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Source of Income Discrimination

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research questions

  • What is the prevalence of discrimination against voucher holders in Rhode Island?

  • How many affordable private units are even available in the first place?

  • "Tenants who depend on income other than traditional employment wages face particularized discrimination on the private rental market...Rhode Islanders find themselves shut out of housing opportunities, despite being able and willing to pay."

  • "With a voucher, participating tenants should be able to afford roughly 34% of the apartments advertised online each day around the state. In actuality, discrimination narrows the share of housing opportunities closer to 7%."

  • "Tenants who financially rely on child support, alimony, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, and housing crisis assistance programs...all risk losing out by virtue of their income’s source, rather than dollar value."

  • "Rhode Island will build a brighter future by ensuring fairer housing for all of its residents, in all of its communities."

  • "Our research suggests that families who do try to 'move to opportunity' encounter frequent discrimination"

  • "63% of [housing providers] would not consider a tenant with a voucher, though it covered the rent in full....some providers offered specific reasons for denials, including concerns about lead certification and administrative delays. Others gave little explanation, or simply hung up."

  • "Among the affordable listings we recorded, 6.4% explicitly discouraged voucher holders from applying."

  • "Some municipalities, including Foster, Little Compton, New Shoreham, Scituate, and West Greenwich, registered virtually no affordable units for rent during the two-week monitoring period."

  • "Source of income discrimination is real and pervasive in Rhode Island"

- from our joint report with SouthCoast Fair Housing: "It's About the Voucher," Source of Income Discrimination in Rhode Island

findings

access our presentation & Southcoast Fair Housing's report

methods: two phases

Phase 1: Online Monitoring

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Over a two week timeframe, with a team of HOPE (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) student volunteers, we took every new listing from Apartments.com, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Zillow, & Showmojo across the state where a voucher holders could apply with a voucher.

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  • We used below 120% of the Fair Market Rent: 40th percentile of rents for local housing market, as our affordability threshold. 

  • We recorded the total number of apartments posted on each site daily.

  • For each affordable listing, we noted explicit discrimination: “No Section 8,” “No Vouchers,” etc. and “friendly” source of income language “Section 8 welcome.”

  • We also noted other things that bar some voucher holders, including:

    • Minimum income requirements

    • No eviction history requirements

    • Credit check & background check requirements

​Phase 2: Phone Audit

 

A sample of the online listings that contained phone numbers were selected for the phone audit.  Team members called 156 landlords posing as voucher holders.

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  • Callers asked about availability of unit, specifics of the unit, and, eventually, if the landlord would accept a voucher.

  • The team made contact with 106 landlords, 82 of which still had an available unit.

  • A limitation was that all the callers were white, sounded well-educated. Our study therefore fails to capture discrimination due to race and class, which voucher refusals are often a proxy for. It’s very likely, as the HUD study found by using matched pair testing, that a voucher holder who’s African American calling would be refused more often.

  • We recorded responses.

access our presentation & Southcoast Fair Housing's report

potential next steps

  • Pass legislation introduced by Senator Harold Metts and Representative Anastasia Williams this legislative session

  • Conduct a landlord education campaign

  • Get RI housing stock up to code, consider mechanisms that can make this possible

  • Study of implications financial incentives for participation

  • Create a database of Section-8-friendly landlords

 

access our presentation & Southcoast Fair Housing's report

researchers

Sarah Conlisk, Economics '20

Annelise Ernst, Sociology & Urban Studies '21  

Lucas Fried, Public Policy & Economics '21  

Nathaniel Pettit, Public Policy '20

community partners

Homes RI Coalition

Southcoast Fair Housing

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