About

Vincent Reina is a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also serves as the Founder and Faculty Director of the Housing Initiative at Penn. His research focuses on urban economics, housing policy, and community and economic development, with his work published in various peer-reviewed journals. Reina has received several awards for his contributions, including article of the year by the Journal of the American Planning Association, the Best Dissertation Award from the Association of Public Policy and Management, and the Rising Scholar Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. He has served as the Senior Advisor for Housing and Urban Policy in the White House Domestic Policy Council from 2022 to 2024, working on addressing housing affordability and supply challenges, promoting fair housing, increasing access to homeownership, and advancing equitable development and community investment. Reina established the Housing Initiative at Penn in 2019, which has collaborated with multiple cities such as Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Cleveland to develop housing strategies and evaluate emergency rental assistance programs. His previous work includes helping the City of Philadelphia develop its housing preservation framework and strategy, as well as working with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. Reina has held positions as a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, a Lincoln Institute for Land Policy Scholar, and a Coro fellow. He has also been involved in national policy discussions as a Steering Committee member for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on COVID-19, Housing, Foreclosure, and Eviction. His educational background includes a PhD in Public Policy and Management from the University of Southern California, an MBA from New York University, an MSc in Comparative Social Policy from the University of Oxford, and a BS in Urban Studies from Cornell University.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Business
• Economics
• Sociology
• Geography
• Socioeconomics
• Economic growth
• Economy
• Labour economics
• Law
• Public relations
• Psychology
• Marketing
• Demographic economics
• Gender studies
• Medicine
• Finance
• Environmental health
• Economic geography
• Anthropology

Selected publications

• Housing Cost Burden and Outcomes Among Medicaid Beneficiaries With Heart Failure

  JAMA Health Forum · 2026-01-02 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Importance: Housing cost burden is at an all-time high in the US and may disproportionately affect health outcomes among low-income populations. Medicaid-insured individuals and those diagnosed with cardiovascular (CV) disease, such as heart failure (HF), may be especially at increased risk of adverse health outcomes associated with housing cost burden. Objective: To assess the association between area-level housing cost burden and the probability of CV-related hospitalization or emergency department (ED) visits among Medicaid beneficiaries aged 19 to 64 years with HF. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cross-sectional study used individual-level health care utilization data obtained from the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System Analytic Files (2018-2019). All zip codes in the US with resident Medicaid beneficiaries aged 19 to 64 years who had a preexisting diagnosis of HF and were continuously enrolled in 2019 were included except for those in Alabama, Rhode Island, and Utah due to data quality issues. Data were analyzed from October 2024 to October 2025. Exposure: Area-level housing cost burden was defined as the zip code-level proportion of housing units occupied by individuals with an annual household income less than $35 000 who spent 30% or more of their income on housing costs. Main Outcomes and Measures: The probability of a CV-related hospitalization and of a CV-related ED visit in 2019. Generalized estimating equation models were used to evaluate the association between housing cost burden and outcomes after adjusting for individual and area-level factors. Results: This study included 233 195 individuals (mean [SD] age, 51.5 [9.6] years, 107 447 female [46.1%]) who were living in 19 577 zip codes. The mean (SD) zip code housing cost burden was 67.4% (16.5%). In 2019, 42 886 beneficiaries (18.4%) had at least 1 CV-related hospitalization and 75 392 (32.3%) had an ED visit. After covariate adjustment, a 10-percentage point increase in housing cost burden was associated with higher odds of CV-related hospitalizations (odds ratio [OR], 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01-1.06) and ED visits (OR, 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01-1.04). There were also higher odds of HF-related hospitalizations (OR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.01-1.07). Conclusions and Relevance: The findings of this study suggest that area-level housing cost burden may be associated with outcomes among Medicaid beneficiaries with HF and highlights the need to investigate whether strategies that address housing affordability can play a role in improving health outcomes in this population.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Permanent Supportive Housing and Cardiovascular Outcomes Among Veterans Experiencing Homelessness: A Difference-in-Differences Analysis

  Journal of General Internal Medicine · 2026-03-06

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Veterans experiencing homelessness have a high burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Identifying approaches that can improve the health of this population is crucial. OBJECTIVE: The Department of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) provides permanent supportive housing (PSH) assistance. We examined whether obtaining PSH through HUD-VASH was associated with changes in outcomes among Veterans with CVD experiencing homelessness. DESIGN: Using a difference-in-differences (DID) approach, outcomes among Veterans who received a HUD-VASH voucher and moved into PSH within one month (early group) were compared with those who received a voucher but remained unhoused for at least six months (delayed group). PARTICIPANTS: Veterans ≥ 18 years of age with CVD (coronary artery disease, heart failure, peripheral arterial disease, ischemic stroke/cerebrovascular disease, or atrial fibrillation) who experienced ≥ 6 months of homelessness and received a HUD-VASH voucher in 2016 to 2019. INTERVENTION: Entering PSH after receiving a HUD-VASH voucher. MAIN MEASURES: Six-month probability of a cardiovascular ED visit or hospitalization. KEY RESULTS: Among 970 Veterans with CVD experiencing homelessness, 845 were in the early and 125 in the delayed PSH group. There was a significant decrease in the 6-month probability of cardiovascular ED visits or hospitalizations (16.3% [95% CI 13.9% - 18.7%] to 11.9% [95% CI 9.8% - 14.0%]) among Veterans who received a voucher and moved into PSH within one month, but no statistically significant change among Veterans who did not move into PSH for at least 6 months (13.4% [95% CI 8.0% - 18.8%] to 18.1% [95% CI 11.4% - 24.8%]) for a DID estimate of -9.1 (95% CI -17.7 - -0.5) percentage points, p = 0.04. CONCLUSIONS: Obtaining PSH through HUD-VASH was associated with a significant decrease in the probability of CVD related ED visits or hospitalizations among Veterans with chronic CVD experiencing homelessness.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Lessons from California’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program: The Experience of Administrative Burden in Policy Implementation

  Social Service Review · 2026-04-16

  articleSenior author

  We explore the impact of burden-reducing legislation intended to improve access to emergency rental assistance through California’s COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program. The law simultaneously made three changes to the program: it simplified paperwork, fully funded rent arrears, and created a means to send funds directly to the tenant. Using a pre-post modeling approach on administrative data, we find strong evidence that the law increased the capacity of the program to disseminate needed assistance, particularly to women, Hispanics, those living in less dense dwelling units, and those in less formal housing arrangements. However, our descriptive analysis finds little evidence that these changes affected tenant experience. We conclude that reducing compliance costs for administrators by clarifying and easing statutory requirements led to improved outcomes for program applicants. However, these improved outcomes were largely invisible to applicants, who continued to experience long wait times and limited communication from a program scrambling to meet a tremendous need. We contribute to the administrative burden literature by emphasizing the administrator’s experience of burden in an emergency setting, providing evidence of the effectiveness of direct rental assistance for single-family and low-density dwellings, and pointing to a gap in the literature about disaster response and recovery programs.

  PublisherDOI

• Expanding Access to Rental Assistance: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go From Here?

  Housing Policy Debate · 2025-04-24 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Editorial

  Housing Policy Debate · 2025-05-04

  editorial1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Editorial

  Housing Policy Debate · 2025-01-02

  editorialOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Abstract 4140037: The association of housing unaffordability with medication adherence and health outcomes among non-elderly adult Medicaid beneficiaries with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease

  Circulation · 2024-11-12

  article

  Background: The burden of housing costs is at an all-time high in the United States. Individuals with lower socioeconomic status experience worse health outcomes and are also disproportionately impacted by housing costs. Whether housing unaffordability is independently associated with medication adherence or health outcomes in individuals with cardiovascular (CV) disease is not well studied. Methods: All 19- to 64-year-old Medicaid beneficiaries in the United States with atherosclerotic CV disease (ASCVD) – coronary artery disease, peripheral arterial disease, and cerebrovascular disease/stroke – in 2018 were identified using Medicaid administrative claims data. The study population was limited to people continuously enrolled in 2019 and excluded Medicare-Medicaid dual enrolled beneficiaries. Medication adherence to Statin therapy and the number of all-cause and CV emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations were assessed in 2019. ZIP code level housing cost burden was measured as the proportion of all residents who spent more than 30% of their income on housing costs and was obtained from the 2015-2019 American Community Survey. Negative binomial generalized estimating equation (GEE) models were fit to account for the hierarchical nature of the data and were adjusted for individual demographic and clinical variables and area-level measures of socioeconomic status and social vulnerability. Results: A total of 443,984 beneficiaries with ASCVD living in 24,349 ZIP codes were identified. The mean ZIP-code level proportion of residents with unaffordable housing was 33.5% (SD=6.3%). In the multivariable GEE models, a 1 percentage point increase in the proportion of residents with unaffordable housing was associated with 0.05% (95% CI 0.01% to 0.1%) lower adherence to Statin therapy. It was also associated with a 0.6% (95% CI 0.3% to 0.8%) increase in the number of CV ED visits and a 0.3% (95% CI 0.04% to 0.5%) increase in CV hospitalizations. Housing unaffordability was also associated with a significant increase in all-cause ED visits [0.4% (95% CI 0.2% to 0.5%)]. Conclusion: Among non-elderly adult Medicaid beneficiaries with ASCVD, residence in a ZIP code with higher levels of housing unaffordability was independently associated with lower medication adherence to Statin therapy and a higher number of CV ED visits and hospitalizations. Whether improving housing affordability among this population can improve CV health outcomes needs to be studied further.

  PublisherDOI

• Editorial

  Housing Policy Debate · 2024-07-03

  editorial1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Local Variation in Emergency Rental Assistance Program Design and Implementation

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Effects of Emergency Rental Assistance During the Pandemic: Evidence from Four Cities

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• John D. Landis

  University of Pennsylvania

  10 shared

• Raphael W. Bostic

  Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

  10 shared

• Catherine H. Augustine

  7 shared

• Claudia Aiken

  7 shared

• Lois M. Davis

  7 shared

• Heather L. Schwartz

  RAND Corporation

  7 shared

• Richard K. Green

  University of Southern California

  7 shared

• Yeonhwa Lee

  California University of Pennsylvania

  7 shared

Awards & honors

• article of the year by the Journal of the American Planning…
• Best Dissertation Award by the Association of Public Policy…
• Rising Scholar Award by the Association of Collegiate School…
• Stoneleigh Foundation Fellow
• Coro fellow