Neighborhood Opportunity and Satisfaction Among Housing Choice Voucher Recipients: A Subjective Well-Being Perspective

This study analyzes how different neighborhood opportunity characteristics are associated with Housing Choice Voucher recipients’ subjective well-being, as measured by neighborhood satisfaction. We focus on this topic because subjective well-being is linked to a variety of important outcomes, such as health, productivity, and social relationships. Thus, a complete understanding of how opportunity neighborhoods impact low-income households’ lives requires consideration of subjective well-being. Relying on a sample of Housing Choice Voucher recipients living in Charlotte, North Carolina, we find that neighborhood opportunity indicators are not strong predictors of neighborhood satisfaction after controlling for perceptions of neighborhood conditions and household composition. This result suggests that mobility to opportunity neighborhoods may not result in corresponding increases in neighborhood satisfaction and, thus, subjective well-being.