Abstract
Previous studies have underscored the difficulty low-income pet owners often face when attempting to secure affordable rental housing. Further exacerbating this housing disparity are fees charged on top of normal monthly rent to pet owners in “pet-friendly” rental housing. In this study, we aggregated rental housing listings from the twenty most populous cities in Texas, USA from a popular online rental database. We paired the rental listings with census tract information from the American Community Survey in order to investigate economic and racial/ethnic patterns in the spatial distribution of the properties. We find that less expensive pet-friendly listings were more likely to have pet fees charged on top of rent than rental units that were more expensive. Additionally, when pet fee burden was defined as a function of average income by census tract, low-income communities and communities of color were more likely than higher income and predominantly White communities to pay disproportionately higher fees to keep pets in their homes. We also find patterns of spatial inequalities related to pet fee burden by a metric of income inequality by city. The burden of pet rental fees may contribute to both housing insecurity and companion animal relinquishment. We discuss these findings as they relate to inequalities in housing, with particular attention to marginalized and disadvantaged people with pets. We conclude with recommendations for policy and practice.
Highlights
Pet ownership is very common in the United States: recent estimates suggest that ∼60% of households in the U.S contain at least one pet [1] and it is likely this number has increased with the popularity of pets during the COVID-19 pandemic [2]
Our analysis focuses on the spatial distribution of rental housing, as related to economic and racial-ethnic aggregated information by census tract, that is advertised as “pet-friendly.”
No significant relationship was observed between the presence of pet fees and the proportion of people of color within the population in a census tract (H = 2.32, p = 0.13)
Summary
Pet ownership is very common in the United States: recent estimates suggest that ∼60% of households in the U.S contain at least one pet [1] and it is likely this number has increased with the popularity of pets during the COVID-19 pandemic [2]. There are no federal regulations limiting the amount of pet fees (i.e., upfront, one-time, non-refundable fee), pet deposits (i.e. upfront, refundable fee, provided there is no damage), or pet rents (i.e., monthly, recurring, non-refundable fee, regardless of damage) a landlord can charge, since rental laws vary by state [13]. In Texas, the setting of this study, pet fees, pet rents, or pet deposits are all legal and there is no cap on their amount, industry best practice is to make security deposits “reasonable” [14].
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