How to increase opportunities for voucher families

The Poverty & Race Research Action Council has just published Connecting Families to Opportunity: A Resource Guide for Housing Choice Voucher Administrators. The guide surveys the best practices for supporting families that choose to move with a voucher to a higher opportunity neighborhood, stressing the importance of supportive services and systems to help families connect to the better health, education and employment opportunities such neighborhoods usually offer. One highlighted best practice is Dallas-based Inclusive Communities Project’s Mobility Assistance Program (MAP). MAP counselors encourage families to consider schools when choosing where to live arming the families with school ratings, offers school enrollment assistance, and provides support to enable enrolled children to participate in extracurricular activities. The hope is that this guide will instruct housing authorities around the country to adopt similarly supportive programs to ensure that more families will put down roots in opportunity neighborhoods to the betterment of the families’ health, well being and financial stability and success.