Search for: All records

Abstract ObjectiveWe use the case of housing insecurity to examine how romantic partner incarceration results in increased and prolonged surveillance of women at home. BackgroundRomantic partner incarceration prompts surveillance from the criminal legal system while simultaneously eroding women's finances, health, and family relationships. Less is known about how these symbiotic harms of romantic partner incarceration enable surveillance beyond the criminal legal system. MethodWe use longitudinal interviews with 35 (previously coresident) romantic partners of incarcerated men, showing how incarceration prompts unwanted moves for partners, how women manage housing insecurity following partner incarceration, and how they become embedded into living arrangements where they are monitored, evaluated, and controlled. ResultsWe identify three primary findings. First, women experiencing housing insecurity after romantic partner incarceration relied heavily on their social ties (and, to a lesser extent, institutional housing providers) while enduring stressful and prolonged housing searches. Second, the homes that women move into expose them to increased surveillance. Women encounter domestic, caregiving, romantic, and financial surveillance. Romantic partner incarceration prompts large changes in surveillance among women who left independent homes, moderate changes in surveillance among women who left comparatively desirable doubled‐up homes, and prolonged surveillance among nonmovers. Finally, women respond to surveillance by monitoring burdens on hosts and reframing stays in shared homes as temporary. ConclusionTaken together, these findings extend prior research on the symbiotic harms of romantic partner incarceration, how women attached to incarcerated men experience surveillance, and how doubled‐up families sustain shared homes. 

Sociologists have shown how displacement reproduces inequality among U.S. renters. Less is known about the experiences of renters prior to displacement, or how the trade-offs that renters adopt to avoid moves also stratify families. This article addresses this gap by examining how renters with few housing alternatives manage landlord neglect in routine maintenance. Using interviews with 131 non-Hispanic white and Latina/o, low- and middle-income renters living in Los Angeles, I find that unaffordable rental markets embed disadvantaged families, particularly low-income Latina/o immigrants, into substandard indoor living environments. Unable or reluctant to move, renters endure a process that I call negotiating neglect, which encompasses decision making around repair requests, following up with repair delays, investing personal funds into maintenance, and managing the health consequences of disrepair. Negotiating neglect demands substantial time, cognitive labor, and, at times, financial resources, and for some families, it is a chronic stressor. Taken together, these findings advance prior research on how unaffordable rental markets widen inequalities among families. 

Structural racism and individual discrimination contribute to racial inequalities in poor housing conditions in the United States. Less is known about whether and how structural racism and individual discrimination shape a parallel, but distinct, process that is also consequential for family wellbeing: experiencing housing unit maintenance delays. Maintenance delays transform acute problems into chronic stressors and increase exposure to physical hazards over time. Using the 2013 American Housing Survey, I examine racial/ethnic disparities in maintenance delays across non-Hispanic White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian/Alaska Native renters. Given that 2.3 million low-income households rent using Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs), a federal housing assistance program with requirements around repair timing, I also examine how renting with a voucher shapes maintenance delays. There are three principal findings. First, White renters are more likely to report timely repairs than either Black or Hispanic renters. Second, for Black renters, both structural racism experienced in rental markets and individual discrimination drive this disparity, whereas Hispanic renters’ diverging maintenance experiences are largely explained by pathways impacted by structural racism. Third, renting with an HCV is not associated with repair timeliness for any racial/ethnic group. Taken together, the findings suggest that racial/ethnic disparities in substandard housing emerge not only through unequal exposure to housing quality problems but also through unequal responses to these issues. 

Abstract Sociologists have shown how searches for rental housing reproduce inequalities by race/ethnicity and household income in the United States. Yet scholars know comparatively less about how legal status may also limit access to shelter. To address this gap, this article compares the housing careers of 30 low-income, undocumented/mixed-status, Mexican, Central American, and South American families with those of ten low-income, predominantly Mexican, U.S. citizen/LPR families across 103 total moves in Los Angeles, California. Though citizen and undocumented renters moved for similar reasons, the process of finding a new home varied substantially across these two groups. Renters’ legal status became salient during the screening portion of rental applications, which requested a credit and background check, a verifiable income, and banking information for each household adult. As a result, undocumented renters were excluded from most formal rentals. Instead, these families searched for sympathetic managers or doubled up with friends, family members, and non-kin. Despite these barriers, undocumented and mixed-status families achieved greater housing security over time by transitioning from guests to hosts in doubled up homes. These findings extend prior research on how housing searches stratify movers, the housing careers of Latino immigrant families, and the punitive consequences of illegality.