Housing Stability, Vulnerability and Health in Southwest Michigan

Keywords: health, race, birth outcomes, eviction, social vulnerability
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Southwest Michigan is home to some of the highest eviction rates in Michigan. This study looks at how eviction and rent burden interact with social vulnerability and health through time. Eviction Lab eviction and rent burden data 2007-16, CDC social vulnerability variables, CDC Places data on adult health, and maternal and infant health metrics from the state’s vital statistics database are analyzed with a particular interest in changing relationships with health through time. Preliminary results show that birth outcomes of concern in the short term are more common in census tracts with higher evictions long term. In addition, eviction, rent burden and poverty have not always been linked in Kalamazoo County, but racial makeup of the census tract has been a significant factor in eviction for at least the last 20 years. For mothers of color, components of social vulnerability at the tract level (socioeconomic, household composition) as well as rent burden and eviction rates were significant predictors of poor birth outcomes in 2016 but not 2011. Outcomes – like poor births and evictions – seem to becoming slowly more related to social vulnerability and less about race in some parts of southwest Michigan.