In Need of a Roof: Pandemic and Housing Vulnerability

Housing is a basic need and is intricately connected to a household’s health and wellness. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the housing vulnerability for certain subgroups of the population and further jeopardized these household’s health and stability. Using the Household Pulse Survey (HPS) launched by the U.S. Census Bureau in April 2020, we examine the correlates of housing vulnerability during the pandemic. We explore heterogeneity in the evolution of housing vulnerability during the pandemic along demographic characteristics such as ethnicity and housing type (renter vs owner) and find that Asians experienced a unique increase in housing vulnerability, more than Hispanics and Blacks, particularly for Asian renters between 2020 and 2021. This possibly shows a chilling effect for Asians during the pandemic (2000–2022). We also note that not being employed, larger household size, lower levels of education, and income are positively correlated with housing vulnerability. We also find that households who indicate they worried in the last 2 weeks are significantly more housing vulnerable and worrying is more acute for renters.