Childhood inequality: How far behind is too far?

This short film follows two 12 year-old boys (Jason, from Italy and Marcell, from the U.S.) as they describe what it's like to be among the most disadvantaged children in their society.

I came across a UNICEF report last week and was struck by how the boys in the accompanying video describe their lives. Their stories could serve as a checklist of the effects of poverty on children. Though this is not the usual housing research included in this blog, the link between poverty and housing problems is clear. Watch Marcell from the U.S. (about 4 minutes into the video) describe living on the edge of homelessness.

The UNICEF report begins with some compelling questions:

Whether in health, in education, or in material well-being, some children will always fall behind the average. The critical question is – how far behind? Is there a point beyond which falling behind is not inevitable but policy susceptible, not unavoidable but unacceptable, not inequality but inequity?

The study, published by UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, found that children in many wealthy European nations and the United States suffer greater inequality than children in numerous industrialized nations. Report Card 9: The Children Left Behind ranks, for the first time, 24 countries in terms of equality in health, education and material well-being for their children. The report looks at a particular aspect of disparity – bottom-end inequality – and asks how far behind are rich nations allowing their most disadvantaged children to fall. 

A look into the numerous tables provided in the report shows that the United States is underachieving when it comes to the well-being of children. And, there are costs to this disparity. “The heaviest costs,” says the report authors, “are paid by the individual child. But the long list of problems also translates into significant costs for society as a whole. Unnecessary bottom-end inequality prepares a bill which is quickly presented to taxpayers in the form of increased strain on health and hospital services, on remedial schooling, on welfare….”

UNICEF (2010), ‘The Children Left Behind: A league table of inequality in child well-being in the world’s rich countries’, Innocenti Report Card 9, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence.

The Report Card series is designed to monitor and compare the performance of economically advanced countries in securing the rights of their children.

Update on Minnesota's Homeownership Gap

At 73.7%, Minnesota maintains the highest overall homeownership rate in the nation. When it comes to the rate of homeowners of color, Minnesota does not fare as well. The rate of homeownership among emerging markets is 43.3% - representing the 5th largest gap in homeownership rates in the nation.

Earlier this week at the EMHI Summit, Michael Grover (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) and John Patterson (Minnesota Housing) provided a summary of their research on trends in emerging market homeownership. Their analysis of American Community Survey and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data identifies some apparent trends and offers a few unexpected findings.

• The rate of emerging market homeownership declined for the first time since 2000. The rate of homeownership among emerging markets held relatively steady (at about 46.5%) during 2006-2008, which was surprising given the foreclosure crisis and what is known about its affect on minority homeowners. In 2009, the emerging market homeownership rate declined to 43.3%.
• Some sub-groups of African Americans experienced particularly significant declines in their rates of homeownership. Those in the 45 to 54 age group saw a decline from 46% to 31% and those with a family income between $40,000 - $60,000 experienced a decline from a rate of 57% to 32%. Grover stated that more analysis is needed to make sense of these changes.
• Minnesota Housing's affordable loan and entry cost assistance programs are helping emerging markets buyers. In 2009, nearly one-third of Minnesota Housing's loan originations were to emerging market buyers, compared to 10.9% in the overall market.
• Subprime lending among emerging markets is on the decline.  The rates of subprime lending (purchase and refinance) dropped from a high of over 40% in 2006 to well below 10% in 2009. Not much of a surprise but good news nonetheless.

The Emerging Markets Homeownership Initiative (EMHI) Summit is an annual event hosted by the Minnesota Home Ownership Center. This year's summit provided the opportunity to learn about the status of emerging market homeownership and some of the current issues facing emerging market homebuyers. Materials from this year's EMHI Summit (including the Grover and Patterson presentation) are available on the Center's EMHI webpage.

Funding proposals threaten loss of housing assistance for low-income renters

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities released a report earlier this week that outlines three possible scenarios for funding changes to the Housing Choice Voucher program ("Section 8"). Each scenario would result in a drastic reduction in the number of low-income families served by housing assistance.

The report states that while both the House of Representatives and the Senate Committee on Appropriations have approved separate bills to fund the voucher program with slight reductions in 2011, several proposals to reduce overall funding for non-defense discretionary programs threaten cuts in voucher funding that could cause tens of thousands of low-income families to lose rental assistance. If the process for finalizing funding for 2011 follows one of the three possible paths, the Housing Choice Voucher program would see a substantial loss in funding for vouchers that would affect anywhere from 38,000 to 475,000 low-income families. Depending on the funding scenario, the CBPP projects a loss between 532 and 6,536 vouchers in Minnesota.

All of this comes at a time of when more low-income families are in need of assistance and homelessness and poverty rates are on the rise. The Housing Choice Voucher program serves about 2 million low-income families. The families served by this program are among the most vulnerable in our society - children, the elderly and people with disabilities. Faced with the loss of housing assistance, these families have few, if any, options.

For more information, see the full report:  Proposals to Cut Domestic Programs Threaten Loss of Housing Assistance for Thousands of Low-Income Families