Yolanda, 61, owns a home in the predominantly black 7th Ward neighborhood of New Orleans.
In 2020, he had to borrow money to repair his leaking roof.
“This is one of those credit card loans,” he said. “30% interest or something, you know. I was kind of against the wall, so I went ahead and made the loan, a high-interest loan.
As a sociologist who has spent the past 10 years studying housing conditions in the United States, I led a research team that interviewed homeowners experiencing basic maintenance problems such as rotting wood siding and floors, mold, crumbling brick, old plumbing, and leaks. ceilings. Our first article in this project is currently under peer review.
Almost all of our interviewees, who, like Yolanda, we gave pseudonyms to protect their privacy, were Black women over 60 who lived in older buildings in neighborhoods that bore the brunt of discrimination, such as redlining and unfair land use decisions, and disinvestment.
Once a vibrant area filled with black businesses and homes, the 7th District has become a high-poverty area since the I-10 freeway was built directly through the heart of the district in the 1960s.
Yolanda had already lived there for ten years before the highway was built.
Although brightly painted, Yolanda’s house is separated from I-10 only by a vacant lot, and the constant noise and high pollution rates make it difficult to imagine that Yolanda could sell her house for a profit or use its diminished value as equity. .
Did Yolanda get the high-interest loan for nothing?
Was he throwing good money after bad money?
These are not easy questions to answer.
Like other Black female homeowners we interviewed, Yolanda had to choose between debt and neglect.
As he explained, “he was leaning against a wall.”
The racist and sexist history of needing care
Nearly a third of homeowners earning less than $32,000, about 4.8 million people, spent nothing on maintenance or improvements, according to an analysis of 2022 federal census data by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
I have noticed worrying trends in the conditions of those living in neglected housing.
In my book “Stacked Decks,” I explore the connections between urban housing, race, gender, and income inequality.
Since at least the 1970s, real estate agents and lenders have taken advantage of Black women’s precarious financial situations by selling them distressed homes as mortgages.
Today – 50 years later – these homes pose much greater health and safety risks to their owners than when they first purchased them.
Research shows that after less than two years of ownership, disrepair makes it difficult for low-income homeowners to maintain a livable home.
Left unattended repairs, such as leaky roofs or broken pipes, often lead to code violations and court cases, creating the possibility of foreclosures, foreclosures, and homelessness.
The situation is even worse for Black women, who, on average, have far less wealth than their white or male counterparts. Female homeowners who don’t have money for repairs face more debt if they make repairs.
Climate change means these problems are getting worse due to increased rainfall and extreme temperatures.
Doris, a homeowner in Chicago, told us about her old, leaky roof and basement flooding in 2021. The flood was partly caused by overflowing nearby municipal drainage pipes, she explained.
“Every time it rains, water comes,” he said. “Because the drains were not clean, so much water came into my basement that my washer and dryer were floating on top of the water.” Insurance covered some of Doris’ costs for these repairs, and the city is trying new ways to deal with floodwaters, but water still gets in when it rains heavily.
Racism and sexism in the housing sector
The racism that pervades the housing sector is now well known. At different times in history, the real estate industry has excluded Black Americans from homeownership, included them through predatory loans and deals, and reinforced racial segregation by denying loans to Blacks and other minority residents. The practice, known as redlining, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy of reduced investment and depreciation of values.
But real estate agents and mortgage brokers were also sexist.
These real estate agents and mortgage brokers knew that Black women had limited options and assumed they would likely not be able to pay their mortgages.
Black women were constantly being sold homes that needed repairs.
A lot can happen to a house in 50 years.
Buildings naturally deteriorate over time due to a combination of aging construction materials and weather conditions. All homes need repairs and preventative maintenance at some point.
Kimberly, of Chicago, cares for her grandson almost full-time and told us about her concerns about rotted wood on her back porch that makes standing dangerous.
“We’re definitely not going out the back door,” Kimberly said. “We haven’t used this in years. Four years. We haven’t used the back porch at all in four years.”
Lack of care and environmental injustice
Lack of maintenance is a matter of environmental injustice. The government has a responsibility to assist with repairs because of its role in housing segregation that leads to such racial disparities in housing conditions.
But like disaster relief, assistance to homeowners is unequal and difficult to obtain.
U.S. cities often use lotteries to distribute funds for repairs, and the number of homes in need of repair is barely scratching the surface.
Although all homes need repairs from time to time, maintenance is costly, and neglect disproportionately affects people with the fewest resources. Lack of maintenance also causes health and safety problems, as do other environmental injustices, such as the layout of highways and the location of polluting factories.
Disrepair can also force people to leave their homes because they cannot afford repairs.
But making repairs can make the debt worse.
What all this means is that owning a home, or even paying off a mortgage, does not guarantee that homes remain affordable, an asset, or a safe haven.
Recognizing disrepair as environmental racism could be one step in ensuring that homes are all those things.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit news organization providing facts and authoritative analysis to help you understand our complex world. Written by: Robin Bartram, Tulane University
Read more:
Robin Bartram does not work for, consult, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic duties.