This chapter examines how the lives of the residents of the Ethel Lawrence Homes in Mount Laurel, New Jersey have improved since moving into their residencies. The survey used to approach this was an interesting one and the results were intriguing, however there were many questions left unanswered. Just from this chapter one can see that this housing program gives lower socioeconomic status families a “path out of poverty”. However, it was disappointing to learn in chapter 9, that the families chosen for the residency were screened, maintaining some biases and leaving some families who could benefit most, such as families who are more predisposed to violence than others behind in order to avoid bringing conflict to the area. In some ways this fact ruins some of the author, Douglas Massey’s, statistical analysis. An example of this is the chart displaying the Weighted Index of Violence and Disorder for both non-residents and residents. The resident’s rates decline on this chart which is certainly positive, however, they start more than ten points lower than the non-residents did, which insinuates that the non-residents they chose to examine are not in situations similar to the circumstances the ELH residents’ were exposed to before moving. The test groups should be in identical situations if Massey hopes to compare experiences, and if they are significantly different, as was the case here, it should not be considered viable.
The rates of all kinds of violent instances for residents certainly decreased, however it was disappointing to see that the rate of physical violence is still prevalent in the community, despite its decline and regardless of the fact that residents were reporting that their neighborhood social support had increased. It would be interesting to investigate what caused this. Overall there was one thing that went unmentioned, at least in my assigned chapters, that is a significant factor in housing: diversity in schools and the neighborhood’s reaction to schooling. Were the children who lived in the ELH units sent to an isolated school? What was the racial makeup of the student body? If they were combined with students from surrounding neighborhoods what were the parent’s reactions? In addition, although this model does seem flawless, its hard to imagine, how this model would translate to other areas like it, especially with the lack of public transportation and the lower socioeconomic families that live in these establishments that are unable to purchase a car (87% of the residents being able to afford cars is rare, I imagine). Massey also claims that this affordable housing lowers levels of racial and class bias, however this cannot be entirely possible when people in the surrounding neighborhoods said they do not interact with the residents of ELH. Massey shows excellent progress towards finding an effective, racially and socioeconomically unbiased and affordable housing model; there are still some questions left unanswered and still some biases that remain. It is without a doubt that this population was given a “path out of poverty”.