“Wouldn’t You Walk Away?” Foreclosures and Homeowner Understandings

Abstract

Social work scholarship on neoliberalism—the dominant ideology and policies shaping access to housing, jobs, healthcare, and education—is in its infancy. This study examines the ground-level impact of the subprime mortgage crisis that triggered the Great Recession in 2008, examining how homeowners interpreted the changes to their neighborhood as they witnessed a remarkably high rate of foreclosures during the economic collapse of 2008-2010. Residents of a suburban community were unaware of the lending and banking practices that transformed their neighborhoods, though these policies arguably depreciated house values and a sense of well-being. Not knowing the culpability of predatory lenders in the crisis, some residents turned to an anti-immigrant social movement to preserve their community.

Keywords

neoliberalism immigration housing economic justice

As the United States recovers from its worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, social work finds itself struggling to understand how to effectively address questions of economic justice, one of the profession’s ethical imperatives (Deepak, 2012; Garrow & Hasenfeld, 2014; Pollack, 2009; Volscho, 2012). Despite embracing the goal of realizing economic justice (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2008), social work scholarship on neoliberalism—the dominant ideology and policies shaping access to housing, jobs, healthcare, and education (Abramowitz, 2012; Piven, 2001)—is in its infancy. Neoliberalism is defined here as economic and social policies designed to promote the growth of markets and capital via deregulation of finance, businesses, and trade and to create new markets through privatization of education, healthcare, and social welfare (Harvey, 2005).

In its nascent scholarship on neoliberalism, social work scholars have largely focused their critiques on the rollback of the social welfare state and the effects of these policies on social service programs and lower income clients (Abramowitz, 2012; Ferguson & Lavalette, 2006; Woolford & Nelund, 2013). Some scholars have called on professionals and social work education to explicitly critique the effects of neoliberalism across the globe (Aronson & Hemingway, 2011; Spolander et al., 2014; Wallace & Pease, 2011). But the impact of the Great Recession—a crisis with potentially far-reaching consequences despite the nation’s apparent recovery (Baker, 2014)—merits further examination, as many still struggle to pay mortgages and remain housed in stable, safe neighborhoods. “Despite the sheer numbers of people experiencing mortgage strain, foreclosure, and displacement, research into this crisis from a social work perspective remains nearly nonexistent” (Baker, 2014, p. 62).

We seek to expand this scholarship and to join scholars (Abramowitz, 2012; Piven, 2001; Schram, 2015) in advocating for the profession’s examination of neoliberal economic policies’ impact on social groups that may not be immediately identified as vulnerable and oppressed populations. This study examines the ground-level impact of the subprime mortgage crisis that triggered the Great Recession in 2008 (Ross & Squires, 2011) by examining how homeowners interpreted changes to their neighborhoods as they witnessed a remarkably high rate of foreclosures during the economic collapse of 2008-2010.

This analysis emerged from an earlier study of neighborhood opposition to Latino immigration in a suburban county near Washington, DC (Cleaveland, 2012). Researchers initiated an ethnomethodological study in 2008, described in the “Methods” section, to understand why residents organized an anti-immigrant activist organization. This group then rallied county government to enact a “crackdown” ordinance to force undocumented immigrants to move. When researchers arrived for the initial ethnographic immersion, they first had to spend days photographing and note-taking to chronicle the visual dissonance of foreclosures: garish signs announcing auctions, bank-ownership, or simply “foreclosure.” Interviews followed to see whether anger about the sudden residency of Latino immigrants in these neighborhoods intersected with concerns over foreclosures.

Following the election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency, researchers opted to re-examine these data because of their renewed relevance. Trump used anti-immigrant rhetoric in his efforts to win the election, promising to build a wall at the Mexican border, thus illuminating the depth of anti-immigrant sentiment among some Americans. With less bombast and media attention, Trump in 2017 signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era policies including a rule that prohibited brokers from prioritizing their own profit over their clients’ best interests as well as other measures to weaken banking regulations (Protess & Davis, 2017). The anti-immigrant sentiment that initiated this study 10 years ago, coupled with the 2017 rollback of banking regulations consistent with neoliberal ideology favoring deregulation of business, prompted researchers to examine these data to illustrate how foreclosures informed residents’ sentiments toward undocumented immigrants. This study illuminates the need for social work scholarship examining the specific injuries caused by neoliberal policy-making.

Subprime Suffering

Months before the term Great Recession became common, the Washington Post characterized the Washington suburb studied here as the “epicenter” of a foreclosure crisis sweeping the capitol’s outlying suburbs (Brulliard, 2008). In the United States, more than nine million properties went into foreclosure between 2007 and 2010, and by 2012, another three million had suffered this fate (Highsmith, 2012). The proliferation of subprime mortgages is generally acknowledged as the first step toward the “market meltdown” that signaled the start of the Great Recession in Fall 2008. Though the term subprime has become common nomenclature, there is no official definition for these loans. The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank has identified high-priced loans that proliferated between 1994 and 2008 as exemplars of such financing schemes (Ross & Squires, 2011). There is also no official definition of predatory lending, though these loans are generally understood to bring considerably more onerous rates and fees than would be warranted by the consumer credit ratings used to evaluate whether homebuyers can reasonably be expected to afford a house (Ross & Squires, 2011).

Between 1994 and 2005, subprime products grew from a 5% share of the nation’s mortgages to 20%, with the monetary value of such loans swelling from $35 billion to more than $600 billion (Bernanke, 2008). Many subprime borrowers posed clear risks, as noted by a profile released by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: A borrower might have had two or more 30-day delinquent bill payments in the preceding year, a foreclosure within the preceding 2 years, or bankruptcy in the preceding 5 years (Lawson, 2013), making subprime more likely to default, “as well as limited ability to cover living expenses from their monthly income after deductions for debt repayments” (p. 51). Specifically, subprime borrowers have been found in studies to be six to nine times more likely to default on a mortgage than those with a traditional prime rate mortgage (Baker, 2014). But denying mortgages to high-risk borrowers would have diminished the potential financial gains of a number of key players, including mortgage companies, investment banks, and global investors.

Financial analyses show that 63% of buyers in the United States given high-cost subprime mortgages could have qualified for conventional prime loans (Philips, 2012). So why were borrowers with adequate credit histories coaxed into taking loans that rendered them financially vulnerable? “The subprime crisis was the result of a policy regime that, rather than providing homeowners and neighborhoods with access to credit, was focused on providing global capital with access to neighborhoods and homeowners. In this, at least, it succeeded” (Immergluck, 2011, p. 133). Subprime loans could have been useful to some borrowers—those with poor credit histories but sufficient assets or projected future income to afford escalated interest rates that would compensate the lender for assuming higher risk (Ross & Squires, 2011). Since the Reagan era, U.S. mortgage policies have been shaped by neoliberal economic trends, most particularly the attenuated regulation of banks—a factor linking the domestic mortgage market to broader global capital (Immergluck, 2011). Of less concern were the consequences of high-risk lending for residents and communities; “rather, the focus was on promoting liquidity at all costs, in order to increase transaction volumes (and associated profits) and promote the short-term economic growth that came with greater financialization” (Immergluck, 2011, p. 130).

Subprime lenders such as New Century Financial, Countrywide, and Ameriquest used high-profile advertising to establish legitimacy and name recognition with consumers. Ameriquest bought naming rights to one of Major League Baseball’s stadiums (Ameriquest Field, home to the Texas Rangers) and ran a series of humorous television commercials with the slogan “Don’t judge too quickly … We won’t.” These companies did not actually have the capital to fund the mortgages; they instead borrowed the capital to originate the loans, before selling them to other financial institutions (Lawson, 2013). The mortgages were then turned into bonds, which large financial houses sold to investors around the globe, who expected to gain from both the principle and interest payments on the loans. Initially, the high-risk loans were bundled with safer, conventional obligations with the goal of minimizing losses from defaulted loans and foreclosures. Wall Street began to realize enormous financial gains through riskier sales and investments—in particular, the sale of credit defaults. The sales of this new financial product further increased the velocity of financial accumulation. Bad debts were dispersed in a variety of complex financial instruments such as credit default swaps to hide toxic loans (Lawson, 2013). Once the “toxic assets” became exposed and investments lost, the economy went into a crisis. By the summer of 2007, “panic gripped the money markets. Banks stopped lending to each other, and their share prices plummeted as investors worried about exposure to mortgage losses” (Lawson, 2013, p. 50).

And as noted in recent studies, African Americans and Latinos—and the neighborhoods where they reside—suffered disproportionately from predatory lending and the subsequent Great Recession (Lichter, Parisi, & Taquino, 2012; Phillips, 2012; Rugh & Massey, 2010). Rugh and Massey’s (2010) regression analyses of residential segregation and foreclosure rates confirmed the correlation between neighborhoods with high concentrations of African American and Latino populations and usury lending practices. “High levels of segregation create a natural market for subprime lending and cause riskier mortgages, and thus foreclosures, to accumulate disproportionately in racially segregated cities’ minority neighborhoods” (Rugh & Massey, 2010, p. 630). But the injuries have not been borne solely in urban areas. The Brookings Institution found that from 1999 to 2005, 18.8% of urban residents lived below the federal poverty threshold, as did 9.4% of those in the suburbs (Berube & Kneebone, 2006). And foreclosures continued. Neighborhoods with high foreclosure rates suffer numerous problems: A surge in bank-owned housing can cause pronounced declines in home values, and owners may find their homes worth less than they invested. As abandoned homes proliferate, once prosperous areas can suffer blight (Immergluck, 2011).

During surveys and qualitative interviews in 2009-2010, researchers found homeowners who felt besieged by plummeting property values and the proliferation of abandoned houses—problems they often attributed to immigrants who had recently settled in the area to work in construction and the service industry. This study began 10 months before Lehmann Brothers and Bear Stearns, two of the nation’s most venerable financial services firms, would declare bankruptcy—events that signaled the beginning of what some called “the subprime mortgage crisis” and others termed the Great Recession. Our interviews concluded a year into the recession, when the U.S. unemployment rate was 9.9%; the nation had used the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to salvage derelict investment banks and their insurers, and Americans suffered the loss of trillions of dollars in investments. In what follows, researchers provide a ground-level empirical examination of this crisis and how residents of a suburban community understood it.

Methods

The study’s goals were to (1) obtain rich, thick data to understand residents’ experiences; (2) sample enough respondents to ensure multiple viewpoints; and (3) engage in persistent observation to understand contextual factors shaping resident perceptions (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This study used a modified replication of sociologist Douglas S. Massey’s (1987) ethnosurvey methodology. Massey called for multimethod data collection including ethnographic observation as well as qualitative and quantitative interviews of randomly sampled households in a neighborhood (Massey & Capoferro, 2004). Massey (1987) developed ethnosurvey methodology to obtain valid data on Mexican migration by studying communities via contemporaneous application of ethnographic and survey methods. Unlike Massey, who sought generalizable findings by comparing multiple communities, the goal here was to obtain a trustworthy understanding of one residential area. Therefore, researchers sacrificed multisite sampling while retaining key features of Massey’s (1987) approach to obtain an in-depth understanding, including (1) archival research and ethnographic immersion prior to face-to-face surveys and (2) ethnographic observation while conducting surveys and recorded interviews. Ethnosurveys afforded the means to reach respondents in their homes while engaged in prolonged observation.

Sampling

The university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the study prior to field engagement. Principal investigators engaged in direct observation prior to ethnosurvey administration. Surveys and fieldwork were conducted in tandem by 14 graduate and undergraduate students who were trained for 7 weeks in research ethics, ethnographic field work, and survey administration. Researchers identified 1,535 addresses in two adjacent neighborhoods identified by key informants and newspaper coverage as areas where predominantly White citizens resided in close proximity to Latino immigrants. Three hundred and seven addresses (one in five) were drawn via random sampling. Surveys were conducted after respondents signed IRB-approved consent forms explaining that the study concerned community change including immigration, traffic, housing, and other issues. Each survey was assigned a sort number to ensure confidentiality. Ethnosurveys (n = 103) were conducted in March through June 2008 (see Appendix A).

The racial/ethnic breakdown of survey respondents (n = 103) was as follows: White (n = 87), Asian (n = 6), Latino (n = 5), African American (n = 3), and other (n = 2). Forty-three had at least a high school education with some college or technical training; 37 were college graduates and 21 had a graduate degree. Educational information was not available for two respondents. The sample included 59 males and 44 females. All names reported are pseudonyms. Given the anger over immigration, it is possible that respondents (n = 103) who harbored strong views were overrepresented. This constitutes a limitation of this study.

Fieldwork and Surveys

As noted previously, field work/direct observation is always conducted with ethnosurvey interviews. Researchers wrote copious descriptions of houses, neighborhood activities, and interactions with potential respondents. Investigators required submission of field notes within 48 hours of contact to minimize risk of forgotten detail. Principal investigators conducted fieldwork from May to August 2008 to ensure prolonged engagement. Investigators and students spent approximately 400 hours in the field.

Surveys (n = 103) with 42 closed and open-ended questions that covered the following domains were administered: (1) boundaries/avoidances, (2) attitudes toward neighborhood, and (3) views on immigration (see Appendix B).

Recorded Interviews

Principal investigators conducted 1- to 2-hour interviews with 23 residents in their homes in 2009. All respondents (n = 103) were asked whether they would be willing to be interviewed at length at a later date; we interviewed all who agreed to do so. Twenty-one were White and 2 were African American.

Data Analysis

Analysis centered on three goals: (1) developing themes while acknowledging nuance and complexity, (2) bracketing bias and assumptions, and (3) reporting exceptions to emergent patterns. Bracketing entails conscious effort to suspend beliefs, feelings, and assumptions to understand respondents (Padgett, 2008). Researchers used Nvivo7 to develop data-driven, literal codes, which are argued to be more true to the “raw” information than thematic codes (Boyatzis, 1998). Literal codes such as “trash,” “traffic,” and “foreclosures” helped facilitate bracketing by focusing on raw data. After the initial examination, Nvivo7 assisted in grouping 198 literal “child” codes under thematic trees. Review of data revealed themes related to property values, worries about neighborhood change, and anger at immigrants.

Findings

In open-ended survey responses and interviews, residents expressed worry over overcrowding, houses with unrelated occupants, too much trash, cars parked on lawns, and the use of yards for agriculture. Some regretted having bought homes in the area when prices peaked and expressed resentment over property tax bills they believed were too high given the plummeting value of their houses. Analysis of fieldnotes, interviews, and survey results showed that residents were concerned about foreclosures. The focus for law-making and activism, however, became immigrants rather than the mortgage industry. The data indicate that this trend was because of the conspicuity of immigrants, who often lived in crowded, deteriorating houses and were often blamed for these conditions. By comparison, the financial and mortgage industry’s conduct, including the hiding of toxic assets and/or use of predatory lending, was not readably visible at the ground level. Thus, residents were left to grapple with changes that were tangible and readily visible: houses in poor condition and the presence of people who did not use properties in ways that they perceived as normative.

The Foreclosure Business

Fieldwork began in June, 4 months before the U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to salvage the collapsing financial industry. The data gathered via ethnographic observation illustrate the effects of foreclosures on the neighborhoods studied. Researchers noted a neighborhood that initially seemed blessed with the trappings of affluence: homes buttressed by pseudo-Greek columns facing expansive lawns. On one corner, however, was a home with a yellow and black sign reading “Bank Owned” in the bay window. Within two blocks sat another house that had a hand-sized lock on the door, which could indicate foreclosure. As researchers studied the house, a man pulled up in front of the house and began tinkering with the lock. Researchers exited the car and greeted him. He offered to let researchers see the house. The man announced that the kitchen had been stripped of everything, and indeed it had: Copper and plastic pipes jutted from walls, connected to nothing. A dirty stove sat on the kitchen floor, which had been stripped of tiles, leaving strips of grout. There were no counters, no oven, no refrigerator, and no sink. The contractor said he had seen at least 20 others houses in this condition across Northern Virginia.

He believed the house was bought as part of a scam in which the buyer never intended to pay a mortgage. Instead, the buyer probably housed as many tenants as possible with the idea of pocketing a large sum of money before the bank reclaimed the home. The bank could wait 6 months before seizing a house in arears. “So several families are paying the scam man thousands, which he clears. Think about—if you’re looking for free money. You don’t have to prove income. You don’t even have to prove that you’re an American citizen. I’ve seen other houses where they’ve divided up the living room into multiple places to sleep. Then they fill them with immigrants” (anonymous, personal communication, June 18, 2008).

Banks held auctions for homes in Prince William County, a process observed during field observation. One day, researchers pulled into a subdivision of red brick row homes for an advertised home auction. After weeks of field observation, researchers had come to know the development as an area occupied by Latinos, African Americans, and low-income Whites. Residents in other areas spoke disparagingly of the neighborhood. Researchers decided to inspect the foreclosed house and, with some effort, managed to jiggle open a rusted gate in back, where there was a brick porch overgrown with weeds stretching back to the end of the property. Looking inside, a small kitchen with white cabinets was visible as well as a strawberry-colored rug in the dining room. Upon returning to the street, researchers noticed a van filled with construction equipment as well as a pick-up truck that held ladders and five-gallon containers of house paint. Standing in front of the truck was a middle-aged man wearing gym shorts and a paint-splattered navy sweatshirt. The man said he owned 40 houses in the area.

According to him, the real estate market at that point was comprised almost exclusively of investors buying properties for rentals. His plans were to purchase the house researchers had seen for $50,000. Some houses in this development sold in the $300,000 range when the real estate market was robust, he said. The man had been following the bank records and suspected that soon there would be another 200 foreclosures. The auctions typically lured 20 people who bought properties without ever having been inside. People whose properties were worth much less than their mortgages had abandoned houses. “If your house drops in value by $200,000, wouldn’t you walk away? You’re paying $2,700 (per month) on something you own. Most people bought at the height of the real estate market and not putting any money down” (anonymous, personal communication, July 1, 2008). Key to these descriptions is the fact buyers had obtained mortgages without the vetting that had once been commonplace, such as proving income and length of employment. In addition, buyers never made a 10% or 20% deposit that might have motivated them to ride out a downturn to recoup their investments.

The man planned to use the $50,000 townhome to house “construction guys.” He guessed it could accommodate five men, each paying $900 rent. If the men could not afford the rent, “I’ll make them work it off for me,” he said. Neither of us asked if the men were undocumented immigrants; employers who hire them are subject to federal prosecution. Nonetheless, the arrangement sounded common for Latino immigrants. They arrived needing housing, and by virtue of their occupational instability were not in a position to easily refuse compulsory work to reimburse rental costs (Abrego, 2011; Fussell, 2011). When no one arrived to open the house for a walk-through, the contractor told researchers about another auction on the other side of town.

The houses there seemed to be well-maintained, though the home being auctioned was a rancher with an unkempt, weedy lawn. On the front lawn, people carried white cards with numbers for the auction. One researcher asked how to obtain a number: They told her to report to the auctioneers in the house. Researchers joined a stream of potential buyers inside—families with small children, men in construction clothes or suits—who examined the house. The house looked careworn. One wall in the living room had been painted candy apple red; the rug was algae green, a color scheme a real estate agent might have advised sellers to mute for a conventional sale. Nails pocked the wall where picture frames had been. The kitchen was small with plywood cabinets, some hung crookedly. The auctioneers stood at the counter, having turned the kitchen into a makeshift office. One researcher asked if she could obtain a number. They gave her a long form to sign and then asked for a driver’s license. The form indicated that the participant must produce $10,000 that day if hers was the winning bid on the house. The contract also said the house was being sold “as is” and then gave the basic rules for the auction. As she turned in the signed form, the researcher asked the man where he was from. He smiled and said, “Oklahoma.” She asked if he was doing more than one auction locally. “Our company is under contract to sell a number of foreclosed homes in this area,” he replied.

The house had three bedrooms and a single bath with two rooms painted vibrant colors. One researcher found a folded notecard on the floor of a bedroom closet. Written in a small child’s scrawl was a note, “I don’t want to move. I will miss you geys.” The spelling was phonetic, the script uneven. A rusting swing set had been left in the backyard; nearby was an overturned basketball hoop and backboard on a brick porch. Just as auctioneers came outside to convene the sale, the wind began gusting and the sky grew ominous. Seemingly undeterred by a gathering storm, the auctioneers corralled potential buyers using a portable sound system, and the most serious buyers moved to the front. The auction moved rapidly and continued as the storm began. Despite pelting rain and a crack of thunder, one man called prices in the familiar auctioneer’s cadence while another tracked bids, turning his head at times to spit chewing tobacco on the lawn. The house sold as the sky erupted with a violent storm. The winning bid came in at $185,000, a bargain for a detached home in the Washington suburbs. There was no way of knowing how much repair it could need. According to the rules explained by the auction company, the family that put in the winning bid would wait several months before learning whether their offer would satisfy the bank.

For this family, the foreclosure crisis may have been fortuitous, offering the possibility of buying a modest home they might otherwise not be able to afford. The contractor who purchased investment properties seemed to benefit as well, though the homeowners interviewed in the next section were worried and demoralized by the loss of their home values. A “scam man” could buy a house and never pay the mortgage, pocketing money as he filled a house with immigrant workers. It appears that such practices may have become common in the area, as a shadow industry arose from the need to house immigrant workers; mortgages appeared to have been an easy capital for this pursuit.

House Values

A year later, interviews with residents revealed that virtually everyone could point out nearby houses that had gone into foreclosure. The mother of a 3-year-old complained that her house had depreciated to below its purchase price. She and her husband tried unsuccessfully to sell the house three times despite improvements such as refinishing the basement. “It’s not that our house is bad. It’s that there’s foreclosures all over the place. Say you have ten houses, three are in foreclosure. Come on” (respondent, personal communication, March 5, 2009). She noted that she and her husband had made a deposit for a conventional, 30-year mortgage so they had to stay and hope that the house would appreciate at some point.

A middle-aged couple that had lived in the area for decades expressed dismay over foreclosures in the neighborhood. Their daughter had claimed to know someone who bought a house with no money down and no proof of income. She did not submit pay stubs, tax returns, or bank statements when applying for a mortgage. The friend worked as a bartender. She fell behind on her mortgage after having her third baby. “She wasn’t working anymore, so they let that house go,” the woman said. In other words, the couple moved out and defaulted on the loan. The foreclosure sullied the woman’s credit but not her husband’s. He had never signed the mortgage papers. “See there’s something wrong with that. … They didn’t use her name at all on the new house because she’s got bad credit now because of it (the foreclosure). And yet they were still able to buy another house” (anonymous, personal communication, April 16, 2009). One man described a house on his block that was owned by an investor who lived in another part of the state. When the bank began foreclosure proceedings on the house, the investor never told the tenants. “He just kept pocketing the money and then all of the sudden the foreclosure man came knocking on the door,” he said.

Some residents researched zoning laws as they sought legal recourse against investors and contractors who bought single-family homes to rent to large groups of Latino immigrants. The immigrants had moved to the area to work primarily in construction, housekeeping, and restaurants (Singer, Wilson, & DeRenzis, 2009). One man, Jeffrey, studied zoning ordinances and called code officers to report violations such as illegal parking and improper trash disposal. In 2007, Jeffrey and his wife, Sylvia, joined a local anti-immigrant organization of 1,500 that advocated for ordinances to escalate arrests. Jeffrey complained that multiple families and unrelated adults were using single-family homes as “bunkhouses,” a term evocative of rustic barracks where ranch hands and migrant workers bed for the night. They blamed immigrants for their neighborhood’s deterioration. Jeffrey said a neighbor had looked at a foreclosure on a nearby street that was being sold for $150,000. He believed the former tenants had been undocumented immigrants. After looking at the home, the neighbor decided against buying it. “There was a stench of sewage. Broken toilets. Dry wall that had collapsed from overflows in bathrooms. Rodents. Just a general state of neglect in the kitchen and bathroom facilities which had permeated through the whole house after it had been abandoned for a longer period of time” (anonymous, personal communication, March 19, 2009).

The couple did not know whether these houses had been purchased with subprime loans and/or if they were part of the “scam man” scheme described earlier. What they did know was that they needed to find the means to restore house values, so they counted construction trucks parked in front of houses and reported zoning violations. They regularly read the anti-immigrant organization’s monthly newsletter.

Immigrants Next Door

The lack of legal status that made immigrants desirable to employers in construction and the service industry also served to render them suspect as neighbors. Though some residents complained about foreclosures and house value depreciation, more expressed dismay over undocumented, Latino immigrants. Local law-making and a visible social movement centered on immigrants. Anti-immigrant activists claimed 1,500 members in an organization that formed in 2007. The organization recruited by canvassing neighborhoods as well as with a website and blog. Field notes, open-ended survey responses, and interview transcripts revealed often-repeated statements: “We’re not anti-immigration. We’re anti-illegal immigration.” and “What part of illegal don’t you understand?”

Ethnosurvey results indicate that immigrants had become a focus of discontent. Researchers used structured surveys with open-ended questions that organized inquiries about aspects of neighborhood life and neighborhood change before mentioning the immigration issue to avoid leading respondents into citing the latter as a concern. One question asked respondents to list positive aspects of neighborhood life. Ethnosurvey results reveal that respondents (n = 103) listed roughly equal numbers of positive and negative aspects of neighborhood life. Anti-immigrant responses emerged, however, in a query asking respondents about changes for the better and for the worse. Residents were asked, “What changes would you characterize as having been for the better? Why?” The answers were reviewed, coded, and tabulated (see Appendix C).

Similarly, the survey asked residents, “What changes would you characterize have been for the worse? Why?” (see Appendix D). Responses characterizing immigrants as educationally or culturally deficient emerged in response to a question about changes to neighborhoods. “Uneducated immigrants … They damage houses and don’t respect properties,” said one. “Crime has increased … Hispanic cultural changes. Noisy,” said another. Interviews queried residents about overcrowded houses and found that they seldom knew who owned them or whether the neighbors rented or had purchased the properties.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey reported that one in every three houses in the county was built after 2000. The same survey found that 50.8% of residents had moved in after 2005. As laborers moved in to build new homes and businesses, residents became irritated with overcrowding and using large lawns for makeshift farms, parking lots, and commercial enterprises. “You know, you’ll have people parking in the grass. I mean, chickens is another thing I have a real pet peeve with, but there will be chickens here from time to time, too. It was really horrible here. I mean, and to think, you know, there was probably 10 people living outside in tents,” said Amber, who became a visible advocate for the anti-immigrant group (Amber, personal communication, June 11, 2010).

One schoolteacher said it was necessary to maintain a well-kept property and an attractive yard. She spent evenings after work tending flowers and shrubs. Some lived in a neighborhood governed by a homeowners association where they felt pressure to maintain properties. Undocumented immigrants—unable to converse in English and lacking the time and money to landscape yards—became conspicuous by virtue of the comparative neglect of properties. “It makes the neighborhood go down. It’s just not as well kept. You just feel like you’re in a different world when you go into some streets,” one respondent said of her immigrant neighbors’ properties (anonymous, personal communication, April 20, 2008).

A middle-aged couple living in a large, Southern-feel house with a wrap-around porch expressed dismay over the changes in their neighborhood. Belle had directed the renovation of her home, which included white vinyl siding; it was conspicuous because it appeared newer than the other homes on the block. Belle and Sam complained about immigrants who tried to sell used cars from the driveway of their house next door. After municipal officials informed them that they were in violation of zoning ordinances, the immigrant neighbors drained the swimming pool and created a driveway into it so that the cars would be hidden from view. Belle said that there is a “cultural difference” that explains why immigrants would not value a pool as other neighbors might. Her offering of a cultural explanation for the pool’s use as a used car lot notably excluded financial realities. Immigrants engaged in low-wage work would likely have few resources to maintain a swimming pool, and as with others who opted to grow corn or raise chickens in a residential neighborhood, yards had to be used to generate income. The pool served a function similar to residential housing in the halcyon days of the construction boom: It helped immigrants maximize limited resources, much in the same way in which laundry rooms, kitchens, and hallways could be used for makeshift bedrooms to defray rental costs.

Discussion

As indicated in the data, neighbors expressed frustration both with immigrants residing in homes that went into foreclosure as well as American citizens who purchased homes without proof of income and/or who incurred debt well beyond their modest incomes. Researchers entered when anti-immigrant discourse was ascendant and a social movement to displace immigrants from neighborhoods had succeeded in persuading county government to pass ordinances targeting this population. Between 2000 and 2007, much of the population growth in DC outer suburbs was attributed to Latino immigrants, lured to the area to work in the construction and service industries (Singer et al., 2009). The first wave of foreclosures in the suburban county studied here disproportionately affected lower income, minority, and immigrant populations (Urban Institute, 2009), a trend that reflects arguments earlier in this article about the overrepresentation of these groups in subprime lending (Phillips, 2012; Rugh & Massey, 2010).

Seeking answers to the conspicuous and rapid deterioration of housing stock in their neighborhoods, neighbors coalesced around the visible and identifiable “causes” of these problems: immigrants who could not afford to maintain properties in ways that meet middle-class norms. That action arguably came because residents could not identify and address the true culprits of this crisis—neoliberal policy-making and economics. In the absence of an understanding of the larger forces at play, such as a neighbor’s failure to pay a mortgage as its adjustable rate escalated, residents’ ire grew. Residents appeared to have turned their anxiety and anger on a visible target, their neighbors whom they believed were undocumented immigrants, demonstrating that “when legal status becomes the defining feature of an entire ethnic group in the public’s eye, fear and civic isolation grow” (Singer et al., 2009, p. 13).

The true perpetrators of the crisis—mortgage companies, investment banks and global investors who created the subprime market, as well as real estate speculators who crowded homes with undocumented, low-waged immigrant workers—were largely invisible actors. Immigrants, by comparison, constituted a striking, visible change in local neighborhoods and became the target of suburban frustration with economic conditions. Though local news outlets reported the proliferation of foreclosures in 2007, the subprime crisis arguably did not come to be understood until major news outlets began scrutinizing the events that preceded enactment of the Troubled Asset Relief Protect Act of 2008. Underlying the changes suffered in these neighborhoods was the neoliberal policy-making that enabled banks to tie local properties to complex, risky financial instruments, a step that led to the collapse of the nation’s economy in 2008 (Baker, 2014; Immergluck, 2011).

Implications for Practice

A recent study of renter evictions in Milwaukee, Wisconsin found the number of renters spending more than 30% of their income on housing to be climbing, with Latino and African Americans overrepresented in that sample (Desmond, 2016). Data do not exist to study how many Latino homebuyers or renters might be undocumented. An analysis of Freddie Mac data by the Brookings Institution (Schuetz, 2017) showed that available affordable housing for median income families fell by 5% between 2010 and 2016; for low-income families, there were 11.4% fewer affordable dwellings.

Though the right to affordable housing would arguably be encompassed in social work’s economic justice imperatives (NASW, 2008), the profession’s paucity of research in this arena leaves practitioners with little guidance for advocacy. At present, many professionals may not be equipped with the knowledge necessary to advocate and support clients at risk for foreclosure or eviction. This is problematic because the rollback of the welfare state, coupled with deregulation of private enterprise, leaves citizens more vulnerable to market risks (Abramowitz, 2012; Baker, 2014). “Although economic policy can be interpreted as outside the purview of social work, social policy is increasingly path dependent on lending policies as the risks of the market economy are steadily shifted onto the individual” (Baker, 2014, p. 62). Future research should include large-scale surveys ascertaining perceived income and housing security among homeowners in order to develop policy recommendations to support sustained home ownership. As evidenced by President Trump’s executive actions to weaken banking regulations and promises by Republican leadership to reduce social welfare spending, it is clear that the profession needs a scholarship consciously focused on the effects of neoliberal policy-making.

In addition, practitioners need support in developing new skills to stem the problems described here in the findings. Social work education could help this mission by explicitly defining neoliberal economics in policy courses (Reisch, 2013; Schram, 2015).

For example, though social work programs routinely emphasize social justice as a key theme informing practice, ambiguity regarding its meaning and application persist (Reisch, 2013). Using Harvey’s (2005) framework, social work curricula could explore how neoliberalism has affected the lives of clients via economic and social policies designed to promote the growth of markets and capital, while weakening supports for vulnerable populations. Such policies could include trade agreements that abet the movement of resources and capital across international borders, resulting in precarious employment and lower wages in the United States (Piven, 2001). Since the Reagan Administration, neoliberalism has been implicated in mass incarceration as privatized prisons secure contracts to maximize profits by incarcerating more prisoners in both state and federal prisons (Alexander, 2011). Other policies linked to neoliberal economics include “welfare reform” and the devolution of the U.S. welfare state, which has deepened poverty and food insecurity (Edin & Shaefer, 2015).

When immigrants first moved into the neighborhoods examined here, there were no social workers to assist in their incorporation by helping to resolve conflicts over nuisances such as parking, trash disposal, and noise (Singer et al., 2009). Social workers who serve immigrants are challenged by the fact that undocumented residents are not eligible for social services (Jonas, 2012). Nongovernmental organizations should consider retaining social workers with community organizing skills in these circumstances. By community organizing, professionals could help residents understand that immigrants who have been housed irregularly may not be to blame for a home’s condition. Social workers could initiate campaigns identifying real estate speculators and slumlords; they could organize to escalate zoning enforcement and even advocate for legal intervention from the district attorney’s office against perpetrators of scams described in the findings. Social workers should acknowledge and validate homeowners’ losses but frame the issue to expand residents’ knowledge of predatory lending and vulnerable populations. In addition, these workers could help organize meetings between long-time residents and immigrants to quell disputes over issues such as parking and the use of yards for agriculture. Translators would likely need to be available for these meetings if the workers are not bilingual.

Finally, social workers could advocate for policies to support people in securing stable housing. That would be one key step to reducing the vulnerability borne by individuals under neoliberal policies (Baker, 2014). Though housing policy may not be the focus for many social workers, professionals can access resources. For example, the Urban Institute (2018) recommended a series of local-level policies to stabilize struggling homeowners, including tax abatements to offset skyrocketing values, and grants to help lower income families pay the upfront costs of buying a house. Homebuying grants, affordable real estate taxes, and low-cost loans could arguably render owners less vulnerable to foreclosures. These recommendations might be useful in advocacy. In addition, social workers could collaborate with organizations that promote access to affordable housing, such as the National Low-Income Housing Coalition. Such a collaboration, coupled with research on neoliberal policy-making, could lead to a blueprint for advocacy.

Footnotes

Appendix

Appendix D.

Changes for the Worse.

Immigrants	51
Foreclosure (includes abandoned houses)/house value depreciation	33
Traffic, overpopulation, development	18
Crime	10
Racists	2

Disposition editors: Sondra J. Fogel

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was funded internally by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University.

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