Isaac Martin, Christopher Niedt

Foreclosed America

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Isaac William Martin is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. Christopher Niedt is Associate Professor of Sociology at Hofstra University.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: STANFORD BRIEFS
• Seitenzahl: 112
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. April 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 200mm x 126mm x 10mm
• Gewicht: 122g
• ISBN-13: 9780804795135
• ISBN-10: 0804795134
• Artikelnr.: 41748772

Autorenporträt

Isaac William Martin is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. Christopher Niedt is Associate Professor of Sociology at Hofstra University.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Ten million people
chapter abstract
This chapter describes the mortgage foreclosure crisis from the standpoint
of mortgage borrowers. It begins with an overview of the typical
foreclosure process. It narrates how deregulation of mortgage lending and
secondary mortgage markets led to a bubble, and then to the historic crash
in 2007. It reviews existing research on the crisis and notes the absence
of studies concerned with the people who lost their homes. It also
introduces the National Suburban Poll, a survey data set that permits a
representative overview of these dispossessed Americans.
2Who are the dispossessed Americans?
chapter abstract
This chapter describes the people who lost homes because they could not pay
their mortgages between 2007 and 2012. Younger homeowners, parents of young
children, and people of color are overrepresented among them, but the
typical adult who lost a home, like the typical person who did not, is a
white person in early middle age with some college education and no
children. What they have in common is bad luck and financial hardship.
People who lost homes in the financial crisis have lower incomes, less
stable finances, and more anxiety about their finances than otherwise
identical people who did not lose homes in the crisis. They are more likely
to be divorced or unemployed. Statistical models and personal narratives
suggest that among people who were financially vulnerable to losing a home
in the crisis years, all it took was bad luck to push them over the brink.
3Communities in crisis
chapter abstract
This chapter describes the living arrangements and neighborhoods of
individuals who lost their homes in the crisis. Most of them live in
suburbs close to where they work. They generally have not moved far, and a
quarter of them are even living in the same neighborhoods where they lived
when they lost their homes. But their present housing arrangements are more
precarious. Most are renting or living in shared housing. Many have doubled
up at least temporarily by moving in with kin, friends, or roommates. They
report big problems in their neighborhoods, from unemployment and
unaffordable housing to crime, drugs, and violence. Their former
neighbors-people who say that they know a neighbor who lost a home-are more
likely to report abandoned or run-down homes as a big neighborhood problem.
4Disenfranchised and disillusioned
chapter abstract
This chapter argues that the policy response to the foreclosure crisis has
ignored the needs of dispossessed Americans because they are not a powerful
voting bloc. They are less likely to stay registered and less likely to
vote than other Americans, because losing a home makes it hard to stay
registered to vote and hard to maintain the relationships that turn people
out to the polls on election day. The dispossessed and the other adults in
their households are also disillusioned with politics. They think
government should do more to reduce economic inequalities, but they do not
have confidence that it will. The lack of confidence in government may
reflect their experiences of the crisis: federal policy responses focused
on restoring housing markets to functioning, but have done little to
redress the suffering of those who lost their homes when those markets
failed.