Housing is the foundation for daily life. It connects people to their communities and influences life outcomes, including physical and mental health, economic stability, and upward mobility. But not everyone can afford a home. The pandemic has made this clear by exacerbating housing instability for families with low incomes and creating an even greater need for affordable, stable housing.

Families experiencing poverty often don’t have the resources to pay for a quality, stable home and must make trade-offs to prioritize their family’s education, health, and finances. And because children who grow up living in poverty are less likely to succeed economically as adults, cycles of poverty and housing instability can span generations.

Public services provide critical supports for families experiencing poverty, but they are often siloed. As a result, they not only can be costly and inefficient but also don’t always address a families’ needs in an integrated, holistic way.

Two-generation programs, which strive to end intergenerational poverty by supporting both parents and children living in the same household to improve life outcomes for the whole family, are one model of effective collaboration to increase housing stability. Based on Urban Institute research on multiple two-generation partnerships, we’ve identified four key elements to using two-generational programs to promote housing stability.

Read the full article about two-generation programs by Anna Morgan, Elizabeth Champion, and Eona Harrison at Urban Institute.