Profit or Protection? Evictions and Housing Dynamics in Immigrant Neighborhoods

Sociologists have long debated whether the concentration of immigrants in some neighborhoods exacerbates or mitigates disadvantage. This study extends this inquiry to investigate residential stability in poor immigrant neighborhoods. Quantitative analyses show that poor immigrant neighborhoods nationwide have an eviction rate 26 percent lower than similarly poor non-immigrant neighborhoods. Ninety in-depth interviews with landlords and tenants in two neighborhoods, Boston’s Chinatown and Houston’s Gulfton, demonstrate how co-ethnic owners and property managers engage in informal practices that provide flexibility to households at risk of displacement. However, in Chinatown’s enclave housing market, efforts by co-ethnic landlords and community organizations further suppress rents; in Gulfton’s secondary immigrant housing market, low rents (and low evictions) come at the cost of dilapidated housing. This article connects immigration and housing studies by underscoring how the protective qualities of some poor immigrant neighborhoods extend to housing dynamics, shielding their residents from evictions in a precarious housing market.