During a time of national and local debate over welfare reform, research is needed to determine the effectiveness of specific welfare programs and the impact on the lives of households participating in these programs. The objective of this study was to determine the effect housing and food expenditures have on the diet quality of low-income families. Participants for the study were drawn from government-subsidized housing rolls and housing assistance waiting lists. Diet quality was measured by 16 variables: percent RDA protein, fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium consumed; percent calories from protein, carbohydrates, fat, and alcohol; and the number of servings from each food group: bread and cereal, fruit, vegetable, meat and protein, dairy, and fats and sweets food groups. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to analyze the relationship between the percent poverty level of the household and the percent of income spent on housing and food with each diet quality variable. No statistically significant correlations were found. Mann-Whitney U tests and t tests were used to determine if diet quality of participants who received housing assistance was different from participants who did not receive assistance. No statistical significance was found. Participant's diets who received food assistance and diets of participants who do not receive food assistance were also analyzed to determine any differences in diet quality. Again, no statistical significance was found between the two groups. The diets of the sample population were found to be fairly average in comparison to overall food consumption patterns of the United States. Consumption of fiber, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products was low. Increased consumer education programs are recommended to improve overall diet.

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Housing, while a necessity of ???life???, goes beyond this definition in this research to also become a technology of government in the domestic distributional geopolitics of nation-states. Employing a Foucaultian approach to power and governance, this research examines how the provision of housing assistance was used in the government of rural public housing communities. Data for this research were collected through a series of archival resources that focused specifically on the transitional periods of 1935-1955 and 1985-2005. Data were also gathered through a questionnaire and interviews with public housing tenants and staff from four towns (Griffith, Cootamundra, Junee and Tumut) in the ???Riverina??? region of south-western New South Wales (NSW), Australia. This research makes five contributions to geographical understandings of distributional politics. First, the thesis contends that poststructuralist theoretical approaches to the analysis of power and governance enable innovative critical engagements with the distributional geopolitical agendas of governmental processes. The research also found that the distributional geopolitical agendas of Governments have been pursued through more than just the redistribution of fiscal resources, but also include the redistribution of human resources. In particular, housing assistance has been, and is used today, to perpetuate certain internal migration patterns to aid this human-distributional agenda. Third, the study argues that ??? while the broad shift to advanced liberal forms of government have resulted in changes to how distributional geopolitical agendas are pursued ??? ???distribution??? remains an integral feature of the geopolitical objectives of those who seek to govern in advanced liberal ways. This work also shows how these new advanced liberal distributional objectives remain open to being problematised and/or resisted at the local scale. However, while such governmental processes are always uncertain and open to contestation, these changes have brought about a new set of ethical and political consequences. We need to be alert to and critical of the ways in which these new distributional geopolitical agendas impact on our own and others??? ???freedoms???.

Housing, while a necessity of ???life???, goes beyond this definition in this research to also become a technology of government in the domestic distributional geopolitics of nation-states. Employing a Foucaultian approach to power and governance, this research examines how the provision of housing assistance was used in the government of rural public housing communities. Data for this research were collected through a series of archival resources that focused specifically on the transitional periods of 1935-1955 and 1985-2005. Data were also gathered through a questionnaire and interviews with public housing tenants and staff from four towns (Griffith, Cootamundra, Junee and Tumut) in the ???Riverina??? region of south-western New South Wales (NSW), Australia. This research makes five contributions to geographical understandings of distributional politics. First, the thesis contends that poststructuralist theoretical approaches to the analysis of power and governance enable innovative critical engagements with the distributional geopolitical agendas of governmental processes. The research also found that the distributional geopolitical agendas of Governments have been pursued through more than just the redistribution of fiscal resources, but also include the redistribution of human resources. In particular, housing assistance has been, and is used today, to perpetuate certain internal migration patterns to aid this human-distributional agenda. Third, the study argues that ??? while the broad shift to advanced liberal forms of government have resulted in changes to how distributional geopolitical agendas are pursued ??? ???distribution??? remains an integral feature of the geopolitical objectives of those who seek to govern in advanced liberal ways. This work also shows how these new advanced liberal distributional objectives remain open to being problematised and/or resisted at the local scale. However, while such governmental processes are always uncertain and open to contestation, these changes have brought about a new set of ethical and political consequences. We need to be alert to and critical of the ways in which these new distributional geopolitical agendas impact on our own and others??? ???freedoms???.

This thesis presents research into the housing pathways of newcomers in Ireland who receive status to remain in the country and come through the Irish direct provision reception system. In the global context of financialisation of housing and local context of state reliance on the private market to provide housing to all sections of society, cities in Ireland are experiencing severe housing crises like many other cities across the globe, characterised by shortage, increasing rents and persistent homelessness rates. Meanwhile, in response to increased migration and heightened border anxieties, Ireland has sought to deter forced migrants, in this case with dispersed and unattractive direct provision reception centres. What happens then to newcomers with status to remain in Ireland, an already particularly vulnerable group in the housing system, when they have to enter this system in crisis after year-long stays in dispersed reception centres? This thesis addresses this question, looking at the specific effects of the Irish housing regime, with its unique local and recognisable global characteristics, and Irish reception policy, with its particular direct provision system, on newcomers’ search for housing. For context, the historical development and current features of the Irish housing regime, as well as migration and reception policy are traced and outlined. The thesis then tracks previous literature from international and Irish settings that deals with the issue of housing for newcomers in the Global North, including the historical development of the field and its current trends. The research design makes use of a cross-sectional, mixed-method approach to achieve its objectives. Using a constructionist housing pathways framework of analysis, accompanied by important concepts from thinkers such as Lefebvre, Agamben and Bengtsson & Borevi, the research draws on a mixture of surveys and follow-up interviews to examine the constraints, structures, strategies and outcomes of households when they have been granted status to remain in Ireland and must leave reception centres and find their own housing. The research identifies identity and power as two crucial factors in the navigation of housing pathways for newcomers and shows the detrimental effect of the retreat of the state from housing provision and reliance on marketised social housing provision on the right to housing for this group. Finally, the thesis recommends potential future studies and the policy implications of the research, in light of the difficulties of finding housing through the HAP scheme reported in this research, urge caution for proposed further reliance on marketised social housing provision for newcomers.