Study examines racism, housing

A study still under way at a Washington, D.C., research firm is testing whether landlords judge potential tenants based on race. 

This study was the subject of a lecture Margery Austin Turner, the senior vice president for program planning and management at The Urban Institute, gave Thursday on the 20th floor of the Cathedral of Learning to an audience of about 100 students and members of the community. 

During the lecture, which was part of the School of Social Work’s Center on Race and Social Problems Speaker Series, Turner said that The Urban Institute has worked with the Department of Housing and Urban Development on housing discrimination. 

During her lecture, Turner presented the preliminary findings of the study.

As an example, Turner said that a young white man who went to an apartment complex to see an advertised one-bedroom apartment would be shown two available apartments by the staff. Additionally, they would also show him a two-bedroom apartment that was not significantly more expensive. 

If a young black man arrived at the same apartment complex and asked to see the same one-bedroom apartment, he would be shown the two one-bedroom apartments advertised, but the staff would not show him the two-bedroom apartment that his white counterpart saw.

“These levels of discrimination are important because they raise the cost of housing search for minorities and they restrict minorities’ housing options,” Turner said.

According to Turner, The Urban Institute and HUD used paired tests in which one white person and one member of a minority group inquired separately about available homes or apartments, posing as equally qualified buyers or renters. From late summer 2011 to late fall 2012, 8,000 paired tests were conducted in 28 metropolitan areas nationwide.  

“Under the law, they should get exactly the same information and exactly the same opportunities offered to them,” Turner said.

But statistics from the preliminary findings of the study suggest otherwise.

From the 8,000 paired tests, landlords told blacks about available apartments about 11 percent less often than whites. They told Hispanics about apartments for rent 12.5 percent less often than they told whites. Asians were told about apartments about 9.8 percent less often than whites.

In regard to individuals seeking to buy a home, blacks were told about 17 percent fewer houses for sale and shown about 18 percent fewer, and Asians were told about 15.5 percent fewer and shown 18.8 percent fewer units than equally qualified white homeseekers. However, as presented by Turner, there was no difference in favor seen by Hispanic homeseekers and white homeseekers.

Turner said that the researchers found discrimination in real estate using different methods. In one of these methods, clients of different races scheduled an appointment with a real estate agency or a landlord. 

Turner said that by using phone and email they were sometimes able to capture the possibility of discrimination before people even walked in the door of the real estate office. 

Brittany Green, a graduate student in Pitt’s industrial engineering program, was surprised by how landlords or real estate agents react to text messages or phone calls before they even see the client in person — another issue that the study hopes to explore further. 

“Now it is how their name or voice sounds versus what they even look like,” said Green.

In another test, the researchers looked at how helpful landlords and real estate companies were with potential clients of different races and what prices they quoted.

Subjects of different races also asked to see the same unit. Finally, the researchers also studied the characteristics of neighborhoods that landlords and realtors showed the testers.

Gulsun Cavusoglu, a graduate student in the master’s social work program, was impressed by the Center on Race and Social Problems’ initiative to bring in speakers such as Turner.

“The lecture sparked a lot of things I had never thought about, which I think is what is so great about this center, that they’re willing to have these conversations on race that normally a lot of people don’t want to talk about,” Cavusoglu said.