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• Author: Vasishtha, Preeti
• Position: Housing and racism

EXAMINING the practices landlords use to screen potential tenants can offer insights into how race continues to shape life outcomes. While sociological research on racial discrimination in housing increasingly has highlighted the key role that landlords play as gatekeepers to rental housing markets, this research largely has been operating under the fundamental assumption that landlords are selecting tenants from an applicant pool of both white and nonwhite applicants, but the reality of urban housing markets, shaped by historical patterns of racial segregation and other structural barriers, is that landlords usually are selecting from same-race applicant pools.

So, how does race influence the way these landlord-gatekeepers screen and differentiate among prospective tenants in racially homogeneous rental markets? This is one of the questions that is examined in the study, "Racial Discrimination in Housing: How Landlords Use Algorithms and Home Visits to Screen Tenants" by coauthors Eva Rosen (assistant professor at Georgetown University's School of Public Policy), Philip ME. Garboden (professor in affordable housing economics, policy, and planning at the University of Hawaii), and Jennifer E. Cossyleon (policy advisor at Community Change) that appears in American Sociological Review.

The authors drew their data from observations and interviews with landlords who rent in lower-cost housing markets in Baltimore, Md.; Cleveland, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; and Washington, D.C. The authors found that, in their aim to select "good" tenants--those who will pay rent reliably and cause minimal property damage, for example--landlords rely on two types of proxies.

More professionalized and resourced landlords tend to rely on superficially objective screening algorithms that calculate a prospective tenant's eligibility based on income, credit report, criminal history, and residential history. In contrast, mom-andpop landlords make decisions based on informal and subjective mechanisms that are racialized and gendered, such as "gut feelings" that judge a prospective tenant's appearance, demeanor, and family status.

While evaluation through algorithm may seem fair and objective, especially when compared to the highly subjective "gut proxy," the authors argue that, in both cases, the burden is on the prospective tenant to defy stereotypes, ultimately limiting residential options for lowincome, subsidized residents of color and compounding inequality through...