JAMES HERBERT WILLIAMS, VON E. NEBBITT, CHRISTOPHER A. VEEH, AND DAVID B. MILLERRESEARCH USUALLY STARTS WITH AN intention to investigate a pressing social issue more empirically and systematically. This book examines the environmental context and developmental trajectory of youth living in public housing. The authors have summarized the current literature and provided a conceptualization of a theoretical model to advance our understanding of the life course of these youth. In addition to putting forth a theoretical model for a better understanding of the challenges of public housing neighborhoods, the authors empirically tested various hypotheses of the theoretical model. Research on youth in public housing has been primarily limited to using a deficit model to understand behavioral outcomes (Barrow et al. 2007; Ireland, Thornberry, & Loeber 2003; Zimmerman, Ramirez-Valles, & Maton 1999). This book goes beyond the traditional deficit approach to more thoroughly examine the complexities of the public housing environment for adolescents. The primary goal for writing this book was to support the development and application of a theoretical model to validate the interplay that occurs between the various levels of systems that encompass an environment of complexities nested within public housing neighborhoods.
The first three chapters of the book introduced a hypothesized theoretical framework for understanding the interconnectedness of various risk and protective factors and their impact on adolescent development in public housing environments. The theoretical model and underlying concepts provide a new focus and direction for research on public housing, an institution that has been woven into the fabric of the urban landscape for at least half a century. There has been a recent trend in policy to make significant changes in public housing based on the hypothesis that living in public housing has deleterious effects on youth and their development (Currie & Yelowitz 2000; Goetz 2011; Goetz & Chapple 2010). Many scholars and policymakers consider public housing developments to be strongholds of high crime and poverty.
Notwithstanding the fact that families are likely to always live in location-based public housing, limited research has been focused on the positive cultural aspects of these communities or has asked whether these neighborhoods could have any advantages. This near-absence of research on positive adaptations within the context of public housing neighborhoods precludes the development of contextually appropriate preventative interventions based on empirical evidence gathered in public housing neighborhoods. Accordingly, empirical investigations should be undertaken to verify if public housing is an entirely negative environment for youth development and to assess the degree to which promotive and protective factors exist within public housing neighborhoods.
The majority of the current research investigating the experience of youth who reside in public housing has used a negative lens. The research highlighted in this book investigates the strengths and resiliency that can develop in tenants living in an environment defined by a high level of poverty and other environmental stressors. A viewpoint that considers public housing as an environment that only supports the development of youth antisocial and/or criminal behavior does not take into account possible pro-social influences and opportunities that may be present in these communities. Public housing is not a monolith with predetermined adolescent outcomes. Although there are numerous potential negative influences in public housing communities, the research in this book purports that these negative influences can be counterbalanced by positive influences.
Chapter 3 discusses an integrated model with a multilayered context that contributes to the various types of influences that affect youth who reside in public housing. The continual interplay between these different layers at various ecological levels (exo, meso, and micro) is articulated in neighborhood institutions and the surrounding communities.
The exo-ecology level sets policy and organizational foundations that impact other ecological levels. The exo-ecological affects are most commonly expressed in the demographic composition of residents. In turn, policy and organizational systems influence the type and quality of institutions established in proximity to public housing. All of these institutions and systems act in concert to shape the social processes amongst individuals who live within public housing structures and the larger neighborhood. The interplay between the various ecological systems is dynamic; changes in one system directly affect the other systems.
This dynamic systems relationship presents difficult challenges for researchers trying to account for the various factors affecting youth development in that environment. Causality of a specific development outcome will likely be the result of multiple factors emanating from the various systems surrounding youth in public housing. Therefore, there is a need to disaggregate the various factors to more completely identify which support antisocial behaviors and which support resiliency and positive youth development.
The Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods hypothesizes a system of both distal and proximal factors that contribute to the diverse developmental trajectories for youth in public housing. Distal factors (e.g., policy, organizational structures) promote isolation and stigmatization, which in turn foster inorganic communities. These inorganic communities then underpin the social process of trophic cascading. Trophic cascading is when individuals with high community status (adults) are nonexistent, and they are subsequently replaced by individuals with lower community status (youth). A consequence of trophic cascading is the adultification of youth in public housing environments; the authors consider adultification as both positive and negative. Community isolation and deprivation create space for developing antisocial behavior. At the same time, these community stressors can motivate families to increase youth monitoring and use fictive kinship networks to support protective factors to guide positive youth development. The authors hypothesize that adultification can lead to greater participation by youth in family decision-making, which may improve self-efficacy and provide protection against environmental risks. Adultification can also potentially create a psychological toll that manifests as anger, depression, and negative coping behaviors (e.g., substance abuse and involvement with antisocial peers). The relationship between protective and risk factors can influence this balance in either a negative or positive direction, depending on the context for developing youth in public housing neighborhoods.
The research in this book was implemented with the goal of increasing participation from several types of community stakeholders. The primary focus was on youth residents of public housing, followed by a focus on local housing authorities and then on surrounding community centers and social service agencies. The design for this study was innovative. Identification of study participants was conducted using nonprobability sampling methods. To provide a deeper knowledge of these community residents, the design moved beyond the traditional sampling methods to identify often underrepresented youth (e.g., delinquent or uninvolved youth in mainstream activities); the researchers undertook an alternative approach by gaining access to the individual’s social circle and then requesting participation directly. The researchers measured aspects of the public housing community, family and home life, peer relationships, and psychosocial factors. Using the local vernacular in the survey was important to the youth’s understanding of the purpose underlying the various questions on the survey.
The use of residents in public housing to recruit participants and assist with the administration of the survey and the use of other nontraditional scientific methods were completed with the goal of increasing the participation of a population that has been historically underrepresented in statistical samples and the research literature. All authors are aware of the limitations that their design and methods place on the findings. Despite these limitations, this book represents significant contributions toward our understanding of the developmental trajectory of primarily minority and immigrant youth residing in urban public housing. This book is a first of its kind in public housing research because it includes primary data from youth in public housing from multiple housing developments located in multiple cities.
Youth in urban public housing exhibit an array of attitudes in regards to self-efficacy and delinquent behavior. Their disposition toward self-efficacy and delinquency are directly affected by the dynamic relationship between risk and protective factors that encompass youth in public housing. Throughout the book, researchers have examined how these attitudes both affect youth and are shaped by environmental factors.
It is important to note the gender differences among adolescents in urban public housing. Females are the most likely to exhibit both high self-efficacy and high unfavorable attitudes toward delinquency. The authors refer to these youths (mostly females) as “high efficacy–high attitudes youth.” Additionally, these youth differ from other youth in terms of their lower involvement in delinquent behavior, fewer associations with antisocial peers, and lower numbers of depressive symptoms. Females also reported higher levels of adultification. The high efficacy–high attitude youth behaved more pro-socially, while also undertaking a larger number of adult roles within their lives. Protective and risk factors within the urban public housing environment were also experienced differentially by high efficacy–high attitude youth as compared to others. High efficacy–high attitude youth had stronger fictive kinship networks, more maternal involvement, less domestic conflict, and fewer incidence of victimization. These youth experience greater levels of protective factors as compared to risk factors in their environment.
These findings support components of the Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods. The research confirms that youth with highly efficacious beliefs and unfavorable attitudes toward delinquency have been exposed to a greater number of the strengths found in the public housing environment (e.g., adultification, fictive kinship) while limiting their exposure to the environmental harms (e.g., delinquent peers, substance use, victimization), thereby demonstrating high developmental competences despite the presence of risk. Hence, they act in a more pro-social and healthy manner.
Public housing neighborhoods often expose youth to multiple negative situations (e.g., witnessing and victimization by violence, exposure to delinquent peers, access to drugs, household conflict). Many urban public housing environments are proliferating with risk factors. Youth in these environments are compelled to manage these risks in either an adaptive or maladaptive way. Using the Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods, the authors found that public housing also fosters countervailing protective factors in response to the often violent and antisocial influences surrounding urban public housing sites. Community cohesion is one such important protective factor (Nebbitt 2009; Nebbitt et al. 2012). These findings are consistent with other studies that found community cohesion to be inversely associated with various forms of violence (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls 1997). Community protective factors (e.g., cohesion, collective efficacy) moderate the relationship between community violence exposure and subsequent internalizing and externalizing adjustment problems (e.g., emotional regulation skills, acceptance from caregivers, quality of caregiver–child interaction; Kliewer et al., 2004). How the presence of community cohesion affects a youth’s propensity to cope with risk factors through maladaptive behavior (e.g., substance abuse) is the focus of chapter 6. Substance use is directly related to several factors commonly found in urban public housing. Witnessing or directly experiencing different types of violence (e.g., community violence, household violence, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms) has a significantly positive effect on the likelihood that adolescents will use drugs and/or alcohol. These findings are consistent with several delinquency and substance use studies (DuRant et al. 2000; Hilarski 2006; Kilpatrick et al. 2003; Lambert et al. 2004; Vaughn et al. 2007).
However, when entering community cohesion into the model with risk factors for substance use, the authors found community cohesion to have a restraining effect on a youth’s likelihood to use substances. Also, community cohesion mitigated the influences of exposure to delinquent peers and witnessing community violence on substance-using behaviors. These findings continue to build upon the literature examining community efficacy and cohesion (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls 1997). Significant findings from these analyses are that youth with the ability to draw upon a richer social support network showed more resilient and adaptive behaviors in reaction to risk factors in their housing developments. Thus, although the ecology of public housing presents many challenges for youth, there are strengths present that can be cultivated to improve the likelihood of positive developmental outcomes.
As theorized throughout the chapters in the book, the behavior of youth in urban public housing is shaped by the larger environmental context. Various factors in communities (e.g., stigmatization, drug use, violence) possibly are associated with depressive symptoms in youth (Nebbitt & Lombe 2007). Youth exhibiting depressive symptoms may use several coping strategies, such as substance use, sexual risk-taking, or other unhealthy behaviors, in reaction to neighborhood hazards. The authors identified direct effects between neighborhood risk and sexual risk-taking, while indirect effects were found between neighborhood risk and depressive symptoms. These findings were different for males than for females. The relationship between neighborhood risk, depression, and high-risk behaviors by youth is related more to substance use than to sexual risk-taking. Neighborhood risk appears to be manifested in youth sexual risk-taking through different mechanisms than depressive symptoms. Furthermore, the impact of parental supervision on youth high-risk behaviors may be limited in the public housing environment. Interventions should focus on gender when assisting youth in public housing to deal effectively with depression.
The literature indicates that urban public housing complexes are high-risk environments for healthy youth development (Anthony 2008; Goetz & Chapple 2010; Ireland, Thornberry, & Loeber 2003; Nebbitt & Lombe 2007). Despite these well-documented risks, urban public housing also possesses a unique set of protective factors that can build resiliency in youth (Coll et al. 1996; Nebbitt 2009; Nebbitt & Lombe 2010). Mixed results were found when analyzing the variables posited in the Integrated Model. The protective factor of adultification did show a negative relationship with depression, whereas community cohesion was negatively associated with a youth’s level of depression. In terms of the emotional effect of environmental risk factors, support was verified for increased depressive symptoms within youth who reported greater levels of neighborhood risk and more associations with delinquent peers.
Differential results were found across cities. Of the four cities examined, only one city showed a significant interaction of community cohesion by delinquent behavior as well as adultification by both delinquent behavior and neighborhood risk. These findings suggest that community context varies by cities and regions, and that both can have a distinctive function in levels of depression and how protective factors interact with environmental risk factors. Overall, community cohesion can be considered to be a protective factor when there is interaction with a presenting community risk factor. In contrast, adultification exhibited a less consistent relationship in shielding youth against the emotional effects of community risk. Based on the results of the studies highlighted in this book, adultification can be perceived as ambiguous in a youth’s life for promoting resiliency toward neighborhood risk while also increasing vulnerability to delinquent peers.
Many urban public housing neighborhoods across the country have seen pandemic levels of violence, crime, and drug use, which has resulted in damaging effects on these communities’ sense of cohesion. The lack of community cohesion in urban public housing can be particularly harmful to youth development by lowering the youth’s sense of place and level of self-efficacy (Nebbitt 2009). As detailed throughout this book, the lack of self-efficacy is directly related to unhealthy and risk-taking behaviors. Chapter 9 provides an excellent overview of the various programmatic efforts underway to support positive youth development in urban public housing communities. Programs such as HOPE-IV, Moving to Opportunity, and Choice Community Initiative provide public housing residents with options to move to neighborhoods with more stability or improve existing public housing neighborhoods by developing resources through public–private partnerships.
NEXT STEPS IN KNOWLEDGE, RESEARCH, AND PUBLIC HOUSING POLICY
Conducting research in geographically small homogeneous communities, such as public housing developments, that are nested within larger homogeneous neighborhoods presents several theoretical and methodological challenges. This book represents a first step toward addressing some of the theoretical challenges. However, addressing most of these methodological challenges is beyond the scope of this book. One major contribution of this book is the introduction of a new theoretical perspective for understanding child and adolescent development within the context of public neighborhoods.
Theory
The new theoretical perspective is outlined in a model in chapter 3. This model attempts to explain how child and adolescent development and behaviors are affected by growing up in publicly constructed and publicly managed neighborhoods (i.e., public housing communities). Furthermore, this book introduces two new concepts—inorganic communities and trophic cascading effects—and quantitatively investigates an existing qualitative concept, adultification (Burton 2007; Jarrett 1990, 2003). It is important to note that the model is not meant to be comprehensive or exhaustive. Rather, the Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods is introduced for two basic reasons: 1) to encourage a discussion amongst researchers, practitioners, and policymakers on how context may account for some of the symptoms, attitudes, and behaviors expressed by youth living in urban public housing; and 2) to fill a theoretical gap in knowledge since existing research on child development in public housing does not share a unified framework. Because of the lack of a shared theoretical framework, empirical knowledge on life in public housing is more of a patchwork than a unified body of knowledge to increase our understanding of life in urban public housing neighborhoods. Accordingly, a definitive statement on how youth develop into productive members of society in our nation’s only public neighborhoods cannot be gleaned from the literature. Our model represents a first step toward articulating a unified framework for future research and beginning to rectify the theoretical gap in knowledge for this area of inquiry.
Methodology
There is much work to be done to explain and assess with rigor the factors affecting child and adolescent development in public housing neighborhoods. This book makes an important methodological step in an area of research that has been dominated by small, single-site studies. There are several methodological challenges facing investigators interested in this area. To mitigate this challenge, this book introduced two concepts: inorganic communities and trophic cascading effects. The next step in research is to develop the operational definitions of these concepts. Functionalist perspectives may clarify how various elements of a community may contribute to its overall health and functioning. Functionalism may provide a starting place for operationalizing inorganic communities. Operationalizing the concept of trophic cascading effects may prove to be less challenging because this concept has an empirical definition in the physical sciences. It is important to note that public housing may not operate with similar predictability to, for example, an aquatic environment. There are a number of factors (both internal and external) unique to public housing neighborhoods that require rigorous consideration when applying the concept of trophic cascading effects to the human ecology of public housing.
Measuring Internal and External Effects
There is also a need to disentangle and assess internal and external influences separately. This is critically important in public housing communities because these communities are almost always embedded within high-poverty, high-crime neighborhoods. The location and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of residents and the physical structure of many public housing communities make them vulnerable to criminal infestation from the surrounding neighborhoods. Over time, this process, coupled with existing crime elements in public housing communities, can transform the housing developments into epicenters of crime, which, in turn, diffuse crime back into the surrounding neighborhoods. To accurately measure and assess neighborhood effects within public housing, these confounding factors must be disentangled.
Much of the research, including the chapters in this book, on families in location-based public housing assumes that wealth is invariant. From a traditional research standpoint, this is a valid assumption because there are income restrictions (i.e., 80 percent to 50 percent of the median income for the county or metropolitan area) associated with living in public housing. However, for public housing families, the acquisition of assets such as a car, television with cable, and a computer with internet can make a tremendous difference in the life of a child. These assets may give families access to resources that other families may not have. These nontraditional assets, or the absence thereof, are never calculated into statistical models when differences in child outcomes are assessed. Furthermore, limited research attention has been focused on unreported income, legal and illegal, that may flow into some households in public housing developments but not others. There is definitely a need for researchers to revisit how we conceptualize and measure income and assets in public housing communities. Unexplored fiscal and social resources and capital may account for the unexplained variances in our statistical models.
Spatial Analyses
Another important step in public housing research is to incorporate geographic information system (GIS) technology. As a result of the close physical proximity of public housing residents, there is a need to understand how physical space affects youth’s social networks and their mental health symptoms, attitudes, and behaviors. Unlike other low-income urban neighborhoods where residents are spread out, public housing neighborhoods are relatively densely populated. These geographical configurations may have far-reaching implications for children’s exposure to community violence and their exposure to other nefarious activities (e.g., drug dealing).
Current research on exposure to community violence and other risk factors have relied primarily on frequency (e.g., how often) and intensity (e.g., the magnitude of the event). This approach may be appropriate for youth living in nonpublic housing neighborhoods. Youth living in nonpublic housing urban communities may have the option of circumventing areas of concentrated violence, urban hassle, and drug dealing. However, this option may not be available for youth living in public housing developments. In public housing settings, there is a need to better understand how constant exposure to violence and drug dealing; the proximity of these neighborhood problems to youth residents are associated with their mental health symptoms and other high-risk behaviors. GIS technology may serve as a useful tool to measure and assess how proximity to “hot spots,” violence, and other high-risk activities affects adolescents’ mental health and health-risk behaviors.
There is still much to accomplish in order to adequately address public housing issues in the policy arena. Policymakers should be cautious in viewing urban public housing as inherently negative; it is important that policymakers recognize the strength and resiliency in these complex environments. Programs and policies that aim to improve public housing and the structural inequities that afflict its residents can provide a sense of self-efficacy to youth that can empower them toward achievement throughout their lives.
APPLICATIONS TO PRACTICE
This book introduces the Integrated Model of Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods and tested various components of this model using data collected from African American youth living in urban public housing. Our model builds on an ecological and resilience framework. The model proposes that significant interactions occur between risk and protective factors across various domains (e.g., community, family, individuals) in public housing communities and that these interactions contribute to positive or negative outcomes in youth, as depicted in figure 3.1. To the extent that the data allowed us to test the model, we found varying degrees of support for the Integrated Model in each of our empirical chapters.
The findings from these analyses indicated that various components of the Integrated Model are applicable to the mental health and well-being of adolescents living in public housing neighborhoods. Focusing primarily on community and individual strengths and capacities, we support that a strengths- and capacities-based approach may be more beneficial to practitioners than focusing on risk factors and failures. First, strength-based and capacity-building interventions are fundamental principles of social work and form the foundation of practice. Second, our model and findings do not suggest that risk factors operate any differently in public housing (e.g., youth exposed to higher risk factors reported worse outcomes). Third, evidence indicates that successful interventions build on strengths and capacity. Finally, much of the literature on African American youth is saturated with research on how and why they fail, with little or no published information on how these youth become healthy productive citizens.
Community Cohesion
Community cohesion is a key concept in the Integrated Model and is also a salient protective and promotive factor, as discussed in chapters 6 and 8. The analyses in these chapters indicate that the perception of strong community cohesion significantly affects the effects of risk factors (e.g., violence, delinquent peers). Building on the model and the evidence in this book, prevention and interventions to reduce substance use (e.g., marijuana, tobacco, alcohol), improve mental health (e.g., depression), and build efficacy should focus on building community cohesion and engaging youth in collective efforts for community engagement.
Self-Efficacy and Conventional Attitudes
Two additional key concepts of the model are self-efficacy and attitudes toward deviance. The integrated model proposes that these concepts will be directly impacted by the interaction between risk and protective factors, and they will in turn promote pro-social behaviors. The results detailed in chapter 5 suggest that youth with highly efficacious beliefs (i.e., confidence in their ability to achieve their goals) and conventional attitudes toward deviance (i.e., lower endorsement of adolescent deviance) are more likely to benefit from protective factors (e.g., more extended kinship network, more encouraging mothers) and are less likely to be exposed to risk factors (e.g., community violence, household conflict). Highly efficacious and conventional youth also reported higher school involvement, lower substance use and delinquency, and fewer delinquent peers. These youth also reported significantly lower depressive symptoms.
The findings on self-efficacy and conventional attitudes, in addition to the findings on community cohesion, provide preliminary foundational evidence that supports the development of interventions. This work suggests that engaging youth within protective networks of community and family members, in addition to extended kinships, will increase their confidence and shape their beliefs, which in turn will support better outcomes. Intervention strategies collected from this book could be implemented through nonspecialized, community-based interventions. For example, public housing complexes in most cities have two organizational structures that may be important mechanisms through which to implement preventative interventions.
First are tenant-led organizations. During the 1980s and 1990s, many of these organizations became management companies, leveraging control of their housing development from local housing authorities (Koebel & Cavell 1995). Tenant-led organizations also include tenant advisory boards, which ensure resident representation on the housing authority’s board of commissioners. Tenant organizations are perfect conduits through which to promote community cohesion, collective efficacy, and civic engagement, and consequently improve adolescents’ well-being.
Community practitioners should work with residents to strengthen the capacity of tenant organizations and tenant advisory boards by 1) assisting them in identifying and leveraging political and financial support; 2) helping them to identify challenges that residents face; and 3) cultivating their ability to systematically address these challenges with the goal of encouraging and increasing civic engagement among youth. Community practitioners may play a critical role in all areas of capacity building in public housing developments. Increasing civic engagement with youth, however, may be particularly important to these youths’ mental health and health-risk behaviors in addition to the well-being of the community at large. Community practitioners can help form and organize youth tenant organizations and youth advisory boards.
These citywide youth tenant organizations could be a form of representative democracy, modeled after the U.S. Congress. That is, community practitioners can help youth organize at the housing development level; then, youth could elect their leaders, who would represent their interests and advocate their concerns. These elected youth leaders would subsequently have representation on decision-making boards at each housing development, on citywide boards, and on the board of commissioners. Such an approach would simultaneously teach youth leadership skills and increase their sense of community and ownership of their communities. In their report on Senate Resolution No. 347, Koebel and Cavell (1995:17) maintained:
Resident organizations tend to improve living conditions for residents in public housing. In general, residents of housing authorities that are represented by resident organizations are more cooperative with the housing authority, leading to a safer, cleaner, and better maintained environment. Residents feel empowered by elected representation, are given a sense of community and proprietorship involving residents with outside organizations leads to better relationships with the broader community, positive role models, monetary support, and educational growth.
Although this report did not focus specifically on youth, it is highly likely that civically engaged youth will feel a greater sense of belonging, which our model predicts (and research shows) will decrease their substance use and reduce their risky behaviors.
The second organizational structure that may prove critical to the implementation of preventions and interventions within public housing is the community center. For many housing developments (e.g., traditional and HOPE IV developments), the community center is owned and operated by the local housing authority (e.g., St. Louis, Washington, DC). However, for other housing developments, the community center is owned and operated by nongovernment organizations and is located within or adjacent to the housing development (e.g., New York City). Community practitioners can play a critical role in invigorating these communities by helping directors leverage financial support and forge partnerships with corporations, law-enforcement agencies, and universities. With additional financial support from corporations, these community centers can form organized sport teams (e.g., football, basketball, boxing). Also, by partnering with local law-enforcement agencies, these community centers would be eligible for support via police athletic leagues, which provide financial support and volunteerism from police offers with expertise in coaching. Furthermore, student volunteers from universities, particularly via sororities and fraternities, could also prove to be a vital resource to these community centers. Members of sororities and fraternities could form book clubs for youth and host book drives. These students can also play a vital role in fundraising for these community centers by increasing their technological capacities (e.g., computers, software, internet) and reducing their digital divide. These community center–based interventions have the potential to increase collective efficacy and community cohesion, which our model and research indicate are associated with better outcomes for youth living in public housing.
This book details mental health interventions supported by researchers’ findings, which may be useful to youth who must navigate the challenges of urban public housing. Preventative services that cultivate protective factors addressing the effects of environmental risks appear to be appropriate for public housing youth. Prevention interventions should promote the empirically identified protective factors (e.g., parental support, increased family involvement, supportive fictive kinship networks, community engagement). In addition, interventions also need to diminish the risks of depression, substance use, delinquent behavior, delinquent peers, household and community violence, and neighborhood disorder. As indicated in the findings, more than one factor usually produces an effect on a specific problem behavior, and factors were found to operate at both proximal and distal levels. Therefore, interventions should be built to address more than a single factor, and multiple levels—such as the individual, family, peer, school, and community levels—should be targeted.
Overall, interventions for youth living in urban public housing need to be developed to incorporate the unique context of their environments. By focusing interventions on both protective and risk factors found in the public housing environment and directing those interventions at different levels of systems in the youth’s life, there is potential to improve the developmental trajectory of the youth residents of urban public housing.
