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Methods: Data are from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth main survey and young adult survey in 2004. The sample includes 2,530 adolescents aged 14-19. A stratified, propensity matching method was used to determine the treatment effect of public housing and subsidized housing residence, respectively.

Results: There was no significant relationship between violence, heavy alcohol or heavy marijuana use, or other drug use and public housing residence. However, subsidized housing residents had significantly lower rates of violence and hard drug use, and marginally significant lower rates of heavy marijuana/alcohol use.

Conclusions: First, the results suggest that the depiction of risk behavior among teens in public housing needs to be clarified. Labeling or stereotyping teens living in public and subsidized housing as violent and/or drug users is misleading. Second, the results illustrate the value of distinguishing between public housing and subsidized housing populations in academic studies. Third, and most importantly, the present results indicate that the consistent, positive effect of vouchers is not due to a lower standard among the typical comparison group: public housing. Therefore, future studies should focus on conceptualizing and analyzing the ways that subsidized housing protects adolescent residents, beyond comparisons to public housing environments.