Housing and well -being: A longitudinal investigation of low -income families transitioning to new dwellings.

Abstract

The dissertation explores the relationship between low-income urban families and their residential environment. In particular, the focus is on women and their children, both when they are living in inadequate housing sometimes located in treacherous, drug- and crime-plagued neighborhoods and a year later when they have moved to new houses that the families had helped to construct. By using both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses and several distinct methodologies, the study permits examination of the relationship between the physical setting and the well-being of the residents. A total of 31 families, residing in 10 communities in Michigan, participated in the study. Objective measures of housing quality and residential naturalness were obtained at both pre-move and post-move locations for each family. At both times, standardized measures of psychological and cognitive well-being were obtained, as well as participants' subjective evaluations of their situation. The Conceptual Content Cognitive Mapping (3CM) (Kearney and Kaplan, 1997) task was used to obtain the mothers' perspectives on both the positive and negative aspects of their housing experience. Results indicated that while living in inadequate housing, the women suffered notably from psychological distress, worried a great deal about their children, and felt significant dissatisfaction with their housing. Despite these circumstances, however, they maintained a strong sense of self confidence, optimism, and determination, not unlike Antonovsky's (1979, 1987) Sense of Coherence. Following relocation, the women's psychological well-being showed significant improvement. They were not only extremely pleased with their new housing, but also expressed fewer worries, and seemed to have even stronger Sense of Coherence. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that improvements in housing quality---particularly crowding and indoor climate---were predictive of the women's post-move psychological well-being. Furthermore, changes in the amount of nature near the home were predictive of the children's post-move cognitive functioning or Directed Attention Capacity (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989). The study has policy, conceptual, and methodological implications. It speaks to such issues as the efficacy of participatory housing programs, the role of home ownership and housing quality, the design of housing for low-income families, and the role of nearby nature.