Abstract
On my way home from a recent annual meeting held in Baltimore, I took the opportunity to drive through Park Heights, the neighborhood at the center of Eva Rosen’s The Voucher Promise: “Section 8” and the Fate of an American Neighborhood. Some might know Park Heights as the location of the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown horse race associated with displays of affluence like elegant clothing, signature drinks, and wealthy horse owners. Yet, as I began my drive down Pimlico Road, just outside the gates of the racetrack, what I saw were signs of poverty and inequality: vacant houses with broken windows overgrown with vines, empty lots which once served as ball fields for the area’s children, and more liquor stores than one might think strictly necessary. The reader doesn’t need to take this drive in order to form a vivid picture of the area because in the first section of the book, with assistance from a long-time resident, Rosen provides a detailed historical overview documenting the past and present of Park Heights along with photographs. It is here where we are introduced to Rosen’s descriptions of Homeowner Havens, Transitional Areas, and Voucher Enclaves. In subsequent chapters, Rosen explains not only how these three zones provide differential resources for the newcomers but also the significant role that stigma and social control play in determining their experiences. Throughout the book, Rosen provides a perspective inclusive of tenants, homeowners, and landlords that illustrates both the intended and unintended consequences of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program designed to provide residential “choice” to people seeking affordable housing.
Rosen calls her work an “ethnography of policy” (p. 6) and her specific interest is voucher housing policy in this majority African American neighborhood where almost one third of residents live in poverty, and 17 percent of the residents are voucher recipients. Rosen explores the lives of 102 people with different relationships to housing: 17 voucher holders, 37 unassisted renters, 18 homeowners, and 20 landlords. She lived for 11 months as a participant in the community and uses her detailed observations and semi-structured interviews to not only examine how housing vouchers impact the residents, but how the policy shift away from public housing to private housing vouchers still led residents to neighborhoods like Park Heights. Committed to understanding the people she was studying, Rosen became a part of the community by attending neighborhood events, visiting homes, sharing meals, and accompanying neighbors on their trips to work, school, the housing authority, and community meetings. These very personal encounters with residents document both positive and negative experiences of renters and homeowners alike, with more of the narrative framed by housing insecurity, which, as Rosen points out, “has direct links to a multitude of negative life outcomes” (p. 90). Still, Rosen demonstrates that there are tangible and seemingly positive functions intended by the HCV program that provided residents with more stability than they previously had.
The Voucher Promise begins with a brief, yet detailed history of housing inequality and national policy, including a timeline of the creation, destruction, and restructuring of public housing. While not intended as a comprehensive review of unfair housing practices embedded within institutionally racist policies, Rosen presents clear, concise examples covering a span of a century. This engaging and readable account is especially important for the reader who is not familiar with the history of racism in housing policy. For the sociologist, researcher, and policymaker, there will be many familiar names and references to sociological concepts, court cases and policies, but these do not weigh the volume down. An additional strength of Rosen’s work is found in the footnotes where she expertly and efficiently supports the lived experiences of renters and homeowners with robust quantitative studies and reports. There is also a methodological appendix filled with helpful tips on process, approach, and application. This book is easily accessible to the student or lay reader who is interested in the role that housing policy plays in reproducing inequality in the United States.
Rosen’s work contributes to a growing body of sociological research on the role of landlords, who in this case allowed her to accompany them as they showed apartments to prospective renters. She reveals the complicated way in which they and designated voucher “specialists” reproduce poverty and segregation, at first seeming to help by providing assistance to people in need of housing, but channeling them into high-crime, low-resource neighborhoods. Rosen provides substantial evidence that some of the landlords she shadowed manipulated voucher holders with incentives, renovations, waivers, and other “mousetraps” to entice them to move into these areas. A strategy Rosen recounts occurred as David stood outside the office of the Housing Authority of Baltimore City (HABC) handing flyers to voucher holders as they walked out offering AC and newly renovated properties. One day, when a woman finally stopped and asked where the apartment was located, she quickly walked away once she heard it was in Park Heights. While Rosen acknowledges the need to rectify discriminatory practices of landlords, she also recommends macro-level policy changes.
Rosen’s conclusion provides clear, well-researched policy-based solutions best informed by the main tenet of this book: “Vouchers are a powerful tool to help people, but if we don’t find a way to understand and unravel the forces that corrupt them, we risk recreating residential racial segregation in the very program policymakers have tasked with unraveling it” (p. 27). Rosen provides three key areas for improvement. The first is to reform the practices of PHAs with the intent to allow more mobility across boundaries. The second would provide landlords with incentives and exemptions that ultimately aid the renters and prohibit discrimination at a national level based on an individual’s income and voucher status. Finally, and again, embedded within rigorous research, Rosen ends with numerous solutions that go beyond the scope of housing vouchers, including incentivizing new construction, expanding inclusionary zoning laws, and combating exclusionary zoning, to name a few. The Voucher Promise provides an informative, in-depth, and necessary look into the policy and practice of the HCV program clearly identifying a need to reassess the way it currently operates. This book can be used in a variety of undergraduate or graduate classes, and is an essential read for policymakers, urban sociologists, and scholars from many other disciplines. According to a recent Fact Sheet distributed by the White House (2023), President Biden’s recent budget includes “10 billion in mandatory funding to incentivize State, local, and regional jurisdictions to make progress in removing barriers to affordable housing developments, such as restrictive zoning.” It seems plausible that Rosen’s book may have already found its way to the office of key policymakers.
