Housing Inequality Research Articles

Contesting Housing Inequality: Housing Rights and Social Movements

This article engages with a leading contemporary criticism of social and economic human rights, namely that because such rights are organised around sufficiency norms, they are ill‐equipped to challenge and overturn forms of material inequality. The sufficiency thesis raises issues around the nature of social rights and their capacity to deliver transformative change, and lays a direct challenge to social movements employing human rights talk and practices in campaigns for social justice. This article breaks new ground by taking the right to housing as a case study for assessing the sufficiency thesis. It is argued that while there is some support for the sufficiency thesis in dominant institutionalised legal forms of the right to housing, the wider claim of the thesis, that social rights are incapable of challenging forms of material inequality, does not hold water. This argument is supported by a broad approach to housing rights that engages with the work of the UN Special Rapporteurs on housing and which takes seriously the way in which contemporary social movements in Spain and Scotland employ housing rights in their struggles for housing justice.

Urban climate justice in hot-arid regions: Vulnerability assessment and spatial analysis of socio-economic and housing inequality in Isfahan, Iran

This research studies urban climate justice in hot-arid regions by assessing the Isfahan metropolitan area's vulnerability to heat and drought and analyzing related socio-economic and housing inequalities. The hybrid F'ANP model has been implemented to develop one multiple and four sectoral vulnerability indices. Afterward, this study analyzes inequalities and, consequently, climate justice based on the association between sensitive socio-economic and housing groups with vulnerability indices using the OLS and MGWR models. The results indicate that Isfahan's northern neighborhoods are more vulnerable to heat and drought than other neighborhoods due to the high building compactness, population density, and the small area of blue-green infrastructure. Isfahan's vulnerability to heat and drought is more associated with housing types than socio-economic characteristics on both metropolitan and local scales. There is a significant association with the proportion of rent, small, old, and unsafe houses with vulnerability to heat and drought. In several neighborhoods, elderlies are more exposed to heat than other citizens. In contrast, low-income households residing in the eastern and western margins are less exposed to heat and drought than high-income households due to the large green lands. However, they have less access to crucial infrastructure, making them more vulnerable to heat and drought.

Urban Housing Inequality and the Nature of Relationship Between Formal and Informal Settlements in Enugu Metropolis, Nigeria

The proliferation of urban informal settlements indicates a failure in housing delivery. Stipulations in the SDGs for better affordable housing for all toward eradicating the heinous housing inequality in society seem to be lacking in a deeper understanding of why housing inequality prevails. Debates on housing inequality were mostly concerned with market transition, changing the order of social stratification, and transitions from a centrally planned economy to a market economy; hence the emphasis on the need for a better understanding of the role of housing in social-spatial equity and justice. This study, therefore, aims to fill this research gap by examining the nature of the relationship between informal and formal neighborhoods of the Enugu metropolis, Southeast Nigeria to make an evidence-based contribution to the body of knowledge on this subject. A cross-sectional survey using a quantitative approach was adopted and 24 informal settlements were identified and studied. The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis and Chi-square. Findings showed the nature of housing inequality in the area as a product of spatially inherent symbiotic relationships embedded in social exclusion, deprivation, and dependency between the formal and informal settlements situating in juxtaposition to one another. At a Chi-square value of 42.643, p = .317 significant at 0.01; residents perceived significant differences in access/availability of decent housing and housing facilities/utility. Interestingly, these informal settlements accommodated over 361,785 unaccounted spill-over populations representing over 60,298 households, constituting 34.69% of the city population not captured in official census records, including over 72.58% of migrants claiming to have relatives residing in these settlements.

Contradictions Within the Swedish Welfare System: Social Services’ Homelessness Strategies Under Housing Inequality

Sweden has seen a rise in homelessness alongside its strained housing market. References are increasingly being made to structural problems with housing provision, rather than individual issues. Housing has been organized through the local social services, which are responsible for supporting homeless people. With a foundation in housing studies, this article analyzes the Swedish social services’ challenges and actions in a time in which affordable housing is in shortage, and housing inequality a reality, through the lens of social services. The focus is on the intersection between the regular housing market and housing provision (primary welfare system), the social services needs‐tested support (secondary welfare system), and the non‐profit and for‐profit organizations (tertiary welfare system), with emphasis on the first two. The article is based on interviews with people working for the City of Malmö and illustrates how the housing shortage problem is moved around within the welfare system whilst also showing that social services’ support for homeless individuals appears insufficient. Social services act as a “first line” gatekeeper for those who have been excluded from the regular housing market. Moreover, recently implemented restrictions aim to make sure that the social services do not act as a “housing agency,” resulting in further exclusion from the housing market. The article highlights how the policies of the two welfare systems interact with and counteract each other and finally illustrates how homeless individuals fall between them. It highlights the need to link housing and homelessness in both research and practice to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of housing markets and how homelessness is sustained.

COVID-19 and racial inequalities in housing: Pre-pandemic and pandemic pathways to housing insecurity

ABSTRACT Drawing on the nationally representative Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey (N = 443,375), this study examined how pre-pandemic and pandemic-induced vulnerabilities shaped racial inequalities in housing insecurity from August to December 2020. Theorizing the pandemic as a “systemic shock,” this article helps explain how racial inequalities are reproduced both as legacies of long-standing disparities and through widespread, societal moments of disruption. Our results indicated that Black, Hispanic, and Asian households were all significantly more likely to fall behind on housing payments than white households. We found that preexisting racial inequities, including in educational attainment, household income, and homeownership rates, largely explained racial disparities in housing insecurity during COVID-19. However, the pandemic also induced new pathways to racial inequalities. Black and Hispanic households were more likely to lose income and when they lost income, they faced a greater likelihood of experiencing housing insecurity. We conclude by highlighting the importance of theorizing disruptive systemic shocks to understand racial inequalities and discuss findings of both disparities faced by Black and Hispanic households, as well as underrecognized housing insecurity among Asian Americans.

Right to toilets? infra-bio-urbanism over human waste, memories, and housing inequality

This research attends to how urban tenants bring matong (toilets in the form of urine buckets)—which are a material, semiotic, and marketable piece of infrastructure—into the debates over the remaking of a heritage district in Hongkou, Shanghai. Challenges abound for the site, which is occupied by prewar buildings where Jewish refugees found shelter during the war and more than 10 thousand Chinese tenants moved in after the Jews left. Until 2020, the dilapidated buildings accommodated an aging population of tenants who wish to stay relevant to the redevelopment vision of Shanghai and a variety of community business, including urban waste recycling. To find a crack in the state-led, neoliberal system, the tenants managed to exercise infrapolitics—an everyday form of resistance—over an urban infrastructure that is of particular significance to their bio-well-being and beyond. We analyze a set of spatial politics on sanatory infrastructure in Hongkou to understand how the tenants are desperately capitalizing on their disadvantages and reassembling memories, waste, and housing inequality into something more promising from below. The theorization of infra-bio-urbanism upon toilets sheds light on the accumulating anxiety upon housing inequality and infrastructural mobility in globalizing cities in China and beyond.

The Impact of the Existence of Racial Inequality on African Americans and the Ways African Americans Respond

Racial inequality persists in the lives of people in the United States, and this inequality reflects, in part, the influence of social class systems and stereotypes; these influences have led to changes in the lifestyles of dominated people and have gradually disempowered minorities, including their entitlement to social benefits and the right to compete, their physical and mental health, and even their lives. These influences are present for minority youth and can even change their perceptions and ways of doing things. This likewise exacerbates the existence of inequities.Based on the method of literature review, this paper discusses how racial inequality affects the lives of minorities, such as African Americans, in their daily lives and demonstrates how this inequality has made the lives of minorities more passive and dominant. Source of materials include reports, online media, journal articles etc. The existence of inequalities in education, housing, police enforcement, and work are examined to reveal the lives of minorities that are affected.This paper examines some of the possible reasons for the emergence of racial inequality, particularly in the context of police brutality. In addition, the paper discusses how minorities are aware of these inequalities and respond to them. Through these responses, minorities are able to protect their rights.

T2 New York City Structural Fires are Linked to Inequities in Safe Heating for Immigrant Communities

Abstract Introduction The US was rattled January 9th, 2022 when a structural fire claimed the lives of eight children and nine adults in New York City’s (NYC) Bronx borough. Existing reports suggest that in low-income historically Black/Latinx communities, heating complaints are often ignored. While this pattern implies housing inequities, landlord negligence, and greater risk of residential fires in the Bronx and other low socioeconomic neighborhoods, this postulation has not been scientifically evaluated. We investigated the relationship between structural fires and heating complaints in NYC, leveraging municipal data from 59 community districts. Methods Data from the NYC Open Data Portal Fire Incident Dispatch data and Heat/Hot Water Complaints were merged to identify the number of heating complaints and structural fires per month in each NYC community district from 2017-2022. Population and demographic comparisons were made using US Census–NYC Demographics 2020 data. The primary outcome was number of structural fires per month which was modeled with mixed effects multivariable regression. Community districts were treated as random intercepts given demographic and architectural variation between districts. Statistical analyses were performed using Stata/IC Version 17.0 (StataCorp LLC). Results Within NYC’s 59 community districts, 3,877 heating complaints were filed against 3,989 structural fires during the study period (Figure 1). The mixed effects model demonstrated a significant association between heat complaints and frequency of structural fires (coefficient 0.013, 95% CI .012-.014 p< .001,). Further, the model demonstrated significant variance among community districts in predicting structural fires (σ2=215, p < .001). The Likelihood ratio test comparing the mixed effects linear model to a simple linear regression yield a p-value of < 0.001 in favor of the mixed effects model. Conclusions The frequency of heating complaints was significantly associated with the frequency of structural fires in NYC. Importantly, this association varied across community districts with more fires occurring in districts with greater proportions of Black/Latinx residents. Our results highlight a pattern adversely affecting marginalized racial/ethnic communities in which ongoing ignored heating complaints and landlord negligence may lead residents to use unsafe heating practices, inadvertently creating structure fires, morbidity, and death. Applicability of Research to Practice Our findings can help guide and educate both clinicians and policymakers in regard to socioeconomic disparities and epidemiological trends implicated in burn care.

Pursuing Antiracist Public Policy Education: An Example Connecting the Racist History of Housing Policy to Contemporary Inequity

We review the antiracism concept and contextualize it in Extension public policy education and the Extension system itself. Despite public policy education having a long history in Extension on a wide variety of issues, missing from this programming is the pursuit of antiracism. As a programmatic example, we review some historical causes of present-day housing inequities and an associated example approach for pursuing antiracism in housing policy education. Finally, we conclude by noting additional opportunities to pursue antiracism in Extension public policy education. In doing so, we emphasize that public policy education cannot be “nonracist” if it is not antiracist.

The Unintended Consequences of COVID-19 Economic Responses on First Home Buyers? Evidence from New South Wales, Australia

As in many other nations, the Australian Government implemented monetary and fiscal policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to aid economic recovery. Among these policies were specific measures to assist first home buyers (FHBs) in entering the housing market. However, these unprecedented economic policies might have other direct and indirect implications on FHBs, which have yet to be thoroughly explored in the literature. To fill this gap, through a survey, we collected information via public and online mortgage broker platforms from 61 FHBs who successfully entered the housing market or were actively searching during the pandemic. The results found COVID-19 economic responses counterproductive for FHBs, pushing them to a more disadvantaged position due to an overheated property market. In addition, since the onset of the pandemic, property prices have risen significantly, exacerbating housing inequality as FHBs increasingly rely on intergenerational family support, take on more financial risk, and relocate to regional areas due to fear of missing out. The study highlights the need for macroeconomists and housing policymakers to consider these unintended consequences in formulating policies that minimise the adverse effects of economic stimulus measures.

Crime, inequality and subsidized housing: Evidence from South Africa

We study the relationship between housing inequality and crime in South Africa. We create a novel panel dataset combining information on crime at the police station level with census data. Our analysis shows that housing inequality explains a significant share of the variation in both property and violent crimes, net of spillover effects, time and district fixed effects. An increase of roughly one standard deviation in housing inequality explains 10–12 percent of total crime increases. Additionally, we analyze a prominent housing program for low-income South Africans to show that policies that decrease inequality in housing conditions may also reduce crime. We suggest that these policies can help mitigate the societal and individual strains that are often correlated with criminal engagement.

The Urban Environment and Disparities in Sexual and Reproductive Health Outcomes in the Global South: a Scoping Review.

By 2050, the Global South will contain three-quarters of the world's urban inhabitants, yet no standardized categorizations of urban areas exist. This makes it challenging to compare sub-groups within cities. Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are a critical component of ensuring that populations are healthy and productive, yet SRHR outcomes within and across urban settings vary significantly. A scoping review of the literature (2010-2022) was conducted to describe the current body of evidence on SRHR in urban settings in the Global South, understand disparities, and highlight promising approaches to improving urban SRHR outcomes. A total of 115 studies were identified, most from Kenya (30 articles; 26%), Nigeria (15; 13%), and India (16; 14%), focusing on family planning (56; 49%) and HIV/STIs (43; 37%). Findings suggest significant variation in access to services, and challenges such as gender inequality, safety, and precarious circumstances in employment and housing. Many of the studies (n = 84; 80%) focus on individual-level risks and do not consider how neighborhood environments, concentrated poverty, and social exclusion shape behaviors and norms related to SRHR. Research gaps in uniformly categorizing urban areas and key aspects of the urban environment make it challenging to understand the heterogeneity of urban environments, populations, and SRHR outcomes and compare across studies. Findings from this review may inform the development of holistic programs and policies targeting structural barriers to SRHR in urban environments to ensure services are inclusive, equitably available and accessible, and direct future research to fill identified gaps.

Can Canada become home without a house? The intersectional challenges to housing and settlement among refugees

Service providers’ crucial roles in securing housing for refugees in Canada is a topic scantly addressed in the broader literature. A focus on frontline workers in the housing and settlement sectors offers a productive analytic lens to map the critical link between service provision and housing access for refugees. Based on thirteen semi-structured interviews with service providers across nine organizations in Toronto, Canada, this study illuminates housing access barriers, such as lack of affordable housing and perceived housing discrimination. Furthermore, this paper unearths the intersectional praxis of frontline workers. Broadening the analytical frame to include an intersectional lens centring race, class, immigration status, and gender, this paper enriches current scholarship on 1) housing inequality, 2) refugee settlement, and 3) intersectionality. This paper also makes an epistemic intervention in the evolving field of housing studies at critical junctures. While this research was conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, this study reflects on the added complexity of the pandemic to refugees’ housing access.

Addressing Housing Inequalities in Post-Conflict Belfast A Transformative Justice Approach

Belfast is a deeply divided and fragmented city not just politically, socially, and economically but physically. It is a city shaped by its history, its experiences of violent conflict and its post-conflict transition. A collage of so-called peace walls and interface areas segregate neighbourhoods across the city creating some of the most socially and economically deprived areas where inequalities are significantly exacerbated by the tension and sectarianism that segregation reinforces. Despite the peace process, historical and new inequalities in the provision and allocation of social housing affect many vulnerable individuals and communities resulting in unequal access to adequate housing; overcrowding; housing stress; homelessness; higher waiting lists and longer waiting times. The challenge of navigating housing in a politically and physically divided city has resulted in failed opportunities to shape policies and procedures to address existing, persistent, and new housing inequalities.
 Addressing the legacy of violence and human rights violations is central to building sustainable peace in transitioning societies. If we acknowledge that socio-economic inequalities are not only a consequence of violent conflict but also a root cause, then we must also acknowledge that correcting these inequalities is an essential component of post-conflict policy. Transitional justice often overlooks violations of socio-economic rights and the impact of these on victims and wider society. A growing body of literature suggests transformative justice expands the traditional ‘toolkit’ to include measures, not typically employed in transitional justice, to confront violations of socio-economic rights, address the needs of victims and assist in societal transformation more effectively. Under a transformative justice approach, my research explores how affirmative action and the role of social movements, such as the Right to the City, could be used to address housing inequalities in post-conflict Belfast. In doing so we could look to the future as well as deal with the past.

Housing adequacy in an informal built environment: case studies from Ahmedabad

Informal settlement is a spatial manifestation of inequality, in that people turn to informal solutions for housing when formal ones are out of reach, usually because of financial constraints but also other factors such as social exclusion. However very little is known about the architectural and urban forms that constitute informal settlements, and thus how this inequality manifests spatially, and what specifically is inadequate in these settlements is not currently well understood. We use the framework of the United Nations Right to Adequate Housing as a benchmark to determine whether housing is contributing to inequality through one or more failures of adequacy, in which case we define these as being inequitable housing. We analyse the architecture of four cases within three informal settlements in Ahmedabad, Gujarat state, India, to examine how these urban forms both reflect and/or remedy multi-scalar urban housing inequalities. Four key physical spaces are found to be important: the dwelling’s site, resident’s control over dwelling design and construction, the design of the dwelling threshold, and the characteristics of shared open spaces. In the right combination, the quality of these physical spaces in informal settlements can contribute to informal settlement residents achieving housing adequacy. A better understanding of the built environment of informal settlements can enable designers and planners to harness the potential of informal settlement environments that are assets of the urban poor, create a context that stops informal settlements becoming ‘slum-like’ and help construct pathways towards urban equality.

Gendering the Politics of Black Displacement

Historians, sociologists, and critical urbanists have long argued race and racial discourse are critical cultural levers used to validate contemporary gentrification schemes in urban centers. Applying a Black feminist materialist analysis to the case study of the recent gentrification wave in Washington, DC, this article adds and deepens this literature, tracing the definitive role gender plays in facilitating displacement and affordable housing inequities in gentrifying urban centers.

At home: Panoramas de nos Vies Domestiques: some ecological reflections

Domestic interiors are invested with a multitude of meanings; political, economic, social, cultural, psychological, and ecological among them. Between 2020 and 2022, the height of the Covid pandemic in Europe, the authors co-curated an exhibition—At Home: Panoramas de nos Vies Domestiques—for the 2022 St Etienne Design Biennale. The design exhibition explored those meanings, past, present, and future, and addressed the key themes challenging our domestic spaces in the early twenty-first century, including the climate emergency, housing inequality and the market, and the technology-fuelled erosion of privacy. This article will unpack the ways in which those themes and challenges interact with each other through the concept of ecology, understood in its broadest sense as a balanced relationship between human beings and the planet, and how, through the exhibits on display, designers have responded to them and suggested future directions.

Still Separate and Unequal: Persistent Racial Segregation and Inequality in Subsidized Housing

Initially, U.S. federally funded low-income rental housing was racially segregated and unequal. Activists decried this injustice and pressured legislators to introduce new practices and procedures. Since the passage of these initiatives in the 1960s, scholars have repeatedly documented ongoing racial inequality in housing at large. Yet rarely have researchers investigated whether racial inequality persists within governmentally subsidized housing units. By merging the restricted American Housing Survey with the American Community Survey at a Federal Statistical Research Data Center, the authors find that low-income renter subsidies are effective and beneficial but disproportionately grant White residents access to cheaper and higher quality units. Moreover, subsidized renters remain racially segregated across program type and neighborhoods. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research and policy decisions.

Housing justice as expansion of people’s capabilities for housing

Housing inequality is a growing concern in our society. In recent decades, this inequality has been exacerbated by the phenomenon of housing being financialized and commodified as a means for wealth accumulation. Management of financial institutions and housing markets has become the centre of attention in policy discussion. The questions of how to promote the moral values tied to housing, such as human rights, dignity and freedom, and how to better enable people to access suitable housing have been marginalized. As a way forward, the states’ re-intervention and redistribution policies, and the human rights-based approach to housing policies are discussed, but this thesis advocates for a more ambitious paradigm shift. By extending Amartya Sen’s capability approach to housing, the thesis argues for resetting the primary goal of housing policies as expansion of people’s capabilities for housing—expanding opportunity, ability and security to lead their valued ways of residing—beyond the distribution of monetary and material resources for housing, such as housing benefits and dwelling units. This thesis presents the theoretical foundations of this argument and proposes basic principles to guide housing policies, which can serve as a normative basis of housing debates on necessary policy actions. An essential tool to guide housing policies towards this newly proposed goal is to evaluate policy outcomes and housing affairs of people—well-being, deprivation and inequality in housing—with capability considerations. The thesis suggests how this evaluation can be done and can help policies address the inequalities in what people can do to pursue their suitable housing options and how well they are actually residing.

Housing inequality in relation to housing tenure: Evidence from Ho Chi Minh City

Unfair distribution of social resources, including valuable assets such as housing, leads to inequality and threatens the sustainable development of countries. This phenomenon is a hot issue, attracting the attention of many researchers worldwide. Ho Chi Minh City is considered one of the economic-financial centers of Vietnam, with a high average annual GDP growth rate, rapid urbanization, and the flow of migrant workers to live and work has increased rapidly in recent years. Although many achievements are based on outstanding developments, Ho Chi Minh city has faced many difficulties in housing policy due to the limited urban land fund, colossal population, and housing prices many times higher than the residents’ income. It is shown that there are difficulties in access to affordable housing in Ho Chi Minh City, especially for the population's low- and middle-income segments. This creates inequality and considerable pressure on housing development policy in urban areas. The article uses OLS regression to analyze issues related to housing inequality in Ho Chi Minh City in the relaion to living space and homeownership, then gives some implications for housing policy toward improving the quality of living standards in terms of residential conditions. Research data is taken from a survey of 700 households in Ho Chi Minh City conducted by the author in 2020. The results show that household income, working time, age, education, household size, and a household with small business activity at home affect the household living space area. In addition, these factors have different impacts on families with housing tenure. The author believes that in the future, the government should focus on improving education, providing stable jobs, and planning suitable housing places to ensure equitable distribution of social resources, including housing.