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This article documents how an MSW student in an introductory community practice course took her class assignment and over the course of two years revitalized, democratized, and transformed a sclerotic, corporate-run Home Owners Association (HOA). While the community analysis assignment required the student to interview six of her neighbors, the resulting increase in social capital in the neighborhood led, over the next two years, to the student being elected President of the HOA and organizing the community to win streetlights, clean up a polluted retention pond, create positive relations with city officials, and increase the social capital and collective efficacy of the neighborhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catastrophic wildfire is an increasingly familiar phenomenon on multiple continents. In the United States, concerns about uncontrolled, destructive wildfire have prompted some major insurance carriers to cease writing new policies or to non-renew existing policies. These trends affect not only policyholders, but also, vulnerable communities that already face multiple obstacles to securing property or renters insurance. This study reviews the social and behavioral sciences literatures on wildfire risk in the United States and insurance protection by homeowners. Three categories of research emerge from the review, namely, homeowner as rational actor, wildfire governance and risk management, and wildfire and social equity. There is abundant scholarship on determinants of homeowner decisions to manage wildfire risk by self-protecting or by purchasing insurance, but comparatively little research on the policy implications of shrinking markets for insurance. Policy research on the needs of underinsured and uninsured populations is also relatively undeveloped. Overlaying Lasswell's social process framework on the three dominant research themes, we find not only divergent research questions, models, and methods, but also, important differences in which stakeholders and stakeholder values are considered. There are opportunities for the different literatures to learn from one another, but also, to sharpen their focus on insurance as a scarce and uncertain resource amid climate change and as property development continues to expand in wildfire-prone areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent empirical work has suggested that the people who show up at land use hearings tend to be whiter, wealthier, older, and more likely to be homeowners than the surrounding community. They also are more opposed to new housing construction in their communities. Thus, the views of these groups are amplified and the outsized opposition to new housing (often referred to as NIMBYism) stymies needed development--despite the fact that these voices are not representative of the community as a whole. Scholars have just begun to explore the question of why community members who support development fail to have their voices heard. Existing scholarship has identified several reasons why lower income people and people of color are underrepresented at public hearings, such as scheduling of meetings during the workday, the burdens that attendance imposes on those who lack childcare, and the lack of communication to the public about hearings in languages other than English. But these barriers to participation are only part of the story. Relying on an original compilation and analysis of empirical data, we argue in this Article that there is an even more fundamental reason for the underrepresentation of these community members: Because they are not invited. Our analysis shows that unlike homeowners, tenants--who are disproportionately lower income and more likely to be Black and Latinx--often do not receive notice of public hearings under local ordinances. We find that, of the 75 largest cities in the United States, only twelve cities affirmatively provide notice of public land use hearings to tenants, whereas nearly all of these jurisdictions affirmatively provide notice to property owners. Our research has major implications for land use and local government scholarship. The prevailing pattern of non-notice to tenants reflects a broader pattern of anti-tenancy that exists throughout the legal system. Anti-tenancy is rooted in race and class biases, and thus contributes to deepening wealth inequality and systemic racism. Non-notice to tenants not only exacerbates this systemic inequality, but is also economically inefficient, and may amount to a due process violation in some instances. For these reasons, we contend that the failure to notify tenants of land use changes in their neighborhood is normatively unjustified. As a prescriptive response, we offer a model ordinance, showing how local governments can readily modify their notice requirements to include tenants with minimal cost or logistical friction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation's (HOLC) so-called 'redlining' maps have gone from a niche corner of urban historical scholarship to the centre of mainstream narratives about racism in the United States. In this paper, I map this journey and trace the contours of the ongoing debates that have emerged, identifying two competing camps I call 'HOLC Culpablism' and 'HOLC Scepticism'. Finding these perspectives to have run up against their self-imposed limitations, I outline a research agenda that breaks from the debate's narrow confines by envisioning HOLC's mapping materials anew. My proposed approach recasts the maps and their accompanying field notes as windows into the governing racial–spatial ideology of 20th-century US real estate capital. In doing so, it invites researchers to reimagine the map grades as dynamic categories reflecting a particular spatiotemporal conception of value that is highly contingent on an area's estimated racial trajectory. This reformulation, I argue, not only opens new possibilities for studying the HOLC mapping programme but suggests that the power of these maps has almost certainly been underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its subsidy retention fund, the city of Ghent targets homeowners, who live in a dwelling of bad quality and do not have the resources to renovate or move out. Being in this no-choice situation, they are locked-in homeowners. Through this innovative policy instrument, Ghent aims to improve the quality of its housing stock targeting households who may not take up other renovation-encouraging instruments. To reach the households who would otherwise not be able to renovate, important efforts in outreaching and offering technical and social guidance accompany the renovation subsidy. Guidance activities substantially increase the cost of the instrument, but in reaching the households living in bad-quality houses, it has the potential to create major benefits not only technically but also socially as housing quality is related to well-being. Generally, the identification of a causal relationship is difficult as well-being and its mediators are complex matters. This case offered a unique opportunity to collect information from the beneficiaries on a range of well-being domains both before the renovation of their dwelling and after the renovation. Even though the research was restricted to short-term effects, the results suggest that improvements in different domains of well-being can be linked to the improvement of housing quality. These improvements in well-being in Ghent show that (local) government spending in housing renovation of locked-in homeowners can be an instrument to achieve social progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'tiny house' (TH) movement has gained increasing popularity around the world, and recent research has investigated the main motivators and challenges of living in THs. However, most research has been conducted in the Global North, such as the US and European countries. This research has identified that increased financial security and mobility, having a simplified and sustainable lifestyle, and developing significant relationships are the main motivators for TH owners. However, less is known about the experiences of TH owners in the Global South, such as Latin American countries. These regions are characterized by a lower purchasing power and less access to credit of citizens, with a high degree of concentration in large metropolitan areas, which may affect the motivators and experiences of TH owners. Drawing on theories of the commons, the aim of this study is to explore the experiences and well-being outcomes of TH owners living in two Latin American countries. We draw on data from 19 interviews conducted in Chile and Argentina with TH owners. The data analysis identified six dimensions of psychological and hedonic well-being that were improved for TH owners in these countries: autonomy, mastery, purpose in life, personal growth, relatedness, and happiness. The findings contribute to the TH literature and are useful for TH businesses, governments, and housing public policymakers in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to Javier Moreno Zacarés’ paper, I argue for a more empirically engaged and policy-relevant political economy of housing. This is necessary given the global transformation of housing from a home into an asset. Understanding housing’s place in the contemporary financialized economy requires scholars to adopt a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach to studying housing. Such a perspective starts by recognizing the neoclassical economic theories that limit much of housing studies while recalling the rich tradition of housing in political economy. Between these two poles, I encourage operationalizing a framework that (i) treats single-family and multifamily housing as two different residential markets and (ii) focuses on each market’s logics, dynamics, and points of intersection. Integrating grounded empirics into political economic perspectives is essential for housing research and policy agendas in the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores ways to incorporate regulatory requirements into affordable housing construction contracts. Topics discussed include federal, state and local regulations that apply to a prime construction contract, applications for funding, grants or loans such as the Low Income Housing Tax Credits program, HOME Investment Partnerships Program and Housing Development Grant Funds, and supplementary conditions of the owner for affordable housing.

Mobile home ow·ner-tenants own their homes but rent the land where their holnes sit. Mobile homes are not as mobile as their name suggests, and owner-tenants face a significant risk ofeuiction. Eviction for mobile home owner-tenants canies an added risk that traditional renters do not face-the loss of investment in their homes. This Note argues that Iowa should expand its Mobile Home Parks Residential Landlord and Tenant Act to require a one-year minimum lease term. A minimum lease term would protect ownertenants* om losing their homes, while also balancing mobile home park OwneTS' interests in keeping the parks profitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "All by myself? Testing descriptive social norm-nudges to increase flood preparedness among homeowners" examines the effectiveness of social norm-nudges in promoting flood preparedness among homeowners. The study conducted an online experiment with homeowners in two European countries and tested different norm-nudge messages. The results showed no evidence of a treatment effect, suggesting that the social norm-nudges did not influence flood preparedness. The study highlights the importance of tailoring norm-nudges to specific populations and contexts and calls for further research in the field of natural disaster risk reduction. [Extracted from the article]

An increase in local house prices in the US is associated with a decrease in the time homeowners spend on religious activities compared to renters. Notably, this effect is not observed in volunteering and civic activities. The decline in religious activities is more pronounced for credit-constrained households. The main result is attributed to a wealth effect, whereby activities that have an inferior-good component decline with housing wealth, and to a substitution effect whereby the attractiveness of activities linked to the residential asset increases during housing booms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the multifaceted influence of homeownership on charitable giving through several channels: tax deductibility, household wealth, and mobility. We find that homeowners donate substantially more than renters, and tax deductibility, wealth, and mobility are important predictors of the owner-renter gap in donations. We also show that the owner-renter difference in donations cannot be fully explained by these three channels. After controlling for an extensive list of household characteristics and the three channels, homeowners still donate approximately 20% more than renters. Our results are robust to a variety of modeling and identification strategies as well as different measures of donations. Our study further reveals that the likelihood of donating correlates inversely with mobility but is insensitive to tax deductibility and wealth. In contrast, tax deductibility and wealth are important predictors of the size of contributions. Furthermore, we show the owner-renter difference in donations varies substantially by generational cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their article, Dholakia and colleagues reported on the association of 1930s-era "redlining" maps created by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) with contemporary nonsuicide firearm violence. The editorialists discuss the findings and call for use of HOLC maps not merely as a basis for research, treating history as an independent variable, but rather as an evidence-based backdrop that fundamentally alters our perception and understanding of the contemporary experience of individuals most impacted by firearm violence exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]