Author(s): Denise V. Siegfeldt, Sharad Maheshwari, Robert C. Askew
Survey data were gathered from a sample of 102 public housing residents who resided in the Pine Chapel section of the City of Hampton, Virginia and attended a community meeting conducted by the Hampton City Redevelopment and Housing Authority. The topic of the meeting concerned the proposal to gradually move the residents out of public housing and disperse them into sites throughout the City of Hampton throughout the next five years due to a planned highway construction project that would requires the use of the land. Fifty-four percent of the residents who were presented with a survey actually responded. The survey respondents were predominately African-American, single female heads of households. According to survey results, the respondents felt that lack of savings for a down payment was the strongest barrier to being able to purchase a home, followed by lack of income for a house payment, lack of credit, being a single parent, and lack of knowledge of the home buying process. Statistical significance testing was conducted on perceived barriers to home ownership. The perception factors were analyzed by examining results for the entire sample, followed by a breakdown by age and number of dependents. Additional analyses were conducted to determine if the respondents’ employment status (employed verses unemployed) had an association with perceived barriers to home ownership. The study concludes with recommendations for housing policy, employment policy and for future research.