Recipient Organization
UNIV OF MINNESOTA
(N/A)
ST PAUL,MN 55108
Performing Department
Design, Housing & Apparel
Non Technical Summary
Stable housing is a basic need for all individuals however, low-income families and aging adults often lack the personal and financial resources to maintain safe, affordable, and appropriate housing. Federal, state, local, and non-profit agencies intervene with housing assistance and/or access to supportive services. Currently a households location determines how they access housing assistance. In metropolitan areas housing assistance is administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The U.S. Department of Rural Development administers housing programs for very-income rural households. Neither agency has adequate resources to provide for the majority of households meeting the thresholds to receive assistance. Research that will help inform designers, developers, property managers, and policy managers with research-based information to plan affordable housing. Although most poverty research has focused on urban families, low-income families with children are concentrated in rural areas (USDA, 2011). A 2002 study of rural children in poverty found 24% of the children had housing problems. Senior householders are also concentrated in rural areas (Bleden, 1999). A reliable measure of households evaluations of their housing situations should encourage additional research to provide evidence-based information for designers and policy makers concerned about affordable housing. This study builds on research that linked housing to rural community vitality; a variety of housing options and housing development predicted rural community vitality (Cook, et al, 2009; Bruin, Cook, Shelley, & Crull, 2006/2007; Niemeyer, et al 2006; Yust, et al, 2006). Developing a scale to measure Housing Security will facilitate comparative housing research between rural, suburban, and urban contexts. Furthermore, we begin by focusing on households (low-income and seniors) often at-risk for housing issues and concentrated in rural communities. Christine C. Cook as part of the Rural Families Speak project adapted the Housing Security Scale. It was based on The Household Food Security Scale, developed in the Food Security Measurement Project. The Household Securiaty Scale uses multiple indicators to evaluate a households ability meet the basic nutritional needs of its members (Bickel, Nord, Price, Hamilton, & Cook, 2000). Food insecurity is defined as "limited or uncertain access to food (p. 7). Recognizing that food insecurity, stable housing, and family well-being were interrelated issues faced by low-income households (Sano, Garasky, Greder, Cook, & Browder, 2010); Cook revised the scale to focus on the basic need of shelter. The purpose of the scale is to measure how households perceive the quality of their housing and surrounding neighborhood as well as their expectations of maintaining housing. Scale items ask about the households ability to cover housing costs, specific items that can be used to measure quality and comfort, and how well the home accommodates children.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The purpose is to evaluate the Housing Security Scale through a rigorous process of pilot testing, reviewing and revising, retesting, and validating with qualitative and quantitative methods among special populations at risk for housing issues. A scale measuring residents self-perceptions of housing security will contribute measures of the psychsocial concepts of predispositon and organization constraints in the Housing Adjustment and Adaptation Theory and improve our understanding of how households identify, choose, and evaluate housing options. A Housing Security scale that meassures hould also help housing providers and policy makers identify households in vulnerable situations. The goal is to contribute to design, housing, human service, and community planning research and application in the planning of housing, community, and human services. In summary, the purpose is to collect and analyze household level data to test and refine the Housing Security Scale and to test its contributions toward research with implications for housing and community policies and programs.
Project Methods
Administer the Housing Security Scale to households known to have housing issues, for example, low-resource families engaged in the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) in north Minneapolis. North Minneapolis is a neighborhood with high poverty rates and concentrated housing issues including a preponderance of vacant houses. Covering seven zip codes adjacent to the Minneapolis urban core, residents live with above average crime rates, declining population, high foreclosure rates, and concentrations of poverty (Institute on Race and Poverty, 2005). In May 2011, a tornado damaged over 3,700 residences as part of an estimated $80 million in damages (Roper & Furst, 2011). We will compare scale results with qualitative and other quantitative indicators of housing insecurity, such as cost burdens, housing quality, mobility, neighborhood problems, and residential satisfaction. Conduct focus groups and personal interviews with individuals in households vulnerable for housing issues, for example low-resource families in suburban and rural communities, to describe their interpretations of individual indicators include in the Housing Security Scale and what issues do they think are missing from the scale. This builds on collaboration with the Center for Sustainable Building Research on Net Zero Housing, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, and Minnesota for Humanity. Incorporate the Housing Security Scale within a long term post occupancy evaluation of Net Zero designs for low-income families moving into homeownership. Collaborators, Lucas Alm and Daniel Handeen at the Center for Sustainable Building Research, are working with architecture students to design sustainable homes for participants in two non-profit support housing providers in North Minneapolis. This group of participants will allow us to explore relationships between Housing Insecurity and first time homeownership. Evaluate the administration of the Housing Security Scale as a paper survey tool versus one-on-one interviews especially among older adults. For example, how might the question about accommodating children be revised to measure the accommodation of changing needs due to aging