Neighborly Concerns

This chapter evaluates the outcomes that were of such grave concern to local residents and township officials prior to the project's construction, using publicly available data to determine the effects it had on crime rates, tax burdens, and property values. It reveals that white suburban residents generally oppose the location of affordable housing developments within their communities, at least those intended for poor families as opposed to the elderly, and that such opposition is at least partially rooted in racial and class prejudice. Apart from prejudice, however, the chapter also argues that suburbanites have legitimate practical reasons to be skeptical about the influence of “public housing” on their communities, given the lamentable record of the projects built throughout the country during the 1950s and 1960s. Both skepticism and prejudice were evident in the rhetoric employed by Mount Laurel residents in opposing the construction of the Ethel Lawrence Homes in their township. Although it is doubtful that many of these local critics were well grounded in the social science literature, there are nonetheless defensible theoretical and substantive reasons to expect social problems to follow from the insertion of a 100% affordable housing project into a white, affluent suburban setting.

Field of Dreams

This chapter describes the construction, organization, and physical appearance of Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) and assesses the aesthetics relative to other housing in the area. Bringing affordable housing to her hometown of Mount Laurel was very much Ethel Lawrence's dream. She never gave up the fight for affordable housing in Mount Laurel and the entire state of New Jersey has benefitted from it. Although Ethel Lawrence participated in all of the litigation and court hearings and was active in the early phases of project planning, her health declined in the 1990s and she passed away in July of 1994 at the age of sixty-eight, with her dream of affordable housing in Mount Laurel still unrealized. In her honor the future housing project was baptized the “Ethel R. Lawrence Homes.”

Suburban Showdown

This chapter describes in great detail the Mount Laurel court case and the controversy it generated. It takes a closer look at the emotion and controversy surrounding Mount Laurel's opposition to the Ethel Lawrence Homes as a prelude to the systematic study on the effects of neighbors, the community, and tenants. In 1967 Ethel Lawrence joined with other local residents to form the Springville Community Action Committee, which was established with the explicit goal of bringing subsidized housing to Mount Laurel. The non-profit obtained seed money from the State of New Jersey and in 1968 optioned a 32-acre parcel in Springville, along Hartford Road, and began drawing up plans to build thirty-six two- and three-bedroom garden apartments affordable to low-income renters. This was the genesis of the suburban showdown that became regional and then national news and led to the landmark New Jersey Supreme Court ruling establishing what became known as “the Mount Laurel Doctrine.”

Greener Pastures

This chapter focuses on a special survey conducted of the residents of Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) and nonresidents to assess how moving into the project affected the residential environment people experienced on a day-to-day basis. The design of the survey compares neighbourhood conditions experienced by EHL residents both before and after they moved into the project, as well as to compare them with a control group of people who had applied to EHL but had not yet been admitted. Both comparisons reveal a dramatic reduction in exposure to neighbourhood disorder and violence and a lower frequency of negative life events as a result of the move. By the time EHL finally opened in 2000, it was no longer a test case about the rights of longtime residents not to be forced out of their hometown. Instead, it became a test case for whether affordable housing developments could provide a path out of poverty for the urban poor, and what kinds of costs such programs might impose on suburban residents.

Affordable Housing

This chapter reviews the foregoing results and traces out their implications for public policy and for social theory. It argues that neighborhood circumstances do indeed have profound consequences for individual and family well-being and that housing mobility programs constitute an efficacious way both to reduce poverty and to lower levels of racial and class segregation in metropolitan America. Whatever the precise reason for its success, the Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) offers a proof of concept for the further development of affordable family housing, both as a social policy for promoting racial and class integration in metropolitan America and as a practical program for achieving poverty alleviation and economic mobility in society at large. Results very clearly show that affordable housing for low- and moderate-income minority families can be built within an affluent white suburban environment without imposing significant costs on the host community or its residents, while simultaneously increasing the economic independence of project residents and improving educational achievement among their children, all with little or no cost to taxpayers in general. It is a win-win prospect for all concerned.

Tenant Transitions

This chapter considers whether the move to the Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL)—and the improved neighborhood conditions it enabled—were sufficient to change the trajectory of people's lives. Systematic comparisons between project residents and members of the nonresident control group indicated significant improvements in mental health, economic independence, and children's educational outcomes as a result of moving into the project. It discusses whether residents have been able to use the safe setting of the EHL as a platform for broader success in life—whether inhabiting a secure, nonthreatening environment indeed provided residents with a springboard to move onward and upward on the socioeconomic ladder. By moving into the EHL in Mount Laurel, Jersey, low- and moderate-income families from throughout the region were able to trade inferior housing in high-poverty, predominantly minority, city neighborhoods for well-appointed town houses located in an affluent white suburb. In doing so, they dramatically lowered their exposure to social disorder and violence and reduced the frequency with which they experienced negative life events; and these benefits did not come at the cost of social interactions with family members or access to essential services. As a bonus, evidence suggests that residents may even have experienced an increase in interaction with neighbors as a result of the move.

All Things Considered

This chapter considers the effects of Ethel Lawrence Homes (EHL) on the ethos of suburban life. It draws on a representative survey and selected interviews with neighbors living in surrounding residential areas, which show that despite all the agitation and emotion before the fact, once the project opened, the reaction of neighbors was surprisingly muted, with nearly a third not even realizing that an affordable housing development existed right next door. The chapter takes a closer look at community perceptions of the EHL project ten years after its controversial origins. It considers not what actual data and statistics tell about the project's consequences for the community but focuses instead on what those who live in surrounding neighborhoods believe the consequences to have been. It analyzes the responses from the neighborhoods that commented about the EHL and explores their perceptions of its inhabitants, but before doing so the chapter provides information on the contrasting social backgrounds of community residents and EHL tenants.

Rhetoric and Reality

This chapter outlines the study's design and research methodology, describing the specific data sources consulted to determine the effects of the project on the community and the multiple surveys and in-depth interviews conducted to gather information on how the opening of the homes affected residents, neighbors, and the community in general. In the earlier review of the political economy of place, the chapter presents a theoretical rationale for anticipating high levels of emotion in debates about land use, and in the specific case of the Ethel Lawrence Homes the residents of Mount Laurel certainly did not disappoint. Whether it was the majority who expressed strong misgivings about locating an affordable housing project within the township, or the minority who offered sympathy and support for the venture, emotions generally ran high. Feelings seemed to be especially raw among those who opposed the project, judging by the invective hurled at public hearings. The record of subsidized housing in the United States is hardly unblemished.

Location Cubed

This chapter talks about the importance of location in human affairs. Naturally the quality of a dwelling has direct implications for the health, comfort, security, and well-being of the people who inhabit it, and matching the attributes of housing with the needs and resources of families has long been a principal reason for residential mobility in the United States. When people purchase or rent a home, however, they not only buy into a particular dwelling and its amenities but also into a surrounding neighborhood and its qualities, for good or for ill. In contemporary urban society, opportunities and resources tend to be distributed unevenly in space, and in the United States spatial inequalities have widened substantially in recent decades. Where one lives is probably more important now than ever in determining one's life chances. In selecting a place to live, a family does much more than simply choose a dwelling to inhabit; it also selects a neighborhood to occupy.