Rigging the Rules of the Game: How Landlords Geographically Sort Low–Income Renters

Abstract

This paper considers an unexamined mechanism in the selection processes that sort the urban poor into different neighborhood environments: the landlord. Scholars of poverty and residential mobility have long been interested in how the choices of low-income families interact with structural barriers to create high-poverty neighborhoods that reproduce social and economic isolation as well as racial segregation. However, they have not examined the ways in which these choices are shaped by the intermediary force of the landlord. This paper draws on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with 20 landlords and 82 residents in Baltimore, examining their engagement with the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. Findings show that landlords' strategic implementations of voucher rules contribute to residential sorting patterns through a three-step process: first, selection, in which targeted recruitment tactics favor voucher tenants; second, a sorting process in which landlords cherry-pick the lower-end voucher tenants, matching them to hard-torent units; and third, landlords' selective retention of tenants who do not have the means to leave. This results in rigging the game, where a process of "reverse selection" operates: Rather than tenants selecting homes and neighborhoods, landlords are selecting tenants. Taken together, these tactics result in a strategic balkanization of the rental housing market that retains voucher holders where they can be most profitable-in the very neighborhoods policymakers would like to provide them with the opportunity to leave. Landlord tactics serve as a powerful mechanism in the concentration of poverty.

Regulating Landlords: Unintended Consequences for Poor Tenants

“…Recent studies have underscored a vicious cycle of housing insecurity-especially for lower income households-that is difficult to interrupt. In recent years, scholars have begun to uncover how this cycle is perpetuated by landlord screening practices that undermine access to housing among minority, lower income, and other stigmatized populations (Desmond 2016;Greif and Edin n.d.;Rosen 2014). In recent years, scholars have begun to uncover how this cycle is perpetuated by landlord screening practices that undermine access to housing among minority, lower income, and other stigmatized populations (Desmond 2016;Greif and Edin n.d.;Rosen 2014).…”

“…To mitigate perceived risk, many landlords screened tenants based on characteristics they associated with high water bills or nuisance violations-including unemployment, large household size, and housing subsidies-which have been associated with lack of access to stable housing (Desmond 2016;Rosen 2014). Findings show that perceptions of risk-flowing specifically from nuisance and water regulations that rendered landlords accountable for tenant activities over which they perceived little control-were common.…”

“…BACKGROUND An emergent body of literature documents that landlords play key roles in shaping housing security-residents' access to decent, stable, affordable housing (Desmond 2016;Desmond and Shollenberger 2015;Rosen 2014). Divestment was a further strategy employed by some landlords-notably those who operated in lower income communities, where affordable rental housing is becoming increasingly scarce.…”

Pushing the Boundaries: Searching for Housing in the Most Segregated Metropolis in America

“…Yet both of these strategies may have made the suburban search less productive, as prior research suggests landlords in poorer inner-city areas have a greater incentive to advertise to voucher holders (Rosen 2014), and housing authority landlord lists may contain few properties in low-poverty suburban areas , PRRAC 2015. This was done by scanning advertisements for phrases like "rent assistance accepted," or by making use of Housing Authority-published lists of landlords who would accept the voucher.…”

“…4 Research finds that voucher utilization rates are higher in jurisdictions that prohibit source of income discrimination (Freeman 2012), and voucher holders in areas with such protection are less racially segregated than those living in jurisdictions without such laws (Metzger 2014). Programmatic features of the voucher program such as limited search times or administrative barriers to moving between jurisdictions compound these constraints Greenlee 2011) as do the efforts of landlords who seek out voucher holders to fill hard-to-rent units in poorer neighborhoods (Rosen 2014). Programmatic features of the voucher program such as limited search times or administrative barriers to moving between jurisdictions compound these constraints Greenlee 2011) as do the efforts of landlords who seek out voucher holders to fill hard-to-rent units in poorer neighborhoods (Rosen 2014).…”