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Selection of Public Housing Tenants: On the Feasibility of Using an Objective Screening Procedure 1
Author(s) -
Burke Beverly G.,
Smith Elton C.,
Otoole Laurence J.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1986.tb02277.x
Subject(s) - leasehold estate , locale (computer software) , selection (genetic algorithm) , focus (optics) , business , perspective (graphical) , public economics , public relations , computer science , economics , political science , law , physics , optics , artificial intelligence , operating system
Problems facing public housing authorities can be addressed through two basic alternative perspectives. One assumes that difficulties result from the behavior of certain “problem” tenants and recommends careful screening of applicants. This perspective influenced a housing authority in a small city, which desired a means to select tenants who would be less likely to exhibit problems. Information in the records of the housing authority was analyzed to identify tenant characteristics predictive of problem tenancy. The findings indicated that these problems were not as widespread as believed by management and that tenant characteristics were not strongly predictive of problems. Application of this approach would probably not constitute a significant improvement over present practices and might allow unfair discrimination to occur unwittingly. Instead, the most feasible strategy to reduce the impact of problem tenancy, even within a single locale, seems to be to focus on management practices and to address the more fundamental causes of tenant difficulties.