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While researchers, policymakers and the popular media have given considerable attention to the causes of the foreclosure crisis and its impact on communities, we know little about its impact on individual families and children. Yet, as a result of foreclosures, many children around the country are being forced to leave their existing homes and many are likely leaving their schools as well.
To explore how foreclosures have affected children, the Open Society Foundations funded research in three cities. The Urban Institute studied the relationship between foreclosure and student mobility in Washington, DC, the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance focused on Baltimore, and New York University's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy and NYU' s Institute for Education and Social Policy examined the issue in New York City. We summarize key findings from New York here. Specifically, we review whether children in New York City who live in properties entering foreclosure were more likely than their peers to switch schools and how the new schools the children attended after moving differed from their original schools, in terms of student demographics and performance. Researchers have found that changing schools is often damaging to children's academic performance, and moving to a lower-quality school may be particularly problematic. Our research focuses on elementary and middle school students who attended New York City public schools in the 2003-04 and 2006-07 school years.
Foreclosures in New York City
While New York City may not have been hit as hard by foreclosures as such cities as Cleveland and Detroit, it has experienced a significant spike in recent years. The number of properties receiving a notice of foreclosure (lis pendens or "LPs") each year more than doubled between 2000 and 2010. By the 2006-07 school year, 17,282 properties received a notice of foreclosure. Because so many properties entering the foreclosure process in New York City contain multiple units, more than 35,000 households lived in these properties.
Most of the properties receiving foreclosure notices in New York are located in the boroughs outside of Manhattan, especially Brooklyn and Queens. Within those two boroughs, foreclosures are heavily concentrated in predominantly black and nearly exclusively majority-minority neighborhoods in North-Central Brooklyn and Southeastern Queens.
Foreclosure notices can lead to various outcomes, each of which is likely...