A study published in Housing Policy Debate by Cody Price and Katherine Fallon surveyed Ohio Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) tenants to understand how building design affects LIHTC tenants’ perceptions of neighborhood safety. The study, “Perceived Safety of LIHTC Residents in Ohio,” found that the typical LIHTC resident perceived their neighborhood to be somewhat safe and that design features appeared to have a minimal impact on this perception.
Price and Fallon distributed surveys to 4,891 Ohio LIHTC residents, representing 11% of all Ohio LIHTC households. They received 652 responses. The survey asked tenants about their current housing and neighborhood satisfaction, perception of safety, and demographics and included questions about tenants’ age, gender, mobility, disability status, length of stay in their neighborhood, strength of social networks, and strength of community networks near them. The authors also rated LIHTC properties based on their design and appearance, noting features such as the visibility of the building, fences or gates creating boundaries, and the presence of well-maintained physical structures and landscapes around the building. The authors also retrieved crime data from the Ohio Incident-Based Reporting System about neighborhood violent crime and property crime.
Although the LIHTC properties were typically in neighborhoods with greater incidences of property crime, residents generally felt somewhat safe, with an average perception of safety of 3.86 on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 indicating the feeling of being very safe). Neighborhood crime was only weakly associated with LIHTC tenants’ perceptions of safety.
Perceptions of neighborhood safety were associated with the property design features of visible outdoor entry lights and the maintenance of outdoor space. Boundary-setting features like fences or shared entryways were not associated with tenants’ perceptions of safety. Tenants’ age and access to a strong social network were also associated with perceptions of safety and likely play a larger role in those perceptions than building design.
LIHTC properties appear to be well-maintained and of high quality. Since LIHTC residents generally feel safe in LIHTC properties, state housing finance agencies (HFAs) should continue to incentivize high-quality design and maintenance features for LIHTC properties. HFAs should also support the incorporation of design principles that foster community, since social networks influence tenants’ perceptions of safety.
Read the study at: https://bit.ly/3AGiw7I