Low income/public housing and slum minimization in the U.S.A. : the development of a model designed to isolate tenantry variables that might lead to the development of slum housing

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to isolate and delimit public housing tenantry variables associated with crime or vandalism, which might eventually lead to slum housing. The issues of slum crime and poverty, which, as early as in 1949 in the U.S.A., were identified as the major problems in providing housing for the poor, have continued to haunt the progress of public housing even today. As both the federal and state governments reduce resources and funding, with no new housing construction planned, public housing tenants, managers, and authorities are compelled to seek ways of preserving existing housing by using their internal resources. One of the ways through which tenants of public housing might preserve their existing housing stock would be by minimizing the incidences of crime and vandalism, both of which have been credited with accelerating the development of slum housing. In this study, a regression model was developed for isolating tenantry variables which predispose public housing to deterioration. The model, which used nine tenantry variables, was designed to serve as a diagnostic tool for predicting impending slum housing conditions. In investigating the tenantry factors associated with crimes which lead to slum housing, it was determined that (1) there was an association between crime and teenage population, i.e., the more dense the teenage population in a housing complex, the more the potential for crimes; (2) the more employed welfare tenants there were in an apartment complex, the less the incidence of vandalism; (3) tenant organizations where they existed minimized opportunities for vandalistic and criminal acts; (4) the majority of public housing apartments have no tenant organizations; (5) reasons for the nonexistence of tenant organizations ranged from lack of organizational ability and leadership to lack of interest; (6) on the average, about 75 percent of the families of the 16 apartments surveyed for this study were female-headed with about 70 percent of the families unemployed and/or unemployable.