Tenant Screening in Public Housing and Housing Voucher Programs: Racialized Stratification of Marginalized Tenants
Topics: Digital Geographies
, Urban Geography
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Keywords: tenant screening, proptech, affordable housing
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 76
Authors:
Wonyoung So, MIT DUSP
Anisha Gade, MIT DUSP
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Abstract
The process of qualifying for and actually receiving public or affordable housing in the United States is complicated and laborious. We are currently engaged in a project looking at how public housing agencies in Massachusetts are engaging with tenant screening services to evaluate applicants’ worthiness. In exploring the contractual agreements and the nature of data scraped through all manner of public records, we intend to uncover the potential of using algorithmically based tenant screening services for alleviating the byzantine public housing process. At this early stage, we are framing the study as a mixed-methods exploration of the behavior and motivations of both the public housing agencies as well as private landlords that accept housing vouchers and their widespread use of tenant screening services. Why do many of these entities continue to use digital tenant screening services if the payment is guaranteed? Can we imagine developing non-discriminatory methods of tenant screening processes? Or, more directly, if we work from a place of accepting housing as a right, how do we create radically different logics that might avoid screening altogether while also allaying the underlying concerns that tenant screening purportedly addresses? Through this project, we hope to engage with other colleagues who are working in similar research topics regarding abolitionist proptech and workshop our preliminary project design and methodology in order to receive feedback on how to improve its structure and abolitionist aims.
Tenant Screening in Public Housing and Housing Voucher Programs: Racialized Stratification of Marginalized Tenants
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Virtual Paper Abstract
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