Home Is Where the Risk Is? Household Responses to Foreclosure

• In Event: 384 - Section on Economic Sociology Paper Session. Social Economies of Households

Abstract

In public discourse and much social scientific research, homeownership is associated with and assumed to promote wealth accumulation, upward mobility and stability for households. However, threats to homeownership such as foreclosure challenge these assumptions. This paper considers one facet of a broader project examining how households protect themselves from foreclosure risk, make decisions under economic distress and experience their implications across different life domains. Drawing on interviews and ethnography with thirty-one families, the paper identifies pathways through which household wealth and credit can deteriorate while family members attempt to maintain ownership and buffer the effects of a foreclosure. Homeowners “double down” by gathering, earning and spending additional money to try to avoid a foreclosure; leave behind immobile investments in their homes; and experience additional expenses and limitations after a foreclosure. The deterioration of wealth and diminished access to credit can have effects across multiple generations. Resources accumulated over decades rapidly disappear, and funds available for investments in the next generation, including for educational expenses, are severely limited. Similarly, resources available to mitigate future risks are eroded, compromising the ability of households to weather other episodes of economic insecurity and contributing to persistent inequalities across generations.

Author

• Elyse Kovalsky, Northwestern University