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This paper shows that housing wealth helps alleviate credit constraints for potential entrepreneurs by enabling home owners to extract equity from their property and invest it in their business. Using a large U.S. individual-level survey dataset for the 1996-2006 period, we find that a 10% increase in home equity raises the share of individuals who transition into self-employment each year from 1% to 1.07%. Our results persist when we use proxies for aggregate housing demand shocks and for the topological elasticity of housing supply to generate variation in home equity that is orthogonal to entrepreneurial choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of administrative records--data collected by governmental agencies or commercial businesses in the course of administering a program or service--for household enumeration may be one way to significantly reduce Decennial Census costs, particularly in nonresponse follow-up (NRFU). Administrative records suffer the complications of big data in that they are collected for purposes not related to Census enumeration, yet contain a wealth of information relevant to Census enumeration. This paper describes a modeling approach to determine which administrative data are sufficiently reliable to proxy for a field response in a way that reduces costs and balances quality. Specifically, the approach is to (1) develop and assess models to determine characteristics of good-quality administrative records via a retrospective study of linked field and administrative data; and (2) choose a quality threshold, in a statistically defensible way, at which administrative records take the place of field responses. This paper presents empirical results illustrating the cost-quality trade-off of this approach applied to Census enumeration. We assess three classification techniques to further detail the cost-quality trade-off and allow flexibility in balancing predictive power and implementation complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives Reverse mortgages are loans that allow older homeowners to borrow from their home equity with no repayment due until the borrower dies or moves out of the home. We currently know very little about how homeowners evaluate and experience reverse mortgages as solutions to their financial and housing needs in later life. Furthermore, despite an increasingly diverse population of reverse mortgage borrowers, we know little about how social inequalities may contribute to reverse mortgage decisions and their outcomes. In this paper, we examine reverse mortgage decision-making and experiences in a racially and economically diverse sample of older US homeowners. Research Design and Methods We conducted 44 in-depth interviews with older homeowners who were considering or who had obtained a reverse mortgage loan. We inductively and iteratively developed a thematic coding scheme that was applied to all interview transcripts. Results Our analysis produced a dichotomous schema of reverse mortgage decision making that was shaped by social and economic opportunities and constraints. For some participants, reverse mortgages represented strategic tools used to maximize home equity and its benefits. For others, it was an option of last resort to which participants turned when faced with the imminent loss of their home. Discussion and Implications Focusing on reverse mortgages, our analysis suggests way that social inequalities may be reproduced through financial decisions and the unequal landscapes of opportunity in which they are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the types of neighborhoods that black and white homebuyers have secured loans in during the recent housing boom and subsequent bust. We expand upon and refine previous research on locational attainment using loan-level data from the 1992-2010 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) combined with tract- and metropolitan-level data from the 1990, 2000, and 2010 Census and the American Community Survey. Multilevel models show that black homebuyers are moving into considerably more racially segregated neighborhoods than their white counterparts and that their access to "whiter" neighborhoods did not expand during the housing boom, even after controlling for the racial composition of the metropolitan area and other key ecological factors. Conversely, new white homebuyers have been moving into neighborhoods with greater percent black residents, which may be a contributing factor in observed declines in segregation during the past few decades. Additionally, black homebuyers in metropolitan areas with greater suburban growth were on average accessing homes in more integrated neighborhoods. Finally, the models explained considerably more of the variation in the neighborhood racial composition of whites compared to blacks. These findings are suggestive of a dual housing market, one in which the experiences of blacks are still systematically different than those of whites, despite expanded access to homeownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eviction filing rates have declined in many large cities in the United States. Existing scholarship on eviction, which focuses on discrete tenant-landlord relationships, has few explanations for this decline. I consider whether community organizing by nonprofit organizations shapes the social organization of communities and causes landlords to file fewer eviction filings. In cities where tenant and anti-poverty organizing has become common, community-oriented nonprofit organizations advocate for disadvantaged communities and help residents avoid poverty. Community organizing has rarely been studied as a predictor of housing security among low-income tenants, despite studies of how community organizing shapes the use of property in wealthy neighborhoods. I estimate the causal effect of community organizations on eviction filing rates between 2000 and 2016 using longitudinal data and a strategy to account for the endogeneity of nonprofits and eviction. Evidence from year-to-year models in 75 large cities spanning sixteen years estimate that an addition of ten community nonprofits in a city of 100,000 residents is associated with a ten percent reduction in eviction filing. This effect is comparable to the effect of community organizations on murder and is roughly a third of the association between eviction and concentrated disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By exploiting variation in state capital gains taxation as an instrument, we analyze the economic consequences of housing speculation during the U.S. housing boom in the 2000s. We find that housing speculation, anchored, in part, on extrapolation of past housing price changes, led not only to greater price appreciation, economic expansions, and housing construction during the boom in 2004–2006 but also to more severe economic downturns during the subsequent bust in 2007–2009. Our analysis supports supply overhang and local household demand as two key channels for transmitting these adverse effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to examine how urban affordability, and related issues of eviction and joblessness, are associated with gun violence in the United States. After discussing the theoretical importance of studying housing affordability, we provide a preliminary examination of how urban affordability moderates the relationship between other markers of economic disadvantage and gun violence. This study further considers whether these different indicators of disadvantage are associated with gun violence differently by majority Black and majority White neighbourhoods. This study rests on neighbourhood-level data from 4 large US cities. Through a series of fixed-effects models, our results reveal that changes in affordability are significantly associated with rising gun violence in general, particularly in majority Black neighbourhoods. Furthermore, joblessness and eviction are less influential in shaping gun violence in more affordable neighbourhoods, but more consequential in communities facing higher rent burdens. The study reiterates several recommendations about reducing unaffordability in urban communities, as well as recommending several avenues for future research on urban violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has demonstrated that Latinos have been hit hardest by the US foreclosure crisis. In this article, I combine place stratification and spatial assimilation theory to explain why Latinos suffered a devastating double blow during the foreclosure crisis. Using a national sample of borrowers who received risky mortgage loans during the boom and following them through the crisis, I find that Latinos were most likely subject to high-cost subprime lending and especially risky low-/no-documentation lending as Latino suburbanization and immigration peaked along with national home prices. As a result, while Latino borrowers were no less likely to lose their homes to foreclosure than blacks prior to the crisis or in the Rust Belt, they were significantly more likely to lose their homes after the crisis began and in the Sand States of Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada. Taken together, the results demonstrate the risk of rising Latino immigration, suburbanization, and homeownership during the stages of the housing boom and foreclosure crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In most U.S. states, mortgage seniority follows time priority: older mortgages are paid first. This potentially impedes refinancing of senior mortgages because replacement mortgages are junior unless the existing junior lienholders consent to resubordination. We exploit legal variation across states to provide evidence that time priority reduces refinancing, especially of smaller mortgages (suggesting a significant fixed cost of obtaining resubordination) and of mortgages close to the conforming loan limit. On the contrary, we find evidence that time priority renders second mortgages more valuable to lenders, increasing the likelihood that a borrower obtains a second mortgage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives The influx of people with higher socioeconomic status into large Black communities is well documented; less is known regarding smaller, aging Black communities. Older Black adults in Portland, Oregon, among America's fastest gentrifying cities with the smallest metropolitan Black population, discussed barriers to healthy aging. Perspectives centered on the experience of gentrification, displacement, and its impact on social microsystems, place security, and aging in place. Research Design and Methods One-time focus groups engaged 41 Black adults aged at least 45. A demographic survey included residence area/duration. Discussions were thematically coded. Ecological Systems Theory guided interpretation. Results The majority of participants resided within gentrifying historically Black neighborhoods (89.2%), were aged at least 65 (54.6%), and lived in their neighborhood for at least 21 years (24.3%). Emergent discussion themes were rise and fall of Black ownership, displacement, race-related stress, and financial burden. Gentrification contributed to the dismantling of Black property ownership curated over generations, increased financial burden, and threatened place security. Physical displacement strained social networks, diminishing intergenerational neighborhood ties that supported aging in place. Cultural and physical displacement weakened the sense of social cohesion and belonging and induced race-related stressful interactions with new residents within original and relocation neighborhoods. Discussion and Implications Gentrification in the Pacific Northwest echoes national trends, uprooting critical close-proximity social networks and deteriorating motivation to engage in neighborhood-based social activity. Smaller, aging Black communities may be particularly vulnerable to these effects, which critically affect aging in place. Data inform researchers and policymakers to better understand how gentrification affects smaller, aging Black communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated economic crisis have placed millions of US households at risk of eviction. Evictions may accelerate COVID-19 transmission by decreasing individuals' ability to socially distance. We leveraged variation in the expiration of eviction moratoriums in US states to test for associations between evictions and COVID-19 incidence and mortality. The study included 44 US states that instituted eviction moratoriums, followed from March 13 to September 3, 2020. We modeled associations using a difference-in-difference approach with an event-study specification. Negative binomial regression models of cases and deaths included fixed effects for state and week and controlled for time-varying indicators of testing, stay-at-home orders, school closures, and mask mandates. COVID-19 incidence and mortality increased steadily in states after eviction moratoriums expired, and expiration was associated with a doubling of COVID-19 incidence (incidence rate ratio = 2.1; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.1, 3.9) and a 5-fold increase in COVID-19 mortality (mortality rate ratio = 5.4; CI: 3.1, 9.3) 16 weeks after moratoriums lapsed. These results imply an estimated 433,700 excess cases (CI: 365,200, 502,200) and 10,700 excess deaths (CI: 8,900, 12,500) nationally by September 3, 2020. The expiration of eviction moratoriums was associated with increased COVID-19 incidence and mortality, supporting the public-health rationale for eviction prevention to limit COVID-19 cases and deaths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eviction transforms landlords into plaintiffs and tenants into defendants, reframing expansive histories of housing trouble into legal problems. Researchers note high rates of default judgments against tenants, a majority of tenants without attorneys, and a disconnect between the ways that landlords and tenants understand cases. This study reveals the micro-foundations of case outcomes by explaining causes and consequences of "interpretive disjuncture." How does interpretive disjuncture shape case trajectories and outcomes as housing trouble transforms into an eviction lawsuit? Drawing on one year of ethnographic fieldwork in tenants' rights clinics in Los Angeles County, I follow tenants' cases back to their roots and explain how both everyday and institutional challenges shape tenants' interpretive processes as they navigate eviction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As reliance on alternative financial services (AFS) usage continues its exponential expansion among American families, policy debates over banking regulation perdure with limited empirical understanding of how usage affects individuals' financial lives. Using data from the 2014 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, this study explored the association between AFS use and financial well-being using a nationally representative sample (N = 5,896). It also examined the role of household income in AFS use and its relation to financial well-being. Results from regression analyses indicated that AFS use was negatively associated with present financial security measured by credit score, making ends meet, subjective financial well-being, and credit card payment, and that future financial security was measured by having an emergency fund and a rainy-day fund. Moreover, the interaction models showed that lower-income groups had the most negative associations between AFS and most financial well-being indicators, suggesting a substantive role of income in exacerbating the negative relationships. This was the first known study linking use of AFS and household financial well-being with a focus on the role of income. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for policy and social work practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported in this article assessed prevalence and demographic correlates of sex trafficking in a purposive sample of 270 young people experiencing homelessness in three U.S. cities (Philadelphia; Phoenix; and Washington, DC) and at five host agencies. Participants were 57% male, 38% female, 4% transgender, and 1% other. The average age of participants was 20.7 years (SD = 2.0 years). The majority of the participants were African American (56%), followed by white (14%) and multiracial (14%). The Human Trafficking Interview and Assessment Measure detected that nearly one in five young people were victims of sex trafficking, either due to force, fraud, or coercion (FFC); age; or both. Those who were sex trafficked were more likely than those who were not sex trafficked to be female, sexual minorities, or Latino and to have either dropped out of high school or obtained a GED. Differences between being trafficked due to FFC and being trafficked due to age were also investigated. Findings support the need for development of targeted prevention and intervention efforts for young people experiencing homelessness that address sex trafficking victimization and related risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex mortgages became a popular borrowing instrument during the bullish housing market of the early 2000s but vanished rapidly during the subsequent downturn. These non-traditional loans, including interest-only and negative-amortization mortgages, enable households to postpone loan repayment in contrast to fully amortizing traditional mortgages. Contrary to common perception, complex mortgages are used by households with high-income levels and prime credit scores, quite unlike the low-income population targeted by subprime mortgages. Nonetheless, we find that complex-mortgage borrowers become delinquent on their mortgages at rates twice as high as borrowers with plain-vanilla fixed-rate contracts even after controlling for household and loan characteristics. Our findings suggest a link between innovations in mortgage markets focused on prime borrowers and the financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing, Housing security, Older adults, Housing affordability. [Extracted from the article]

The weakly regulated independent mortgage companies (IMCs) had a vastly disproportional contribution to the expansion in risky credit during the mortgage boom and to the ensuing foreclosure crisis. We exploit a quasi-experimental setting, created by the inconsistency of state lender regulations between banks and IMCs and their heterogeneity across states, to isolate the impact of regulation on lending standards using county-pairs straddling state borders. We find that weaker state regulation of IMCs is associated with a sharper expansion of IMCs, particularly in risky high-yield loans, which were also of worse quality in the weakly regulated states, based on subsequent delinquency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the unequal impact of natural hazard damage on people's residential instability over time by shifting analyses from an event-centered design common in disaster studies to a longitudinal, population-centered approach. To demonstrate this approach, we link annual data on property damages from natural hazards at the county level to geocoded data on nationally representative samples of men and women from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Results indicate that the average US household lives in a county that experiences five documented hazards per year, totaling $20 million in direct property damage. Findings also indicate that as local damages accrue over time, so does residential instability, net of other factors. This pattern is particularly strong for Black and Latina women, for whom measurable differences in personal and social resources interact with hazard damages to significantly increase residential instability over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although national housing markets have recovered from the Great Recession, communities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis remain immersed in mortgage trouble. Nineteen percent of homeowners are underwater on their mortgages and communities of color are overrepresented among zip codes still experiencing default in rising numbers. The social services needs of homeowners at risk of foreclosure show few signs of abating. High levels of market risk, asymmetrical power relationships, and the assumption that rational action can protect homeowners mark the climate in which households and social workers operate while attempting to halt foreclosure. The research described in this article draws on in-depth interviews conducted with homeowners at risk of default to examine the strategies they used to alleviate their mortgage strain. These strategies included seeking aid from financial and social services institutions while living under threat of default. As homeowners experienced mortgage strain they engaged in recommended rational market actions such as negotiating with lenders, increasing work hours, practicing strict household budgeting, and seeking aid from social work agencies to offset mortgage costs. The gathered data suggest that some social workers responded with poorly contextualized treatment plans and language characterized by disrespect, shame, and blame; others responded with mental health assistance, referrals to legal aid, and a helping relationship characterized by a sense of mattering that seemed to buffer against the psychosocial stressors associated with foreclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of housing conditions in sleep-related infant injury death, a leading cause of infant mortality in the USA. The use of an unsafe sleep surface is a major risk factor for sleep-related infant injury. This exploratory study examined contextual circumstances, specifically those related to the physical environment, which may contribute to caregivers' decisions to place an infant on an unsafe sleep surface. It employed a retrospective review of 255 sleep-related infant injury death cases in a large urban area from 2004 to 2010 where an infant was found sleeping on an unsafe sleep surface, including 122 cases where a crib or bassinet was identified in the home. Quantitative findings indicated no differences in demographic or risk characteristics between infants with cribs or bassinets and those without them. Qualitative findings suggested the lack of crib or bassinet use may be related to environmental factors influenced by poverty, specifically crowded living space, room temperature and vermin infestation. This study suggests that infants may be at risk of sleep-related injury deaths even when a crib or bassinet is present in the home and supports the consideration of housing conditions in health promotion efforts to reduce infant mortality. Understanding environmental factors that may contribute to infants sleeping on an unsafe surface can help maternal child health and public health professionals develop more appropriate interventions that address deleterious living conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Guided by the concept of "aging in place" and potential policy implications, the study analyzed naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs; 40% or greater house owners and renters aged 65 years and older) and whether there were spatiotemporal patterns in Ohio between 2000 and 2010. Method. Data were derived from the 2000 and 2010 census tracts. Geovisualization was used to visually examine the distribution of NORCs in 2000 and 2010. Global Moran's I was used to quantify the spatial distribution of NORCs in Ohio and Local Moran's I was used to identify clusters of NORCs (i.e., hot spots). Results. The number of NORCs slightly decreased despite the overall increase of the older population from 2000 to 2010. NORCs were identiied in one of the 3 most populous counties (i.e., Cuyahoga) and its neighboring counties. A number of hot spots were identiied in Cuyahoga County (among Ohio's most populous and NORC-rich counties), both in 2000 and 2010. There were different patterns including emerging, disappearing, and enduring NORCs and disproportionate distributions of NORCs across the state between 2000 and 2010. Discussion. Locating NORCs could aid governments to create "aging in place" sensitive policies to address issues of independence, social care, health care, volunteerism, and community participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recent flourishing of mediation analysis techniques, many modern approaches are difficult to implement or applicable to only a restricted range of regression models. This report provides practical guidance for implementing a new technique utilizing inverse odds ratio weighting (IORW) to estimate natural direct and indirect effects for mediation analyses. IORW takes advantage of the odds ratio's invariance property and condenses information on the odds ratio for the relationship between the exposure (treatment) and multiple mediators, conditional on covariates, by regressing exposure on mediators and covariates. The inverse of the covariate-adjusted exposure-mediator odds ratio association is used to weight the primary analytical regression of the outcome on treatment. The treatment coefficient in such a weighted regression estimates the natural direct effect of treatment on the outcome, and indirect effects are identified by subtracting direct effects from total effects. Weighting renders treatment and mediators independent, thereby deactivating indirect pathways of the mediators. This new mediation technique accommodates multiple discrete or continuous mediators. IORW is easily implemented and is appropriate for any standard regression model, including quantile regression and survival analysis. An empirical example is given using data from the Moving to Opportunity (1994–2002) experiment, testing whether neighborhood context mediated the effects of a housing voucher program on obesity. Relevant Stata code (StataCorp LP, College Station, Texas) is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social class confers a bundle of capabilities, practices, and beliefs that are conventionally assumed to be hierarchical, rigid, and self-perpetuating. However, this framework often belies the fact that these qualities needn't be necessarily or exhaustively advantageous. In particular, social change may render obsolete class-linked characteristics that were advantageous in previous periods. Drawing on interviews with homeowners at risk of foreclosure and a yearlong ethnography of a housing counseling organization, I find that although the housing crisis of the “Great Recession” affected both working- and middle-class homeowners alike, the practices of working-class borrowers better positioned them to exploit a number of informational advantages in the rapidly changing mortgage modification setting. My findings are a departure from existing research that treats middle-class capabilities and practices as intrinsically advantageous. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent studies find that high levels of black-white segregation increased rates of foreclosures and subprime lending across US metropolitan areas during the housing crisis. These studies speculate that segregation created distinct geographic markets that enabled subprime lenders and brokers to leverage the spatial proximity of minorities to disproportionately target minority neighborhoods. Yet, the studies do not explicitly test whether the concentration of subprime loans in minority neighborhoods varied by segregation levels. We address this shortcoming by integrating neighborhood-level data and spatial measures of segregation to examine the relationship between segregation and subprime lending across the 100 largest US metropolitan areas. Controlling for alternative explanations of the housing crisis, we find that segregation is strongly associated with higher concentrations of subprime loans in clusters of minority census tracts but find no evidence of unequal lending patterns when we examine minority census tracts in an aspatial way. Moreover, residents of minority census tracts in segregated metropolitan areas had higher likelihoods of receiving subprime loans than their counterparts in less segregated metropolitan areas. Our findings demonstrate that segregation played a pivotal role in the housing crisis by creating relatively larger areas of concentrated minorities into which subprime loans could be efficiently and effectively channeled. These results are consistent with existing but untested theories on the relationship between segregation and the housing crisis in metropolitan areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Residential crowding is linked with the well-being of children and adults. Although extensive U.S. research indicates variation in crowding by race/ethnicity and nativity, far less work investigates differences in crowding by immigrants' citizenship and legal status. Data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (LAFANS) are used to focus on Latinos, the group most likely to experience crowding in the United States. The analyses examine heterogeneity in crowding among four distinct groups of Latinos: U.S.-bom naturalized citizens, authorized noncitizen immigrants, and unauthorized noncitizen immigrants. Theories of locational attainment and immigrant assimilation are used to develop hypotheses about whether intra-Latino variation in crowding is explained by differences in individual, household, and other characteristics, and which structural factors also interfere in this process. Multivariate analyses indicate that neither nativity nor citizenship status are linked with residential crowding, net of other variables. In contrast, lacking legal status does have residual impacts on the outcome: unauthorized noncitizen immigrants are more crowded than authorized noncitizens and all other groups. The results offer support for the spatial assimilation and place stratification perspectives on locational attainment. These findings contribute to emerging scholarship documenting the unique structural challenges that unauthorized Latino immigrants experience in residential outcomes and other domains in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighborhood physical disorder is thought to affect mental and physical health, but it has been difficult to measure objectively and reliably across large geographical areas or multiple locales. Virtual street audits are a novel method for assessing neighborhood characteristics. We evaluated the ecometric properties of a neighborhood physical disorder measure constructed from virtual street audit data. Eleven trained auditors assessed 9 previously validated items developed to capture physical disorder (e.g., litter, graffiti, and abandoned buildings) on 1,826 block faces using Google Street View imagery (Google, Inc., Mountain View, California) dating from 2007–2011 in 4 US cities (San Jose, California; Detroit, Michigan; New York, New York; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). We constructed a 2-parameter item response theory scale to estimate latent levels of disorder on each block face and defined a function using kriging to estimate physical disorder levels, with confidence estimates, for any point in each city. The internal consistency reliability of the resulting scale was 0.93. The final measure of disorder was positively correlated with US Census data on unemployment and housing vacancy and negatively correlated with data on owner-occupied housing. These results suggest that neighborhood physical disorder can be measured reliably and validly using virtual audits, facilitating research on possible associations between physical disorder and health. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]