Profiles of Urban Homesteaders

摘要

This report presents a detailed description of the characteristics and early experiences of 646 urban homesteaders in 23 cities where HUD's Urban Homesteading Demonstration is being carried out. The purpose of the report is to provide initial information on the kinds of families that have elected to participate in the program and their impressions of the experience. Data were obtained from baseline interviews with the homesteaders within 6 months after they first occupied their properties. The overall picture which these data support is one of fairly young minority families with children, who are living in rental housing, in many cases shared with another household. Such families have a genuine need for the housing opportunities which homesteading provides. The urban homesteaders also appear to have the ''capacity'' to make the needed repairs and assume the financial responsibilities of home ownership. Despite fairly meager assets, they have incomes which are close to the national average and a high employment rate among household heads. Participants typically learned about the program from newspapers or by word - of - mouth. Although most viewed the program as an opportunity to acquire better housing or more space, over one - third felt it would be a good investment as well. Original investment, including payments to contractors and the cost of materials, exceeded $9,000, and the amount increased with each new group. The most frequently encountered problems were that costs and the amount of time and work were greater than participants had anticipated. The fact that rehabilitation is a time consuming process can be appreciated from the fact that at the time of this 6 - month survey, only 25 percent of the units had been completed. The program has been shown to have beneficial impacts on housing quality, neighborhood characteristics, and housing costs. Statistical tables of survey data are appended. Charts, tables, and graphs are included.