Housing discrimination raises the costs housing searches for minority groups, creates barriers to homeownership and housing choice, and contributes to the perpetuation of racial and ethnic segregation. Segregation, in turn, is linked with the perpetuation of a host of racial and ethnic inequalities, from unequal access to jobs, to healthcare, to educational facilities. Thus, the problem of housing discrimination is not simply that it is unfair or illegal, but also that it contributes to larger social inequalities. This analysis of coastal Mississippi pre and post Hurricane Katrina provides an unusual opportunity to examine housing outcomes in an area that has experienced drastic changes in housing availability alongside a rapid influx of Latino migrants. I investigate whether some Latinos are more vulnerable to housing discrimination than others, where and when housing discrimination is more or less likely to occur, and how Latinos living in Mississippi post-Katrina interpret their own experiences with housing agents. Audit methods and interviews reveal that discrimination, often thought to be determined solely by agent prejudices, is also affected by social and economic factors external to the agent. The audits point instructively to patterns of discrimination as well as to methodological difficulties associated with detecting discrimination in tight housing markets, a finding that has implications for studying discrimination in other tight markets throughout the country. The findings also support theories of 'racial tipping', in that discrimination appears highest in moderately integrated neighborhoods as opposed to 'whiter' and 61 more integrated' neighborhoods. Finally, in-depth interviews reveal (1) a link between labor and housing market exploitation that leaves many Latino labor migrants homeless, (2) a relationship between housing discrimination and exploitation in the housing market, (3) reasons why many Latinos may be unlikely to file housing discrimination complaints, and (4) ways in which Latinos are forced to modify their behavior in everyday interactions simply to increase their odds of being treated fairly. In sum, this study points to a need to develop new methods for studying discrimination in tight housing markets, and to a dire need for broader institutional support of housing rights education and anti-discrimination enforcement initiatives in areas recovering from a disaster / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_26745 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Contributors | Weil, Jeannie Haubert (Author), Elliott, James R (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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