfully move from welfare towork, millions of others will confront decreasing incomes and struggleto pay for housing costs and critical utilities. The patterns thatemerge from the data presented illustrate a labyrinth process of fit-ting family housing needs to available housing opportunities in a con-text of considerable household and market constraints. Women illus-trated creativity in packaging the assistance they needed to be able toafford housing, most often from informal sources. Some accept a loca-tion for its low rent or help with home maintenance. This locationmay be ideal for rearing children, but less than ideal for formal wageearning. Other respondents kept rents low by living in poor qualityhousing units and some simply paid more than they could afford tolive in adequate housing. In short, strategies are fit together in anelaborate and delicate arrangement.
Our investigation suggests like previous studies, that women arebattling housing costs and housing inadequacy, living “on the edge” ofhomelessness (Fitchen, 1992). Although poor women exhibit enor-mous resourcefulness in their efforts to house themselves and theirfamilies, the nonmetropolitan setting fails to provide affordable or de-cent rental housing in sufficient quantity to choose housing based onfamily needs and configuration. Thus it appears that in the short-term, families will continue to rely heavily on housing subsidies fromboth formal and informal sources. Informal housing subsidies are crit-ical in the welfare to work dynamic. The subsidies supplied byfriends, family, and sometimes distant relatives make a significant
308 Journal of Family and Economic Issues
contribution to some poor families’ survival. These informal subsidiesprovide several kinds of help: e.g., supplying a housing unit, supple-menting housing costs through cash assistance and offsetting housingmaintenance costs. Informal subsidies play a significant role in pro-viding affordable shelter for poor families and help them achieve loca-tion stability. The arrangements, however, appear very fragile and donot reduce housing expenditures to the same extent as governmenthousing subsidies.
Four of the seven women receiving informal subsidies had anotheradult living with them who helped support the family. Informal hous-ing subsidies among respondents did not reduce housing costs as sig-nificantly as for their counterparts receiving federal housing sub-sidies. The rents paid among federally subsidized respondents rangedfrom $0 to $155, about where rents for the remaining respondentsbegan, $150 to $355. Federal housing subsidies do not count as in-come in calculating welfare benefits in Iowa, an added economic bene-fit for them. It appeared that four of the respondents received neitherformally or informally subsidized housing; two of whom paid rentsthat were quite high given their below median incomes, i.e., $550 and$600 per month. Moreover, housing costs—rising rents and utilitycosts—represent a recurring struggle for all 17 women. Beyond rent,utility costs can fluctuate on a month-to-month basis. These costs addsignificantly to the housing-cost burden. These expenditures—rents,electricity and gas, and water and sewage—continue to escalate andare sometimes unpredictable, as when energy prices rise quickly asthey did in the winter of 2001. Four respondents reported receivingenergy assistance and some respondents had gas costs included intheir rent. Electric bills, rather than gas seemed to add significantlyto housing costs of all respondents.11
Women who receive federal housing subsidies may find it difficultto transition from welfare to work successfully. Speculation in the lit-erature on welfare reform has been that government subsidized hous-ing may be a disincentive “dulling the incentives to work or cushion-ing the risk of noncompliance with welfare reform requirements”(Newman, 1999, p. 10). In this study, four of the six women who re-ceived federally subsidized housing continue to receive welfare anduse more safety net programs than their informally assisted counter-parts. Five of the six families receiving government housing subsi-dizes are unemployed and indicated they were not looking for work.Those receiving formal housing subsidies also received an array ofother benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid, WIC (Women, Infant
Christine C. Cook et al. 309
and Children program) and SSI (Social Security Insurance) comparedto their informally assisted counterparts. The six recipients of govern-ment subsidies were single-parent women, only one of whom had anadult partner living with her contributing to family income.
Increasingly, there is evidence that neither the availability of subsi-dized and/or affordable housing nor the jobs available to those exitingwelfare are geographically dispersed (Kinglsey & Tantian, 1999). Fornonmetropolitan single mothers receiving and terminated from wel-fare benefits “finding a good job that pays a living wage” is especiallydifficult (Lichter & Jensen, 2000, p. 22). Of the 13 respondents in ourstudy who had either formal or informal housing subsidies only fourwere employed. This may suggest that finding both employment andaffordable housing is next to impossible in nonmetropolitan settings.
Most of the 17 women interviewed moved frequently but formallysubsidized families appeared to be more likely to stay rather thanmove. It seems likely that chronic mobility undermines the goals ofwelfare reform, and more importantly family stability. Previous liter-ature illustrates that chronic mobility is not in the best interests ofchildren and their families. Housing stability promotes opportunitiesto seek and maintain employment. To develop and maintain neces-sary human and social capital requires sustained kinship, friendship,and neighborhood networks. It is impossible to build communitywhen people have no long-term vested interest in their place of resi-dence. “The pattern of frequent relocation can only be destructive inthe end for families. It is a vicious cycle” (Bartlett, 1997, p. 131). Wespeculate that housing assistance, both formal and informal, slowsthe pace of moving. In reviewing families’ housing histories, receivinga housing subsidy (formal or informal) reduced mobility.
On the Road from Welfare to Work Success:A Housing Agenda
Precarious housing quality and the affordability of housing are con-stant concerns of poor women. In rural America, poor housing andpoor people are well off the paved road, beyond the eye of the un-trained observer. Public policy makers seem content to allow kin, ex-tended families, and friends to provide the safety net for familiesmoving from welfare to work, yet social service providers frequentlycite housing as a severe problem for “hard-to-serve” welfare recip-ients, those for whom personal or family challenges may limit em-
310 Journal of Family and Economic Issues
ployment opportunities (The New Face of Welfare, 2000). Public pol-icy that relies on the good will of family and friends is not policy bydesign but by default.
Women’s resiliency is evident and their survival strategies are he-roic. At what point, however, do families exhaust personal resources,families, and friends that support them? The notion of household sur-vival strategies conjures up an image of collective behavior that isneatly planned and rationally implemented, but such an idealized im-agery is often in error (Clay & Schwarzweller, 1991; Wolf, 1991). Formany families these strategies are not preceded by formalized deci-sion-making and instead are unplanned responses, neither strategicnor germane to family maintenance and development. Absent ade-quate personal and economic resources, housing strategies may sim-ply be housing of last resort. Absent help from local or federal agen-cies, housing choices are stymied.
Public policy can help rural families move from welfare to work bydefining housing as a significant barrier to their success along withchildcare and transportation because when housing costs are toohigh, families are robbed of other necessities like food, clothing, andchildcare. To housing professionals easing the relief from shelter pov-erty is viewed as a human right and nothing less than an entitlement(National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2001). A move this bold hasnot been forthcoming from either the Department of Housing and Ur-ban Development or the Department of Human Services. Althoughfederal policy over the last decade has shifted from a focus on housingconstruction and rehabilitation to an emphasis on affordability as anational priority, we are not likely to see housing subsidies as a rightgiven current budget constraints and conservative rhetoric. A cor-nerstone of federal housing policy, however, must be rental subsidies,i.e., rent vouchers. Expanding the number of vouchers available tocommunities is a step, albeit small, in the right direction. Nationally,low-income housing advocates continue to argue that the number ofrental subsidies must be expanded and working to improve the wholefederal housing budget is a high priority (National Low Income Hous-ing Coalition, 2001).
Local and regional housing policy also can be crafted to help ruralfamilies move from welfare to work. First, welfare reform advocatesand housing professionals must recognize that housing is anotherfundamental aspect of the welfare to work transition. Successful localinitiatives that link federal housing subsidy recipients and an arrayof social services were described in a 1999 report issues by the De-
Christine C. Cook et al. 311
partment of Housing and Urban Development. The strategies illus-trate local partnerships were necessary, leveraging resources and theexpertise of a wide array of agencies and organizations was a part ofevery prototype. None of the case studies were conducted in smalltown or rural settings, however, where the challenge to garner verylimited community resources for recipients of welfare is even greaterthan those faced in metropolitan arenas. Nonmetropolitan commu-nities like their urban counterparts continue to struggle with how toprovide affordable housing.
For the poorest of the poor, a portion of the housing stock may needto be permanently removed from the private sector and owned, man-aged, and service-enriched by the public/nonprofit sector (Stone,1993). As with public housing, its rent/mortgage payment would befixed. Other research suggests that households receiving both welfareand government housing assistance are the poor who are most diffi-cult to move toward economic self-sufficiency. Their problems, it issaid, are intractable (Kingsley, 1997; Newman & Harkness, 1999),thus permanently affordable housing will be necessary.
Our research suggests that there is still much yet to be learnedabout housing security and how families meet their basic needs forshelter. Policy analysts cannot say for certain that affordable housingin a neighborhood near jobs improves a household’s chances to achieveeconomic stability (Newman, 1999). Perhaps this is why relativelyfew previous studies have focused on welfare reform and housing. Theimportance of housing—all of its associated costs, its location, andquality—has not been a substantive part in evaluating the success ofreformation. The research that has been conducted mostly examinesthe welfare terminees who also receive federal housing subsidies.This does not represent the majority of welfare recipients. Welfareterminees who use informal subsidies or spend too much of their bud-gets on housing need more research and policy attention. We hopethat other investigators and policy evaluation researchers will join usin unraveling the complexities of and contribute to a more thoroughunderstanding of housing and human welfare.
This investigation raises interesting questions for future research.We wonder, for example, to what extent urban women return to citiesand neighborhoods to obtain help from families, as did the ruralwomen in our sample? Do informal housing arrangements reduce mo-bility and improve housing quality? With housing histories from re-spondents and subsequent research we hope to examine the answersto these questions. We know that spatial elements shape social rela-
312 Journal of Family and Economic Issues
tions, “human agency shapes space and place; environments are so-cially constructed, often to embody the same principles and processesas other social institutions” (Tickamyer, 2000, p. 806). For those of uswho are passionate about the meaning and importance of housingand the built environment, it is hard to understand why “space andplace” remain ignored in research (Tickamyer, 2000) and why housingresearch questions do not demand more attention.
Notes
1. The terms “rural” and “nonmetropolitan” (or “nonmetro”) have differentmeanings in Census publications. “Rural” areas are places of less than2,500 people, while “nonmetropolitan” areas are those outside Metro-politan Statistical Areas. We use the terms interchangeably though forthe most part the towns in which respondents reside are rural even bythe more stringent definition.
2. Informal economy defined as activity that is unregulated by the institu-tions of society in a legal and social environment in which similar activ-ities are regulated (Castells & Portes, 1989, p. 12).
3. After 1997, Iowa’s families were required to comply with the new federalprovision, PRWORA, that requires most families to work or look forwork in order to receive cash assistance. PRWORA has a 60-month timelimit on total receipt as well as work requirements after 24 months ofreceipt.
4. The data for the Litt et al. (2000) study come from the same sample asused in this paper. In the Litt et al. publication the experiences of fivefamilies were summarized. The focus of the study was on families whohad left FIP between the time of the first and second interviews.
5. More recent leavers experienced a better labor market than the earliergroup, as average monthly unemployment rates for the whole labor forcefell from 4.9% in 1997 to 4.2% in 1999. Also employment rates for un-married women with children and less than or equal to a high schooleducation improved from 59 to 63%. Given these improvements in labormarket outcomes for a group similar to former recipients, we might haveexpected to observe improvement in outcomes for leavers; that we do notobserve significant improvements in economic outcomes across leavergroups on most measures could indicate that more recent group ofleavers is less job-ready” (Loprest, 2001, p. 6). McKernan et al., also findthat employment rates among single mothers in both metro and non-metro settings has improved. They conclude that welfare reform is play-ing a major role in raising these employment rates for them, but they donot examine welfare recipients per se. They assume that improvementsin single mothers employment rates is a proxy for improved employmentopportunities for those on or leaving welfare. Loprest’s findings suggestthe gains for single mothers, in general, might not be similar for singlemothers on actually welfare. If these studies do not raise concerns about
Christine C. Cook et al. 313
the economic self-sufficiency of welfare recipients then the continuingfindings on the wage rates and the 40% who continue to live in povertyshould.
6. Housing assistance differs from welfare assistance in two major areas(Newman, 1999). There are neither sanctions nor time limits comparableto those imposed by PRWORA. If residents of assisted housing experi-ence reductions in their cash grant or it is eliminated, rent is reducedbecause of the lost welfare income. However, if TANF is terminated byfraud or there is a sanction for failure to fulfill requirements, rent willbe reduced. In Iowa, failure to sign a FIP agreement results in going on“limited benefits,” though the Iowa Department of Human Services doesnot call this a sanction. This has somewhat ‘uncharted’ implications forHUD.
7. Unfortunately vacancy rates for owner and renter units come from 1990data. This is an important limitation that can be corrected when the2000 census becomes available.
8. Research by McKernan et al. (2000). on metro and nonmetro employ-ment of single mothers found that the way states count in-kind incometoward welfare eligibility have an effect on employment. “Counting someportion of housing subsidies as unearned income in determining eligi-bility and benefits decreases employment” (McKernan et al., 2001, p.30). Several interpretations are possible: woman may be less pressuredto work or change jobs when housing costs are paid; women may beunwilling to move in order to work; there may be no available jobs nearsubsidized housing and/or available jobs may not pay enough to makemoving worthwhile.
9. Names employed in the text are fictitious to protect the anonymity ofrespondents.
10. Perhaps the most chronically mobile families were the 13 who were in-terviewed in 1997 but by 1999 when the 4th wave of the study was con-ducted were missing. Not all of them were “lost,” several refused to par-ticipate and others had moved far enough that interviewing them wasimpractical.
11. A problem with the data is the inconsistencies with which housing ex-penses were reported as indicated by the number of blank cells in Table3.
Acknowledgment
This study was conducted under the auspices of Iowa State University Exten-sion and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. The research wouldnot have been possible without the cooperation of ISU extension field staffwho conducted the interviews. The authors acknowledge the Iowa Depart-ment of Human Services for providing the list of Family Investment Programrecipients from which the study participants were selected.
314 Journal of Family and Economic Issues
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