Manufactured homeowners live at risk of eviction - state policies can improve housing insecurity or make it worse.

High rents and house prices across America means that mobile homes are playing an increasing role in providing housing in the US. Mobile homes placed in mobile home parks can be precarious, with the potential for closure at any time, displacing hundreds of residents. Esther Sullivan spent two years conducting ethnographic analyses of mobile home parks in Florida and Texas, ..

Dignity Takings and “Trailer Trash”: The Case Of Mobile Home Park Mass Evictions

Mobile homes are a primary source of shelter for America’s poor and working classes. A large share of the nation’s mobile home stock is found in mobile home parks where residents own their homes but lease the land under their homes from private landlords. Urban growth has put pressure on park landlords to sell and redevelop mobile home parks. When parks are redeveloped mobile home residents are evicted and entire communities are destroyed. Residents lose their homes and home equity as they struggle to relocate their homes to different parks or are forced to abandon them. Through two continuous years of comparative ethnography inside closing mobile home parks in the two states with the largest mobile home park populations (Florida and Texas) I examine how mobile home park dispossessions are structured from the top down through municipal ordinances and financing regulations and how they are experienced from the bottom up by residents who are dehumanized in the characterization of “trailer trash.” I argue that these mass displacements constitute a dignity taking in that they dispossess residents not only of their homes and communities, but of their full moral worth, autonomy, and voice in the political processes that structure their eviction

Investigating the Sustainability of Southeastern United States\u27 Wood Pellet Production for Use in European Biopower Facilities

Although transition to renewable energy resources like bioenergy is being promoted as a way to mitigate global climate change, it is not always clear what potential tradeoffs stakeholders might encounter as these new energy resources reach commercial scale. Holistic consideration of a variety of potential effects on environmental and socioeconomic factors valued by human societies will be an essential component of meeting the world’s energy needs without compromising the quality of life available to future generations. This dissertation is therefore intended to advance understanding of the potential benefits and tradeoffs associated with the production of industrial wood pellets from Southeastern United States’ (SE US) forests for use in European biopower facilities.Although SE US global industrial wood pellet exports have developed in response to European Union goals to mitigate climate change, groups on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean have expressed concerns that the trade arrangement will lead to negative impacts on SE US forests. Concerns include potential loss of old growth and bottomland forests and associated ecosystem services and species, as well as heavily debated potential effects on global greenhouse gas emissions. These claims of adverse impacts need to be tested with empirical data associated with key environmental and socioeconomic indicators of sustainability.Four collaborative research manuscripts developed for this dissertation are presented as four chapters following an Introduction. In Chapter 1, a telecoupling framework is used to qualitatively analyze the sustainability of the transatlantic wood pellet trade system. Chapter 2 proposes a set of definitions and reference scenarios to improve cross-cultural understanding of the new pellet industry within the context of the pre-existing SE US timber industry, as well as guidelines for future quantitative modeling efforts. Chapters 3 and 4 describe a quantitative analysis of timberland changes in two case study SE US fuelsheds that have been supplying industrial wood pellets to Europe since 2009. The Conclusion synthesizes the main findings from the four chapters and discusses opportunities to use the research to improve future policy decisions related to this renewable bioenergy system

Children's evaluation of the difficulty of disliked school subjects

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University, 1948. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Linking channel instability to urbanization in the upper Beaver Creek Watershed, Knox County, Tennessee

Within the past 15 years, the 223 km2 Beaver Creek watershed of Knox County, Tennessee has begun to undergo rapid development. Past studies of urbanizing watersheds have indicated that even small degrees of development can impact channel stability through increased runoff from impervious areas. Already, bank erosion seems to be prevalent throughout the upper reaches, and it is likely that this channel instability is contributing to the watershed\u27s severe flooding and water quality problems. To determine whether urban development is a cause of the channel instability observed in upper Beaver Creek, I took qualitative and quantitative field measurements of channel stability at 10 sites within eight adjacent sub-basins and tested for bivariate correlation between the channel stability indicators and 10 urbanization metrics generated using a geographic information system (GIS). The selected sub-basins ranged from 3.1 km2 to 10.1 km2 in area, varied from predominately rural to urban in land use, and encompassed many of the different types of topography and underlying geology found throughout the upper Beaver Creek watershed. I found that the prevalence of bank erosion does increase as urbanization increases within the upper Beaver Creek watershed. My data suggest that a total impervious area greater than 13-20% and a wooded area of less than 38-51% may lead to channel instability within the upper Beaver Creek sub-basins. The observed channel erosion is also correlated with the proportion of human to natural uses within the catchment and the 30-meter riparian buffer zone, as well as the proportion of wooded riparian buffer upstream of the site

Away from cities, informal developments provide affordable housing for those on low incomes, but conditions are often poor

For many, informal settlements are an urban characteristic normally equated with developing countries, and not the United States. Esther Sullivan and Carlos Olmedo look at the rise of informal housing that often reaches far beyond the U.S.-Mexico border. Through a survey of residents in two informal housing communities in Texas, they find that home self-building provides an affordable way for people to obtain housing on little means. They also write that support is needed for those in informal housing in the form of credit aid, as well as improvements to insulate against the effects of the weather

Patient preferences for emergency department-initiated tobacco interventions: a multicenter cross-sectional study of current smokers

BACKGROUND: The emergency department (ED) visit provides a great opportunity to initiate interventions for smoking cessation. However, little is known about ED patient preferences for receiving smoking cessation interventions or correlates of interest in tobacco counseling. METHODS: ED patients at 10 US medical centers were surveyed about preferences for hypothetical smoking cessation interventions and specific counseling styles. Multivariable linear regression determined correlates of receptivity to bedside counseling. RESULTS: Three hundred seventy-five patients were enrolled; 46% smoked at least one pack of cigarettes per day, and 11% had a smoking-related diagnosis. Most participants (75%) reported interest in at least one intervention. Medications were the most popular (e.g., nicotine replacement therapy, 54%), followed by linkages to hotlines or other outpatient counseling (33-42%), then counseling during the ED visit (33%). Counseling styles rated most favorably involved individualized feedback (54%), avoidance skill-building (53%), and emphasis on autonomy (53%). In univariable analysis, age (r = 0.09), gender (average Likert score = 2.75 for men, 2.42 for women), education (average Likert score = 2.92 for non-high school graduates, 2.44 for high school graduates), and presence of smoking-related symptoms (r = 0.10) were significant at the p \u3c 0.10 level and thus were retained for the final model. In multivariable linear regression, male gender, lower education, and smoking-related symptoms were independent correlates of increased receptivity to ED-based smoking counseling. CONCLUSIONS: In this multicenter study, smokers reported receptivity to ED-initiated interventions. However, there was variability in individual preferences for intervention type and counseling styles. To be effective in reducing smoking among its patients, the ED should offer a range of tobacco intervention options

Task force on immigration and higher education in Central Massachusetts

In August 2007, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium, Inc. created a task force to examine the issue of immigration and higher education in Central Massachusetts. It has become increasingly clear from recent demographic and economic studies and projections that the population in the northeast, and certainly in Central Massachusetts, is showing minimal growth. There is evidence that a decline in the “native-born” population is caused by significant out-migration due to a number of factors, including the high cost of living, limited career opportunities and a declining birth rate. The limited population growth that is evident is due primarily to the recent influx of immigrants to this area, with the most significant numbers in Worcester coming from Ghana, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Kenya, El Salvador, Albania and Liberia. It is also clear that the area’s economy is becoming more knowledge-based with an increasing percentage of all new jobs requiring some form of postsecondary education. According to the 2007 Massachusetts Department of Workforce Development’s Job Vacancy Survey, 38 percent of current job vacancies in Massachusetts require an associate’s degree or higher. This represents an increase from 30 percent in 2003. Consequently, the level of education that the immigrant population attains is of vital importance to everyone—not only to immigrant students and their families but also to the economic well-being of the entire region. The Task Force was charged with researching the barriers to higher education faced by this new wave of immigrants and suggesting recommendations to address those barriers. The 36-member Task Force was made up of representatives from Consortium member institutions; federal, state and local governments; community and faithbased organizations; the Worcester Public Schools; the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education; and the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition. Meetings were held over six months, during which the Task Force identified three main barriers faced by immigrant communities in accessing higher education, and sub-committees were created to work on each of these. Speakers were invited to present on topics of interest. Two public hearings were held, the first of which was conducted at Worcester State College in October. It attracted community representatives, as well as college and high school faculty and administrators. The second hearing, held at the downtown branch of Quinsigamond Community College (QCC) in December, was attended by immigrants (English for Speakers of Other Languages – ESOL and GED) students as well as QCC staff.Published versio

Methodologies for Housing Justice Resource Guide

This Resource Guide is the outcome of a Summer Institute on Methodologies for Housing Justice convened by the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin as part of the Housing Justice in Unequal Cities Network, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (BCS 1758774). Held in Los Angeles in August 2019, the Summer Institute brought together participants from cities around the world. As is the case with the overall scope and purpose of the Housing Justice in Unequal Cities Network, it created a shared terrain of scholarship for movement-based and university-based scholars. Dissatisfied with the canonical methods that are in use in housing studies and guided by housing justice movements that are active research communities, the Summer Institute was premised on the assertion that methodology is political. Methodology is rooted in arguments about the world and involves relations of power and knowledge. The method itself – be it countermapping or people’s diaries – does not ensure an ethics of solidarity and a purpose of justice. Such goals require methodologies for liberation. Thus, as is evident in this Resource Guide, our endeavor foregrounds innovative methods that are being used by researchers across academia and activism and explicitly situates such methods in an orientation towards housing justice