Award Date

August 2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Public Policy and Leadership

First Committee Member

Jaewon Lim

Second Committee Member

E. Lee Bernick

Third Committee Member

Jayce Farmer

Fourth Committee Member

Shawn McCoy

Number of Pages

138

Abstract

This dissertation aimed to analyze the impacts of aggregated federal funding from the CDBG and HOME block grants on temporal changes in the Housing Affordability Index (HAI Change). The temporal change in Housing Affordability between 2011–2015 and 2016–2020 was constructed as the dependent variable to measure the direct and indirect impacts of CDBG/HOME funding. Therefore, this dissertation seeks to identify the impacts of aggregated funding on changes in housing affordability and to explore spatial spillover effects through spatial dependencies that may influence housing affordability change as a dependent variable. The geographical area of this study is the Las Vegas–Henderson–Paradise MSA, Nevada. Research data were collected as secondary data from two primary sources: the ACS five-year estimates (2011–2015 and 2016–2020), and the HUD’s CDBG and HOME dataset portals. The unit of analysis for the models is the census tract, with all finer-level data aggregated accordingly. Finally, four testable models are specified to respond to the research questions.The first model, the OLS model, is designed to address the first research question: Do the CDBG/HOME block grants impact the temporal change of housing affordability? The estimated result for the main hypothesis indicates that CDBG/HOME funding per capita is significantly and negatively associated with housing affordability change and successfully rejects the null hypothesis (1-1). The second model, the SAR model, addresses the research question regarding the spillover effects of housing affordability change (HAI Change) in neighboring areas on the housing affordability change in a given location. The estimation results for this model indicate an insignificant direct impact of CDBG/HOME funding per capita on HAI Change and fails to reject the null hypothesis (2-1). However, the results confirm significant and positive spatial spillover effects of HAI Change on affordability change in a given location or census tract and successfully rejects the null hypothesis (2-2). The third model, the SARMA model, assessed spatial dependencies beyond those captured by the regular SAR Model by estimating the direct impact of CDBG/HOME funding per capita on HAI Change, along with potential spatial dependencies in the dependent variable (HAI Change) and residuals (error term). The results confirmed an insignificant association between CDBG/HOME funding and housing affordability change (HAI Change) (failing to reject Null Hypothesis 3-1), while also indicating the presence of significant spatial dependencies for HAI Change and unobserved elements (error terms) (rejecting Null Hypotheses 3-2 and 3-3). This means that CDBG/HOME funding per capita does not impact HAI Change as the outcome variable, but HAI Change and unobserved elements in neighboring areas significantly produce spillover effects on affordability change in a subject area or neighborhood. The last model, the Spatial Durbin Model, measured the direct impact of CDBG/HOME funding per capita, the spillover effects of funding, and the spillover effects of HAI Change in neighboring areas on HAI Change. The SDM demonstrated a better fit to the data compared to the other models examined in this study. The results of the main hypothesis test in this model revealed that the model failed to reject the null hypotheses for the direct and spillover effects of CDBG/HOME funding per capita on HAI Change (Null Hypotheses 4-1 and 4-2). On the other hand, the results confirmed the spatial spillover effects of affordability change in neighboring areas on HAI Change in a given neighborhood and led to reject the Null Hypothesis 4-3. As conclusion, the OLS model indicated a significant and negative impact of CDBG/HOME funding per capita on HAI Change. However, after controlling for spatial elements—specifically, the spatial lag of dependent and independent variables and the error term—the results of the estimated spatial econometric models confirmed that CDBG/HOME funding is no longer significant. In other words, the impact of CDBG/HOME funding on HAI Change disappeared after controlling for spatial elements. Housing affordability changed because of spatial clusters, not due to funding allocation. Lastly, a set of actionable recommendations is developed for the CDBG/HOME programs administration.

Disciplines

Public Administration | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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