Disability Status, Housing Tenure, and Residential Attainment in Metropolitan America, 2009

Samantha Friedman, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)
Kaya Hamer-Small, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)
Wendie Choudary, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)

In 2010, 18.7 percent of the non-institutionalized population had a disability. To help disabled persons live independently, the Fair Housing Amendment Act (FHAA) was passed in 1988, which prohibits housing discrimination on the basis of disability. Despite the existence of the FHAA, recent research has found that households with disabled persons live in poorer quality housing and neighborhoods than non-disabled households. However, no research has examined such disparities in residential attainment separately by housing tenure, despite the fact that enforcement of the FHAA is lower in the sales market. Given this fact and that home ownership is tied to the wealth of households, this paper seeks to fill this gap. Our preliminary findings suggest that the disability-status, residential disadvantage is worse in the sales than the rental market, suggesting that greater enforcement is needed in the former. The findings are discussed as they relate to theories on residential attainment.