From Exclusion to Destitution: Race, Affordable Housing, and Homelessness

Author: George R. Carter, III

Dissertation School: University of Michigan

Pages: 136

Publication Date: May 2006

Availability:
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Access Number: 10808

Abstract:

While there is consensus that African-Americans are overrepresented in the homeless population, there has been little research explaining why this is the case. Previous researchers have suggested that residential segregation combined with a declining supply of affordable housing serves to push low-income African-Americans into homelessness and greater access to homeless shelters serves to pull them into homelessness at greater rates than Whites. In this dissertation, these hypotheses were tested and the local cultural forces that influence where affordable housing and homeless services are placed were explored.

First, using data from the 1990 and 2000 Decennial Census and the 1997 American Housing Survey (AHS), the relation between residential segregation, affordable housing supply, and the extent to which African-Americans live in inadequate or overcrowded housing was examined. Second, using homeless client data from the 1996 National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC), housing histories of African-American and White homeless persons were examined. Third, using client data from the 1996 NSHAPC, migration patterns of African-American and White homeless persons to homeless shelters were examined to assess the contention that greater access to homeless shelters pull African-Americans out of substandard housing into homelessness at higher rates than Whites. Finally, content analyses were conducted on newspaper articles from Ann Arbor, Michigan, between 1970 and 2004 to determine the extent to which racial framing has influenced the placement of and the subsequent access to affordable housing and homeless services in the Ann Arbor area.

High rates of residential segregation were found to be associated with low housing quality and crowding in African-American households. Increasing affordable housing and homeownership rates were associated with increased housing quality and decreased crowding. African-American homeless clients were found to be more likely to attribute their current homeless episode to inability to pay rent and were less likely to have migrated for homeless services. In Ann Arbor, community opposition to affordable housing and homeless shelters was found to be rarely framed in racial terms and more likely to be framed in terms of zoning. Implications for the future study of homelessness and policy are discussed.

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