Filling the Gaps in an Inadequate Housing Safety Net: The Experiences of Informal Housing Providers and Implications for Their Housing Security, Health, and Well-Being

Abstract

The authors examine the experiences of informal housing providers, defined as those who provide housing and shelter to family, friends, and acquaintances in the context of a severe affordable rental housing crisis. Forty-five semistructured interviews were conducted with informal housing providers in and around New Haven, Connecticut, in 2021. The data describe the critical role informal housing providers play in addressing gaps in the housing safety net. Interviews also show the ways informal housing provision can strain already vulnerable households and threaten providers' own housing security, with implications for their health and well-being. As such, the data illustrate how widespread unmet housing needs can reverberate across networks and communities. Given the multiple ways structural racism has constrained housing access for nonwhite Americans, this burden of housing provision is also likely to be unequal, with implications for population health equity.

Keywords: health equity; housing; racism; social networks.