Collaborative Research: Housing Experiences and Outcomes among Urban American Indian/Alaska Native People
Summary
More than 50 years past the passage of the Fair Housing Act, real estate industries (e.g., appraisal) and actors (e.g., landlords) continue to privilege White people and neighborhoods over their Black and Latinx counterparts. The appraisal industry, for example, has hyper-inflated home values in White neighborhoods while valuing comparable homes in comparable communities of color at substantially lower prices. These industries and actors are also more likely to harm Black and Latinx people, especially women of color, than their White counterparts. For instance, landlords are more likely to evict Black and Latinx women renters than White women in cities across the United States. These housing inequities contribute to systemic racial and gender socioeconomic and health inequities. Due to the appraisal industry's substantial undervaluation of their homes, homeowners of color build relatively small amounts of wealth compared to their White counterparts. And disproportionate evictions result in severe emotional, socioeconomic, and health consequences for women of color and their families. But little is known about how urban American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN, hereafter) residents, approximately 75 percent of whom live in cities instead of on federally defined Tribal reservation lands, experience and navigate housing and rental markets. The lack of research on this topic means that relatively little is known about how AI/AN people search for housing, become homeowners, experience landlord and property manager screening, perceive and experience racialization or sexism, or navigate unsafe housing conditions, among multiple other processes sociologists have theorized as central to housing and rental market inequities. Moreover, despite the possible benefits of accessing Tribal or AI/AN-specific tools such as the Section 184 Indian Home Loan Guarantee Program, little is known about whether and how urban AI/AN residents use such formal and informal tools in housing and rental markets and how their (lack of) use relates to broader racial and socioeconomic inequities.