Using a unique data set of millions of advertisements for rental housing and data on the geographic distribution of housing voucher holders, we examine the limits of housing market policies that rely on private-market landlords to meet public needs. We find that although advertised affordable housing is more prevalent in some zip codes than others, voucher households are more geographically clustered than affordable housing. Moreover, voucher holders are overly concentrated in “lower opportunity” zip codes, those with fewer resources for children’s well-being, despite the advertisement of affordable housing in higher opportunity neighborhoods. Using text-analysis techniques, we identify advertisements that explicitly accept or reject voucher holders and find that ads seeking voucher-holding tenants are overrepresented in lower opportunity neighborhoods. We evaluate the significance of these findings for theories of predatory inclusion.
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Working With Them: Small-Scale Landlord Strategies for Avoiding Evictions
This study draws on 71 indepth, semistructured interviews with landlords and property managers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We find that the perceived burdens associated with evictions often make evictions less desirable for small-scale landlords than finding ways to work with tenants to keep them in their homes, including developing payment plans to help tenants catch up on back rent, adjusting rental rates, accepting services in lieu of rent, and aiding in referrals to housing and social service programs. Some landlords employ a technique of paying tenants to vacate, a practice referred to as cash for keys, which is an informal, off-the-books eviction. Our findings suggest that off-the-books evictions are far more prevalent than has been measured in official eviction data; therefore, the prevalence of residential displacement is more severe than previously documented.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1823618
- PAR ID:
- 10224183
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Housing Policy Debate
- ISSN:
- 1051-1482
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 21
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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