DEAR LANDLORD: HOW THE OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMNT OF RENTAL PROPERTIES IN BALTIMORE, DALLAS, AND CLEVELAND MATTER FOR TENANTS, NEIGHBORHOODS, AND THE CITY

The strategies, resources, choices, ideologies, and identities of rental property owners are of enormous consequence for poor families and urban development. While frequently studied in the aggregate, little research has considered the role of landlords as social actors in American cities, and almost none since the 1970s. This gap is particularly concerning given the increased reliance of housing policy on private markets to provide services – a decades long transition away from public housing and towards vouchers. This dissertation is designed to close that gap, addressing two core research questions: 1) who owns American rental real estate and how do they interact with their tenants? 2) how do landlord activities influence the effectiveness of the housing voucher program? I use data collected through the HUD funded project, “Brokering the Geography of Opportunity: How Landlords Affect Access to Housing and Neighborhood Quality Among HUD Assisted Renters.” This data consists of 1) 127 qualitative interviews with a sample of rental property owners and managers in Baltimore, MD, Dallas, TX, and Cleveland, OH; 2) 15 years of administrative data containing the universe of voucher subsidized units in each metro, with longitudinal tenant and ownership data; 3) ethnographic observations and key stakeholder interviews in each city