About

Atticus Jaramillo, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Planning and Real Estate Development Programs at the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture. His academic background includes a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, and a B.S. in History and Political Science from the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse. His research specializes in housing and community development planning, with a focus on how housing policies and programs influence health, economic, and neighborhood outcomes for low-income adults and their children. Dr. Jaramillo has contributed to several policy evaluations for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, including evaluations of the Rental Assistance Demonstration, Moving to Work Demonstration, and Jobs Plus Demonstration. Prior to his current role, he served as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Economics
• Political Science
• Demographic economics
• Medicine
• Clinical psychology
• Business
• Gerontology
• Social psychology
• Economic growth
• Public economics
• Psychiatry
• Psychotherapist

Selected publications

• Postdisaster Investment in Single-Family Housing: Insights for Harris County, Texas

  Journal of the American Planning Association · 2026-04-17

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Neighborhood racial and ethnic change in the United States from 1970 to 2010: an application of the Modified Lilien Index

  UNC Libraries · 2025-07-11

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper describes how the Modified Lilien Index (MLI) can be used to measure the rate of neighborhood racial and ethnic change. The MLI is useful because it measures the rate of change across multiple racial and ethnic groups. It also weights the rate of change for each neighborhood based on changes in the racial and ethnic composition of the entire population, which helps contrast neighborhoods undergoing high and low rates of change compared to the nation as a whole. Using harmonized census data, we demonstrate the utility of the MLI by analyzing neighborhood change across four groups—White, Black, Latino, and Asian—from 1970 to 2010. We find that the rate of racial and ethnic change decreased substantially during this time period, but also that there is significant variation in this trend at the regional and metropolitan level. Based on these results, we suggest that the MLI can be used to identify emergent geographies of neighborhood racial and ethnic change within a broader territory and to quantify how change impacts community structure and the outcomes of individuals.

  PublisherDOI

• Can upzoning promote housing affordability? Perspectives from market actors

  Housing and Society · 2025-08-31

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Predicting Labor-Force Participation Among Work-Able Public Housing Residents

  UNC Libraries · 2025-07-15

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Critics of U.S. public housing often argue that the program discourages nonemployed residents from looking for work, yet little research has actually explored how public housing residents make decisions about whether to look for work. Thus, this article explores what factors distinguish nonemployed residents who are in the labor force (actively looking for work) from those who are out of the labor force (not actively looking for work). Relying on a sample of nonelderly, nondisabled public housing residents from Charlotte, North Carolina, we find that nonemployed residents who were older and showed signs of depression were more likely to be out of the labor force. In contrast, residents who were younger, had previously completed jobs training, or had some college education were more likely to be in the labor force. These findings suggest that health, education, and life-course stage may play an important role in determining nonemployed residents’ decision to look for work. Our conclusion discusses how these factors may influence labor-force participation and the relevance of our findings to housing policymakers and scholars.

  PublisherDOI

• Neighborhood Opportunity and Satisfaction Among Housing Choice Voucher Recipients: A Subjective Well-Being Perspective

  UNC Libraries · 2025-07-15

  articleOpen access

  This study analyzes how different neighborhood opportunity characteristics are associated with Housing Choice Voucher recipients’ subjective well-being, as measured by neighborhood satisfaction. We focus on this topic because subjective well-being is linked to a variety of important outcomes, such as health, productivity, and social relationships. Thus, a complete understanding of how opportunity neighborhoods impact low-income households’ lives requires consideration of subjective well-being. Relying on a sample of Housing Choice Voucher recipients living in Charlotte, North Carolina, we find that neighborhood opportunity indicators are not strong predictors of neighborhood satisfaction after controlling for perceptions of neighborhood conditions and household composition. This result suggests that mobility to opportunity neighborhoods may not result in corresponding increases in neighborhood satisfaction and, thus, subjective well-being.

  PublisherDOI

• Is Housing Assistance Associated With Mental Health?

  Journal of the American Planning Association · 2023 · 7 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Clinical psychology
  • Psychiatry

  Problem, research strategy, and findings It is often suggested that housing assistance helps adults overcome mental health challenges, yet researchers have long struggled to unravel the complex psychological pathways that explain whether and how housing assistance affects mental health. We advance the literature by testing for a direct association between housing assistance and two mental health outcomes: depression and anxiety. We also tested for indirect associations, focusing on whether housing assistance affected mental health by affecting psychological stress, sense of control over life circumstances (i.e., mastery), and exposure to discrimination. We found that housing assistance was directly associated with reduced anxiety, but no direct association was found for depression. We also found that housing assistance was associated with variables believed to indirectly influence mental health, including mastery and psychological stress. However, neither of these variables was associated with depression or anxiety.Takeaway for practice Although our findings show some positive relationships, receipt of housing assistance alone was only modestly associated with anxiety, and there was no association for depression. Our findings therefore suggest that mental health services should be made available to program participants because housing assistance alone may not promote better mental health. Supportive housing programs provide a promising model for delivering mental health services to program participants. However, housing planners and policymakers will need to develop new areas of expertise and new strategic priorities to ensure the effective expansion, implementation, and administration of such programs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Health and employment among young adults receiving federal housing assistance

  Journal of Urban Affairs · 2023-10-09 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACTSince the 1980s, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has implemented various “self-sufficiency” demonstrations aimed at supporting employment among federal housing assistance clients. A concern associated with these demonstrations is that adults in poor health will be either excluded from these programs or penalized for not meeting program directives to obtain employment. This concern speaks to the ongoing debate about the importance of work barriers—such as poor health—compared to programmatic work disincentives—such as basing rents on income—in shaping the employment outcomes of HUD clients. We advance this debate through a detailed analysis of the relationship between specific health conditions and employment among a sample of young adult HUD clients. Using a novel dataset and quasi-experimental research design, we find that depression, anxiety, hypertension, and diabetes are prevalent conditions among our sample of HUD clients. We further find that depression and hypertension are significant predictors of non-employment, though depression is only significant among HUD clients and not the entire matched sample. We find no evidence that HUD assistance creates a work disincentive. Our results therefore support the narrative that work barriers such as poor health may create a barrier to employment for HUD clients, many of whom may require specialized health and supportive services to obtain employment.KEYWORDS: Affordable housingemploymentpovertyurban health Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis research uses data from Add Health, funded by grant [P01 HD31921] (Harris) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Add Health is currently directed by Robert A. Hummer and funded by the National Institute on Aging cooperative agreements [U01 AG071448 (Hummer) and U01AG071450 (Aiello and Hummer)] at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Add Health was designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Notes on contributorsAtticus JaramilloAtticus Jaramillo is an assistant professor in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning at the University of Arizona. His work explores how housing policies and programs shape the neighborhood, health, and economic outcomes of low-income adults and children. Other works by Dr. Jaramillo can be found in Journal of the American Planning Association, Housing Policy Debate, Cityscape, and The Social Science Journal.William M. RoheWilliam M. Rohe is a research professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Rohe is co-author of Planning with Neighborhoods (University of North Carolina Press), co-editor of Chasing the American Dream: New Perspectives on Affordable Homeownership (Cornell University Press) and author of The Research Triangle: From Tobacco Road to Global Prominence (University of Pennsylvania Press). He has also published over 70 referred journal articles on the topics of housing and community development policy and practice, as well as numerous research reports for federal, state, and local government agencies and major foundations.

  PublisherDOI

• Neighborhood Opportunity and Satisfaction Among Housing Choice Voucher Recipients: A Subjective Well-Being Perspective

  Housing Policy Debate · 2020 · 13 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Demographic economics
  • Public economics
  • Psychology

  This study analyzes how different neighborhood opportunity characteristics are associated with Housing Choice Voucher recipients’ subjective well-being, as measured by neighborhood satisfaction. We focus on this topic because subjective well-being is linked to a variety of important outcomes, such as health, productivity, and social relationships. Thus, a complete understanding of how opportunity neighborhoods impact low-income households’ lives requires consideration of subjective well-being. Relying on a sample of Housing Choice Voucher recipients living in Charlotte, North Carolina, we find that neighborhood opportunity indicators are not strong predictors of neighborhood satisfaction after controlling for perceptions of neighborhood conditions and household composition. This result suggests that mobility to opportunity neighborhoods may not result in corresponding increases in neighborhood satisfaction and, thus, subjective well-being.

  PublisherDOI

• Predicting Labor-Force Participation Among Work-Able Public Housing Residents

  Housing Policy Debate · 2020 · 6 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Demographic economics
  • Gerontology

  Critics of U.S. public housing often argue that the program discourages nonemployed residents from looking for work, yet little research has actually explored how public housing residents make decisions about whether to look for work. Thus, this article explores what factors distinguish nonemployed residents who are in the labor force (actively looking for work) from those who are out of the labor force (not actively looking for work). Relying on a sample of nonelderly, nondisabled public housing residents from Charlotte, North Carolina, we find that nonemployed residents who were older and showed signs of depression were more likely to be out of the labor force. In contrast, residents who were younger, had previously completed jobs training, or had some college education were more likely to be in the labor force. These findings suggest that health, education, and life-course stage may play an important role in determining nonemployed residents’ decision to look for work. Our conclusion discusses how these factors may influence labor-force participation and the relevance of our findings to housing policymakers and scholars.

  PublisherDOI

• Neighborhood racial and ethnic change in the United States from 1970 to 2010: an application of the Modified Lilien Index

  The Social Science Journal · 2020-03-02

  article1st author

  This paper describes how the Modified Lilien Index (MLI) can be used to measure the rate of neighborhood racial and ethnic change. The MLI is useful because it measures the rate of change across multiple racial and ethnic groups. It also weights the rate of change for each neighborhood based on changes in the racial and ethnic composition of the entire population, which helps contrast neighborhoods undergoing high and low rates of change compared to the nation as a whole. Using harmonized census data, we demonstrate the utility of the MLI by analyzing neighborhood change across four groups – White, Black, Latino, and Asian – from 1970 to 2010. We find that the rate of racial and ethnic change decreased substantially during this time period, but also that there is significant variation in this trend at the regional and metropolitan level. Based on these results, we suggest that the MLI can be used to identify emergent geographies of neighborhood racial and ethnic change within a broader territory and to quantify how change impacts community structure and the outcomes of individuals.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• William M. Rohe

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  4 shared

• Michael D. Webb

  2 shared

• Alexander Kaizer

  University of Colorado Denver

  1 shared

• Jenna Campbell

  1 shared

• T. William Lester

  San Jose State University

  1 shared

• Owen Hawkins

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• 2025 Grassroots Seed Grant Awardees