| Abstract: | Problems facing public housing authorities can be addressed through two basic alternative perspectives. One assumes that difficulties result from the behavior of certain “problem” tenants and recommends careful screening of applicants. This perspective influenced a housing authority in a small city, which desired a means to select tenants who would be less likely to exhibit problems. Information in the records of the housing authority was analyzed to identify tenant characteristics predictive of problem tenancy. The findings indicated that these problems were not as widespread as believed by management and that tenant characteristics were not strongly predictive of problems. Application of this approach would probably not constitute a significant improvement over present practices and might allow unfair discrimination to occur unwittingly. Instead, the most feasible strategy to reduce the impact of problem tenancy, even within a single locale, seems to be to focus on management practices and to address the more fundamental causes of tenant difficulties. |
