Moving to Work Retrospective: Housing Choice and Self-Sufficiency Outcomes at Moving to Work Agencies
This study finds that MTW agencies increased the share of new households served, an indicator of performance in relation to the statutory objective of housing choice. The study also offers some evidence that households at MTW agencies do better than households at traditional agencies on three indicators of self-sufficiency: income gains (albeit starting from a lower baseline), receipt of minimal housing assistance payment (HAP), and likelihood of leaving assistance if receiving minimal HAP. Finally, it finds that MTW agencies are the same as traditional PHAs on measures of neighborhood quality, public housing quality, and share of households with Family Self-Sufficiency escrow accounts. This study used Comparative Interrupted Time Series (CITS) methods to compare trends in groups of MTW agencies to trends at comparable traditional PHAs. The method selects comparison PHAs that are similar to the MTW agencies during the time period before the MTW agency implemented MTW policies.
