ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a conceptual framework to help analyze the ways in which unmet housing needs have become a contemporary social problem for many American women and their families. We identify a wide range of differences among women concerning their housing circumstances. Trends show that women with access to higher education have entered the labor market in record numbers, earned living wages, and achieved economic security to live out the American dream of home ownership-increasingly as heads of household. Conversely, a number of social, political, and economic forces converged to create a housing affordability gap for others, as evidenced in employment, housing, and racial disparities data. As the 2006-2009 housing foreclosure crisis swept the country and unemployment rose, the plight of very low-income renters emerged. The at-risk among them-with unstable, low-wage jobs and a multiplicity of special needs-are most likely to become homeless.
