Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This experiment examines discrimination rates for Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) holders searching for private market rental units. The analysis focuses on the behavior of landlords responding to email audit tester inquiries about apartments advertised online in fourteen different metro areas that differ in the types of local and state Source of Income (SOI) protections in place. Tester emails vary in the race of sender (conveyed through name) and whether the sender discloses HCV status. 

Several decades of research has demonstrated the presence of racial discrimination in the US housing market: black and Hispanic/Latino households are less likely to be shown available units and less likely to receive responses to inquiries with prospective landlords (Yinger, 1986; Page, 1995; Ondrich et al., 1999; Carpusor and Loges, 2006; Hanson and Hawley, 2011; Ewens et al., 2014). The population of HCV heads of households are majority minority (HUD, 2014).

In addition to racial discrimination, HCV holders may experience discrimination based on Source of Income. Voucher holder status may be negatively perceived by landlords as signaling that households are low-income and could have poor rental or credit history. Stigma around the HCV program may lead landlords to consider voucher households to be troublesome tenants (Marr, 2005). The rules and requirements to participate in the HCV program may be considered too burdensome by landlords. Any or all of these factors could play into a landlord’s preference for unsubsidized households. 

Past research indicates voucher households perceived discrimination during rental searches, particularly when landlords are aware they have a voucher, when children are present in the household, and the head of household is a minority (Popkin and Cunningham, 1999; Popkin et al., 2000a; Basolo and Nguyen, 2005; Teater, 2009). The extent of this discrimination is not known (Turner et al., 2000; Galvez, 2011; Freeman and Li, 2013). Any estimates based on self-reported discrimination or claim filings potentially under- or over-estimates discrimination rates (Pager and Shepherd, 2008). 

This study contributes to the existing research by providing further insight into rental search barriers by examining the relationship of SOI and racial discrimination for HCV households in an experimental setting. Findings have implications for the design of the HCV program and on-going efforts to assist HCV households in accessing high quality neighborhoods.