Charlotte Urban Institute Studies Homeownership On Childhood Well-being
North Carolina public schools reported 35,282 students experienced some type of “inadequate” living situation during the 2022-23 school year. Of the students in these living situations, ranging from residing in an overcrowded dwelling to being homeless, 4,815 were students of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS). Given the increasing number of students identified as McKinney-Vento in the last few years, Habitat for Humanity of the Charlotte Region partnered with the Charlotte Urban Institute to study the potential implications of homeownership on childhood well-being. Institute researchers studied educational outcomes of Habitat’s homebuyer program participants to answer the following research questions:
- How did in-school presence (suspensions, absences) and academic (math and reading) outcomes change for Habitat children after their family purchased a home?
- How do these changes compare to a representative sample of McKinney-Vento students?1
To test whether living in Habitat housing influences educational outcomes for students, the study first pairs Habitat students with a representative sample of McKinney-Vento (McKinney) students. The Habitat homebuyer program aims to make homeownership more affordable and, as a result, more stable for families. This allows us to question whether Habitat housing influences students’ academic and educational outcomes.
To minimize the differences between Habitat students and their comparison peers, students were matched on their gender, race/ethnicity, attended school zip code, grade level, and school year. This type of design allows the researchers to:
- Account for other potential influences on the outcomes of interest, such as student demographics and educational outcomes from the previous year (previous number of absences, suspensions, and proficiency levels).
- Estimate the direction (positive or negative) and magnitude of the association between Habitat housing and these outcomes.2