ABSTRACT
Introduction As researchers begin to explore the impacts of nonschool factors on educational quality and student achievement, evidence suggests that housing issues play a key role. For several decades, metropolitan areas have experienced changes in residential housing patterns. At the same time, the quality of urban public schools has become increasingly problematic, suggesting a possible connection between residential trends and educational quality. However, knowledge about the specific impacts of housing on education remains limited. Most often, planning and redevelopment efforts are undertaken with little consideration for their potential impacts on local schools, while educational reforms and school facility construction rarely relate to broader urban revitalization activities. Government actions often exacerbate the problem, for example, by failing to promote mixed-income and affordable family housing such that both schools and neighborhoods can become more socioeconomically integrated. This chapter seeks to describe several major connections between housing and schools, identify specific school and housing initiatives that have tried to leverage the connections between the two to improve both, and to identify some of the challenges in integrating housing and educational policy, research, and development.
