Kids and Foreclosures: New York City (2010)

Vicki Been, Ingrid Gould Ellen, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Leanna Stiefel, Meryle Weinstein

 

The mortgage foreclosure crisis has affected millions of households around the country. Researchers and policy makers have begun to pay attention to the external costs that these foreclosures impose on surrounding properties and neighborhoods, but few have considered the collateral costs for children, who may, as a result of foreclosures, be forced to leave their homes, communities and schools. Moreover, even children whose families are able to stay in their homes may experience considerable stress from the foreclosure process.

In this report, the authors use a unique data set on New York City students to examine the extent to which the City's school children have been affected by foreclosures. Specifically, they link student-level academic records to building-level foreclosure data in New York City to address three questions about children living in properties entering foreclosure. First, how many students live in properties entering foreclosure? Second, what are the characteristics of those students and how do they compare to those of the full population of students attending New York City's public schools? Third, are students living in properties going through foreclosure concentrated in particular schools, and if so, what are the characteristics of those schools?

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