Tenant Immobility and Family Well-Being: Considering the Role of Networks, Neighborhoods, and the Indoor Environment

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学（SBE）博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在南加州大学安·欧文斯博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金奖支持一位早期职业科学家研究租户不动与士绅化之间的关系。房租上涨加上工资停滞不前导致美国出现了经济适用房危机。衡量住房负担不起对美国家庭的影响时，社会学家倾向于关注不断上涨的住房成本如何迫使租房者离开社区，以及租房者在流离失所后搬到哪里。然而，这种关注忽视了住房负担不起可能对低收入租房者产生的负面影响，甚至在他们经历流离失所之前。由于搬家成本高昂且不确定，许多家庭很可能会做出重大的权衡，以留在目前的住所。通过深度访谈和调查数据，该项目将研究居住在加州洛杉矶县的固定家庭的经历，洛杉矶县是美国最难以负担的租赁市场之一。它将确定租房者用来留在家里的策略，以及这些策略如何影响他们的物质、身体和情感健康。更具体地说，它将检验这样一种预测，即租户在家里管理糟糕的维护，以留在他们看重的社区，以及严格的租户筛选措施会阻止人们从低质量的租赁场所搬走。这个项目将关注低收入少数民族家庭的经历，他们在居住决策的社会学研究中没有得到充分的研究。本研究的结果可以指导政策干预，更好地保护租户免受公寓撤资的影响，并在寻找住房的租户筛选阶段使租赁住房更容易获得。近四十年来，社会学家一直在研究中产阶级化和流离失所（如非自愿迁移）之间的关系。然而，很少有研究调查了在中产阶级化的社区中那些不流动的弱势租房者的经历。由于忽视了不搬家的低收入家庭，现有的关于中产阶级化的社会学研究低估了住房成本上升对家庭福祉的影响。为了解决这一差距，本项目将回答以下研究问题：(1)社会网络、社区环境和建筑水平条件如何影响租房者的不动性？(2)不动影响租房者物质、情感和身体健康的潜在抵消途径是什么？该项目以加州洛杉矶县为基地，将使用80名低收入移民租房者的访谈和调查数据——这一群体在住宅流动性文献中很少得到学术关注。我将用两项调查来补充访谈——伯克曼·赛姆社会网络指数（Berkman Syme Social Network Index），用于评估社会整合；美国人口普查的住房充足性指标，用于捕捉室内环境质量。我假设，不动的租房者管理着不合标准的生活环境，以保持靠近社区资源、工作机会和支持性的社会网络。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Ann Owens at the University of Southern California, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the relation between tenant immobility and gentrification. Rising rental costs combined with stagnating wages have led to an affordable housing crisis in the United States. Sociologists measuring the impact of housing unaffordability on U.S. families tend to focus on how rising housing costs displace renters from neighborhoods, and where renters move after they have been displaced. However, this focus overlooks how housing unaffordability may negatively impact low-income renters even before they experience displacement. Because moves are expensive and uncertain, it is likely that families make significant trade-offs to remain in their current home. Using in-depth interviews and survey data, this project will examine the experiences of immobile families living in Los Angeles County, California—one of the nation’s least affordable rental markets. It will identify the strategies that renters use to remain in their home and how these strategies shape their material, physical, and emotional well-being. More specifically, it will test the prediction that tenants manage poor maintenance at home to remain in neighborhoods that they value, and that strict tenant screening practices discourage moves away from low-quality rentals. This project will focus on the experiences of low-income minority households, who are understudied in sociological research on residential decision-making. The findings from this study can direct policy interventions that better protect tenants from apartment disinvestment and make rental housing more accessible at the tenant screening stage of housing searches. Sociologists have studied the relationship between gentrification and displacement (e.g., involuntary moves) for nearly four decades. However, less research has examined the experiences of disadvantaged renters in gentrifying neighborhoods who are immobile. By overlooking low-income families who do not move, existing sociological research on gentrification underestimates the impact of rising housing costs on family well-being. To address this gap, this project will answer the following research questions: (1) How do social networks, neighborhood contexts, and building-level conditions influence renter immobility? And (2), what are the potentially countervailing pathways through which immobility shapes renters’ material, emotional, and physical well-being? Based in Los Angeles County, CA, this project will use interviews and survey data from 80 low-income, immigrant renters—a population that has received scant scholarly attention in the residential mobility literature. I will supplement interviews with two surveys—the Berkman Syme Social Network Index to assess social integration and a housing adequacy measure from the U.S. Census that captures indoor environmental quality. I hypothesize that immobile renters manage substandard living environments to remain near neighborhood resources, job opportunities, and supportive social networks.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.