Violence Among Young Adults Receiving Housing Assistance: Vouchers, Race, and Transitions Into Adulthood

Abstract

Scholarly literature has been very attentive to violence among adolescents whose families receive vouchers. Yet, it provides little information about violence among the more than 400,000 very young adults who head households that receive vouchers. This article explores this relationship, paying particular attention to life course considerations and racial context. Data on 18–22-year-olds, numbering 208, who received housing assistance and participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 in 2002 indicate that normative theoretical models may not accurately capture the relationship between the transition to adulthood and violence within this group. Results also suggest that among those who experience violence, receipt of a voucher is associated with lower levels of violence, but not for Black recipients. Both voucher triage services for those experiencing violence, and housing advocate services for Black heads of household may be especially useful within this population of very young adults.

Keywords:

• vouchers
• public housing
• minorities

Acknowledgments

The New Connections Initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supplied funds to support this research project. The author thanks participants of the Millennium Seminar at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis for helpful feedback on early drafts of this paper. She also thanks Tara Hobson-Prater for research assistance.

Notes

^1. Eight of the respondents reported one instance of violence, nine reported between two and five instances of violence, three reported between six and 10 instances of violence, and one reported 20 instances of violence. All analyses were performed by dropping the outlying respondent who reported 20, and none of the statistically significant results changed.

^2. I also performed the analyses with indicators of whether children were present in the household and whether the respondents' biological children reside with them. The models were largely similar, and the direction of the relationship with violence was always the same (positive).