Cohousing-L Mailing List: Minorities are hit harder by housing costs

[Eric Rehm - DECwest Engineering (rehm]

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From: "misc.activism.progressive co-moderator" <harelb [at] math.cornell.edu>
Subject:      RACE/ECON JUSTICE: 
To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L 
<ACTIV-L@MIZZOU1.BITNET%pucc.Princeton.EDU>

...Forwarded from misc.activism.progressive...
[From current issue of Cornell Chronicle]
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    "Even when income, location and housing quality are controlled in
    the analysis, strong racial differences persist in one's chance of
    owning a home or having to pay excessively for housing
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    "Even with income, region and location statistically controlled,
    blacks, Hispanics and Asian-Americans are less likely than whites
    to be homeowners.
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    "47 percent of all Americans live in moderately to severely
    inadequate neighborhoods within 300 feet of vandalized buildings,
    garbage, high crime, heavy traffic, or noise, etc.
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              Minorities are hit harder by housing costs
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                            By Susan Lang

One-quarter of unmarried mothers and almost half of minority unmarried
mothers with more than two children spend an excessive percentage of
their income on housing, according to a Cornell study. Those high
risks put these women and families potentially on the brink of
homelessness.

Even when income, location and housing quality are controlled in the
analysis, strong racial differences persist in one's chance of owning
a home or having to pay excessively for housing - defined as spending
more than 40 percent of income on housing, say Peter S.K. Chi and
Joseph Laquatra, housing researchers in the College of Human Ecology.

"Although Americans are the best-housed population in the world,
certain subgroups - particularly minority single mothers and minority
single mothers with more than two children - consistently emerge as
having a far less chance of owning and far greater chance of having to
pay excessively for housing," said Chi, professor of consumer
economics and housing.

Housing costs include mortgage or rent payments, property taxes,
energy and utilities and other operating expenses.

Chi, Laquatra, assistant professor of design and environmental
analysis, and H.Y. Park, formerly of Cornell and now at the Korea
Institute of Construction Technology, used the national representative
sample of the 1987 American Housing Survey (AHS) conducted by the
Bureau of the Census for the U.S.  Department of Housing and Urban
Development.

Whereas the AHS survey found that 4.8 million low-income renters and
1.4 million low-income homeowners spend more than half their income on
housing, the Cornell analysis calculated how risk emerged for specific
minority subgroups while controlling for income, location and housing
quality.

===============
Cumulative risk
===============

They developed a model to calculate "cumulative risk" - how a
household's risk for an excessive housing burden increases with
multiple risk attributes (e.g., race, gender, marital status and
family size). Among their findings, all of which exclude the homeless:

o The groups at highest risk for having an excessive housing burden
are, in descending order, minority female heads-of-household with more
than two children (49 percent spent more than 40 percent of their
income on housing), female heads-of-household in general with more
than two children (41 percent), minority female heads-of-household in
general (32 percent), minority female-headed elderly households (31
percent), and elderly female-headed households in general (26
percent).

o Even with income, region and location statistically controlled,
blacks, Hispanics and Asian-Americans are less likely than whites to
be homeowners.  Seventy-one percent of whites are homeowners, compared
to 46 percent among blacks and Asian-Americans, and 44 percent among
Hispanics.

o Whereas only 7 percent of American households are classified as
moderately or severely inadequate with deficient plumbing, electrical
or heating systems, inadequate kitchen or bath facilities, or
overcrowding, 47 percent of all Americans live in moderately to
severely inadequate neighborhoods within 300 feet of vandalized
buildings, garbage, high crime, heavy traffic, or noise, etc.

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To access Cornell's CUINFO:

"telnet cornellc.cit.cornell.edu 300"
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