IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v693y2021i1p28-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Rising Tide Drowns Unstable Boats: How Inequality Creates Homelessness

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas H. Byrne
  • Benjamin F. Henwood
  • Anthony W. Orlando

Abstract

Is income inequality a driver of homelessness at the community level? We theorize that inequality affects homelessness both by crowding out low-income households from the rental market (what we call an “income channel†) and by causing home prices to rise (a “price channel†). We construct a dataset of information on inequality, homelessness, rent burden, and housing prices in 239 communities from 2007 to 2018 and use it to assess the income inequality–homelessness relationship. Our results suggest that income inequality is a significant driver of community homelessness and that the “income channel†is the more likely mechanism through which homelessness is created. We argue that broader policy efforts to reduce income inequality are likely to have the collateral effect of reducing homelessness, and we discuss the need for national and local policies to help low-income households afford housing.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas H. Byrne & Benjamin F. Henwood & Anthony W. Orlando, 2021. "A Rising Tide Drowns Unstable Boats: How Inequality Creates Homelessness," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 693(1), pages 28-45, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:693:y:2021:i:1:p:28-45
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716220981864
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716220981864
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716220981864?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Enrico Moretti, 2019. "Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 1-39, April.
    2. Albert Saiz, 2010. "The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1253-1296.
    3. Rebecca Diamond, 2016. "The Determinants and Welfare Implications of US Workers' Diverging Location Choices by Skill: 1980-2000," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 479-524, March.
    4. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 1-41.
    5. Jennifer E. Mosley, 2021. "Cross-Sector Collaboration to Improve Homeless Services: Addressing Capacity, Innovation, and Equity Challenges," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 693(1), pages 246-263, January.
    6. Ganong, Peter & Shoag, Daniel, 2017. "Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 76-90.
    7. Joseph Gyourko & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2013. "Superstar Cities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 167-199, November.
    8. Edward Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2018. "The Economic Implications of Housing Supply," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-30, Winter.
    9. Leah Boustan & Fernando Ferreira & Hernan Winkler & Eric M. Zolt, 2013. "The Effect of Rising Income Inequality on Taxation and Public Expenditures: Evidence from U.S. Municipalities and School Districts, 1970–2000," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1291-1302, October.
    10. Maria Hanratty, 2017. "Do Local Economic Conditions Affect Homelessness? Impact of Area Housing Market Factors, Unemployment, and Poverty on Community Homeless Rates," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 640-655, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Katherine M. O’Regan & Ingrid Gould Ellen & Sophie House, 2021. "How to Address Homelessness: Reflections from Research," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 693(1), pages 322-332, January.
    2. Riku Laine & Mikko Aaltonen & Mikko Myrskylä & Pekka Martikainen, 2023. "Sociohistorical context and post-prison life course," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2023-037, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Howard, Greg & Liebersohn, Jack, 2021. "Why is the rent so darn high? The role of growing demand to live in housing-supply-inelastic cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    2. Clémence Tricaud, 2019. "Better alone? Evidence on the costs of intermunicipal cooperation," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2019-12-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    3. Kemeny, Thomas & Storper, Michael, 2020. "Superstar cities and left-behind places: disruptive innovation, labor demand, and interregional inequality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103312, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Michael Storper, 2022. "Dodging the burden of proof: A reply to Manville, Lens and Mönkkönen," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(1), pages 59-74, January.
    5. William N. Evans & David C. Phillips & Krista Ruffini, 2021. "Policies To Reduce And Prevent Homelessness: What We Know And Gaps In The Research," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 914-963, June.
    6. Knut Are Aastveit & Bruno Albuquerque & André K. Anundsen, 2023. "Changing Supply Elasticities and Regional Housing Booms," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(7), pages 1749-1783, October.
    7. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Enrico Moretti, 2019. "Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 1-39, April.
    8. Raven S. Molloy & Charles G. Nathanson & Andrew D. Paciorek, 2020. "Housing Supply and Affordability: Evidence from Rents, Housing Consumption and Household Location," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-044, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Harald Bathelt & Maximilian Buchholz & Michael Storper, 2024. "The nature, causes, and consequences of inter-regional inequality," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(3), pages 353-374.
    10. Wenquan Liang & Ran Song & Christopher Timmins, 2020. "Frictional Sorting," NBER Working Papers 27643, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Peter Phibbs & Nicole Gurran, 2021. "The role and significance of planning in the determination of house prices in Australia: Recent policy debates," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(3), pages 457-479, May.
    12. Fabian Eckert & Sharat Ganapati & Conor Walsh, 2020. "Urban-Biased Growth: A Macroeconomic Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 8705, CESifo.
    13. Nicholas Kacher & Luke Petach, 2021. "Boon or Burden? Evaluating the Competing Effects of House-Price Shocks on Regional Entrepreneurship," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 35(4), pages 287-304, November.
    14. Bathelt, Harald & Buchholz, Maximilian & Storper, Michael, 2024. "The nature, causes, and consequences of inter-regional inequality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123014, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Molloy, Raven, 2020. "The effect of housing supply regulation on housing affordability: A review," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    16. Kemeny, Tom & Osman, Taner, 2018. "The wider impacts of high-technology employment: Evidence from U.S. cities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1729-1740.
    17. Xi Yang, 2021. "Land-Use Regulations and Urban Growth of African Americans," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 35(4), pages 338-350, November.
    18. Alessandra Canepa & Emilio Zanetti Chini & Huthaifa Alqaralleh, 2022. "Global Cities and Local Challenges: Booms and Busts in the London Real Estate Market," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 64(1), pages 1-29, January.
    19. Molloy, Raven & Nathanson, Charles G. & Paciorek, Andrew, 2022. "Housing supply and affordability: Evidence from rents, housing consumption and household location," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    20. Victor Couture & Cecile Gaubert & Jessie Handbury & Erik Hurst, 2019. "Income Growth and the Distributional Effects of Urban Spatial Sorting," NBER Working Papers 26142, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:693:y:2021:i:1:p:28-45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.