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Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets:
National Results from Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 of the
Housing Discrimination Study (HDS)
The Housing Discrimination Study 2000 (HDS 2000) represents
the most ambitious effort to date to measure the extent of
housing discrimination in the United States against persons
because of their race or color. It is the third nationwide
effort sponsored by HUD to measure the amount of discrimination
faced by minority home seekers. The previous studies were
conducted in 1977 and 1989.
The report noted below provides national estimates of discrimination
faced by African Americans and Hispanics in 2000/2001 as they
searched for housing in the sales and rental markets. It also
provides an accurate measure of how housing discrimination
has changed for these groups since 1989.
Discrimination in Metropolitan
Housing Markets: Phase 1
The results in this report are based on 4,600 paired tests
in 23 metropolitan areas nationwide. The report shows large
decreases between 1989 and 2000 in the level of discrimination
experienced by Hispanics and African Americans seeking to
a buy a home. There has also been a modest decrease in discrimination
toward African Americans seeking to rent a unit. This downward
trend, however, has not been seen for Hispanic renters. Hispanic
renters now are more likely to experience discrimination in
their housing search than do African American renters.
While generally down since 1989, housing discrimination still
exists at unacceptable levels. The greatest share of discrimination
for Hispanic and African American home seekers can still be
attributed to being told units are unavailable when they are
available to non-Hispanic whites and being shown and told
about less units than a comparable non-minority. Although
discrimination is down on most measures for African American
and Hispanic homebuyers, there are worrisome upward trends
of discrimination in the areas of geographic steering for
African Americans and, relative to non-Hispanic whites, the
amount of help agents provide to Hispanics with obtaining
financing. On the rental side, Hispanics are more likely in
2000 than in 1989 to be quoted a higher rent than their white
counterpart for the same unit.
There are three volumes to this report, the main report,
an annex, and a supplement. The main report provides the key
findings; the annex provides more details on the data collection,
analysis methods and metropolitan estimates; and the supplement
uses 1,507 additional tests conducted in Phase 2 to provide
state estimates for Alabama, California, Georgia, and New
York, metropolitan estimates for the Baltimore MSA and the
Miami MSA, and updated national estimates of discrimination
for blacks and Hispanics.
Discrimination in Metropolitan
Housing Markets: Phase 2 - Asians and Pacific Islanders
This study provides the first ever estimate of the level
of discrimination experienced by Asians and Pacific Islanders.
The results are based on 889-paired tests conducted in eleven
metropolitan areas nationwide in 2000 and 2001. The key findings
are that:
- Asian and Pacific Islander prospective renters experienced
consistent adverse treatment relative to comparable whites
in 21.5 percent of tests, about the same as the level for
African American and Hispanic renters.
- Asian and Pacific Islander prospective homebuyers
experienced consistent adverse treatment relative to comparable
whites 20.4 percent of the time, with systematic discrimination
occurring in housing availability, inspections, financing
assistance, and agent encouragement.
In addition to the national estimate for Asians and Pacific
Islanders, the report also provides a national estimate for
Asians alone, an estimate for the continental U.S., statewide
estimate of discrimination against Asians and Pacific Islanders
in California, estimates of discrimination faced by Chinese
and Koreans in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and an estimate
of discrimination faced by Southeast Asians in the Minneapolis
metropolitan area.
Discrimination in Metropolitan
Housing Markets: Phase 3 - Native Americans
This study provides estimates of the level of housing discrimination
experienced by Native Americans when they search for housing
in the metropolitan areas of Minnesota, Montana, and New Mexico.
Across all three states, Native Americans receive consistently
unfavorable treatment relative to whites in 28.5 percent of
rental tests. Systematic discrimination is most observable
on measures of availability. That is, whites are told the
advertised unit is available, told about similar units, and
told about more units than similarly qualified Native American
testers. The level of consistent adverse treatment and systematic
discrimination experienced by Native Americans in the metropolitan
rental markets of the three states is greater than the national
levels shown for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians."
Quick Link to MSA Summaries
This page provides quick summaries of the housing discrimination
results from all of the studies by the following breaks:
- National
- MSA*
- States*
The summaries provide the level of consistent adverse treatment
by race and tenure along with summaries of statistically significant
levels of systematic adverse treatment for individual treatment
variables. Click on individual MSAs or states to see the summary
results.
*Note that for the most part, the metropolitan and state-level
results show much fewer items as showing systematic discrimination
than the national estimate. It is not because discrimination
is necessarily different or less in the metropolitan areas
than nationally, it simply reflects that the number of tests
conducted in each metro area was small (relative to the total
national sample), the lower-bound (net) estimates of discrimination
are often not statistically significant. Generally, we conducted
about 70 tests per tenure and per ethnic group in each metro
area, a very challenging volume of testing for local organizations
conducting the tests. However, at this sample size we would
need to see net measures of about 10 percent or higher to
be sure they were statistically significant. In general, because
of the wide confidence intervals, we report the overall incidence
of consistent white-favored treatment was comparable across
most metro areas. The national estimates have much larger
sample sizes (between 500 and 1200 tests for each tenure and
ethnic/racial group), allowing us to measure discrimination
with much greater precision than we do at the metropolitan
level.
Housing Discrimination Study Data
(zipped file - 15 MB; unzips to 200 MB - when unzipping have "Use Folder Names"
checked)
The Housing Discrimination Study (HDS) Public Use data sets contain all of the data in
SAS format used to do the analysis reported in the HDS reports. Some data, such as the
name and address of the agency being tested and data that a user might use to
specifically identify a tester (such as date of birth and income) have been removed. In
the cases where addresses were removed, the census tract geocodes and zip codes have
been retained.
The data sets are available by Phase. It is highly recommended that users obtain and
read the reports before using these data. Note that the data used for the "Phase 1 -
Supplement" report are contained in the Phase 2 data files.
Each phase has its own data dictionary and copies of the forms (HDSDICTFORMS.ZIP) used
in the data collection with the variable names written on to the forms. The data
dictionaries represent the full data sets before items were deleted to protect
confidentiality, so users are recommended to use the "proc contents" command in SAS
to see what variables are actually in each file. The data dictionary does not include
information on the skin tone files for phase 1 and phase 2 (skin tone data were not
collected in phase 3). For using the skin tone data files read the "Read Me" file
associated with those data along with the ".lst" file.
For each of the phases, the "raw" HDS data are provided. These are the data that
show the outcomes from each side of a test. To analyze the data for paired test analysis,
the minority and non-minority partners need to be merged together (see the Phase 1 data
dictionary on how to do this). The raw files reflect different stages of each test. Page
2 of the Phase 1 data dictionary provides a sense of the testing "trees" and how
they relate to the raw data files.
For Phase 1, we also provide "supplemental" data files that were used as part of
the report analysis in Phase 1, and the "intermediate data" files that are merged
files that allow for paired test analysis. We also provide the SAS code used to create
those files in Phase 1. Users are cautioned that the code should be used as a guide to
understand how the data have been analyzed. Users would need to make substantial
modification to the code to actually run it in their computing environment. If users
want to use the code or the "supplemental" and "intermediate" data files,
they should consult the "readme" file in the "Phase 1 Code" folder. The code
and a "readme" file are also provided for Phase 2 and Phase 3. Users use these data
and code at their own risk. HUD, the Urban Institute, and the University of Connecticut
are not providing any technical assistance on the use of the data.
The Phase 1 data files are somewhat different than Phase 2 and 3. This is because in
Phase 1, all of the data were collected on paper and then keypunched. In Phases 2 and 3,
most of the data was collected electronically (testers would return from a test and then
complete a web-based form).
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