“The Costs of Seeking Shelter for Renters with Discrediting Background Records”
5/18/2021, Anna Reosti
“The Costs of Seeking Shelter for Renters with Discrediting Background Records.” City & Community (2021)
This study illuminates an understudied pathway through which disadvantage is reproduced in the rental housing market: the housing search, application, and tenant screening process. Using in-depth interviews with 25 housing-seekers with criminal conviction records, past evictions, and damaged credit histories, this article examines the direct role of the rental housing search and application process in reproducing economic precarity and social disadvantage among renters with discrediting background records, beyond delimiting their housing options.