Areas of Expertise:
housing | affordable housing | poverty | housing subsidies | criminal justice
Michael Lens is an associate professor of urban planning and public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and associate faculty director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. He is an expert on poverty, socioeconomic class and equity, and housing. Lens has studied disparate outcomes resulting from inequities in housing markets, neighborhood stratification. His research on housing subsidies and crime has challenged conventional wisdom regarding the housing voucher program, showing that those who receive those subsidies live in much safer neighborhoods than those living in housing constructed with supply-side subsidies.
Lens has also studied job accessibility among housing subsidy recipients, the relationship between land use regulations and income segregation and the effect of negative housing equity on mental health outcomes.
Media Contact
Kate Shirley
310-206-5252
kshirley@luskin.ucla.edu