The Department of Housing and Urban development says it appears that families that are able to move out of troubled neighborhoods into better locations often are able to avoid problems that plague tough neighborhoods, such as crime, unemployment and poverty.

HUD has released some preliminary findings of its "Moving to Opportunity" project, a 10-year project that has taken some 4,500 families in cities around the country and moved them from economically stressed neighborhoods to middle-class communities.

According to HUD, MTO is "the first rigorous test of whether better addresses can transform lives." Initial findings conclude that allowing residents to move from highly concentrated areas of poverty to more affluent communities leads to wider opportunities for themselves and their children.

The lessons from MTO are considered critical, especially at a time when federal officials are imploding high-rise public housing projects and municipalities are working to lure more affluent residents back into the inner-city.

At the same time, more and more communities are helping those on welfare move closer to suburban jobs.

Cities participating in the project are New York, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles.

A preliminary report focused on Juanita Jackson and her nine children who lived in the Baltimore area.

Ms. Jackson was moved to suburban Columbia, Md., and although three of her children were upset at having to leave Baltimore's magnet school for the arts, the HUD report said they can adjusted within several months.

The report said Ms. Jackson, a former welfare mother who earned spare money giving readings of her poetry, has achieved her own success from this move, initially found work at a neighborhood drug store but eventually obtained employment with the service that helped her in the first place - the Community Assistance Network.

Apart from rent subsidy, the report said Ms. Jackson no longer received public assistance, not even food stamps, and she has been accepted at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, where she plans to study literature and philosophy when she finishes community college.

The HUD report said most of those participating in the experiment listed crime as the primary problem in their neighborhood that they wanted to get away from.

"Many of these families had been caught in a vicious cycle," said the report. "They wanted to move out of their high poverty neighborhoods, but - in many cases - feared leaving their homes to find a job that would help allow them to move out.

"After moving to their new neighborhood, the adults felt safer moving to their homes and children to go to work."

Published: July 26, 2000

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