Wonyoung So, PhD

Our findings point to an urgent need for policy interventions to address the potentially exclusionary impacts of tenant screening services.

These criteria, applied universally to both voucher and non-voucher applicants, may exclude approximately one in ten voucher holders, despite the guaranteed rent support they receive through public assistance.

Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we find that although voucher holders typically meet rent-to-income thresholds, thanks to the subsidies that reduce their rent burden, they still face significant barriers related to credit scores, bankruptcy history, and debt.

OpenTSS: Countering Tenant Screening OpenTSS aims to develop a crowdsourcing tool and/or campaign to audit tenant screening services and reveal the patterns of their inner algorithms, data structures, and representations, by collecting t...

In total, we gathered 1,227 unique tenant screening criteria. These criteria can be explored using our interactive visualization at: open-tss.net/en/screening....

OpenTSS: Countering Tenant Screening OpenTSS aims to develop a crowdsourcing tool and/or campaign to audit tenant screening services and reveal the patterns of their inner algorithms, data structures, and representations, by collecting t...

To estimate the effects of income- and credit-based tenant screening on the HCV program, we first collected tenant screening criteria documents from property management websites and their Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).

While such screening practices may have influenced the HCV program's implementation, their impact has remained largely understudied.

This work began after we came across a troubling webinar from a tenant screening company that discussed “how to reject voucher tenants.” The presenters claimed that landlords could still reject tenants with vouchers by using their screening service.

Choice denied: impact of income and credit-based tenant screening on the Housing Choice Voucher program The Housing Choice Voucher program supports over 2.5 million households by subsidizing rent payments within the private housing market. However, challenges arise due to exclusionary practices, unde...

I’m very proud to see our paper, Choice Denied: Impact of Income and Credit-Based Tenant Screening on the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program, co-authored with Anisha Gade and Forrest Hangen, finally published in Housing Studies (Open Access)!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Race, Profit, and Algorithms: How iBuyers Leverage Neighbourhood Inequality — CLaSP Blog How do algorithm-driven business models interact with historical patterns of segregation, property devaluation, and racial capitalism? Wonyoung So addresses this question in new research into iBuyers—...

New on the CLaSP blog: 'Race, Profit, and Algorithms', @wonyoungso.bsky.social details his research on iBuyers, a new class of real estate actors generating profits in racialized housing markets

www.claspblog.org/blogposts/ra...

HUD choked funding to enforce fair-housing laws. Legal aid groups may not survive Most housing discrimination claims are handled by local nonprofits around the country. They say the Trump administration has hobbled them, and are challenging the cuts as unlawful.

Most housing discrimination claims are handled by local nonprofits around the country. They say the Trump administration has hobbled them, and are challenging the cuts as unlawful.

This is really good political communication, because it's forceful but also pedagogical on the fundamental issue, but also because while he mentions the audience's potential reaction to Khalil's views, he doesn't try to pander by distancing himself from them.

Screenshot of a story from the New Yorker magazine. Red background with black and white photos in a stylized graphic. Title: When an American Town Massacred Its Chinese Immigrants. Subtitle: In 1885, white rioters murdered dozens of their Asian neighbors in Rock Springs, Wyoming. A hundred and forty years later, the story of the atrocity is still being unearthed. Michael Luo reports.

“This isn’t the America I know.”

If Republicans in Congress want to help make our country safe, I have some ideas for them.

Lessons from Eviction Court by Fran Quigley | Paperback | Cornell University Press Lessons from Eviction Court goes behind the disturbing statistics of evictions and homelessness to provide the first-hand experience of a lawyer who is in eviction court each week, standing alongside....

I am happy to announce that my new book, Lessons From Eviction Court: How We Can End Our Housing Crisis, will be published soon by @cornellupress.bsky.social

Our inspiring clients teach my students and I about how we can fix our broken housing system. www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Musk's whole deal is to pretend that no one knew how government bureaucracy worked before, like it was this big mystery box, and it's exactly that combo of stupidity and arrogance that pervades silicon valley and leads to them reinventing a city bus and thinking they're Isaac Newton

Four Ways to Build Black Wealth and Increase Economic Opportunity According to the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the national median wealth was four times higher than the median wealth of a typical Black family.

For some Black families in the US, the wealth gap has consequences on their ability to start a business, pursue a college education, manage financial emergencies, & more.

Urban experts have identified 4 key policy interventions that could help Black Americans build, maintain, & grow their wealth.

Landlords Have a New Hardball Tactic: Tanking Your Credit Score Disputes over rent are playing out through negative marks on credit reports, rather than in courts.

Sounds like a job for the CFPB.

Oh wait

www.wsj.com/personal-fin...

Government’s wins are often invisible: Systems that avoid plane crashes; alliances that avert war; surveillance that prevent pandemics.

Government wins are often *the avoidance of loss.*

So how do we tell the story of the destruction of government? The story of future losses *not* averted?

A woman’s place is in a safe city: Designing feminist cities through Nirbhaya Funds” by Radhika Radhakrishnan in association with the MIT Data+Feminism Lab. In the backdrop, a train runs between Mumbai and Kolkata, with protesters holding up placards demanding justice and safety for cis-women, trans, and queer persons in both cities.

We are excited to launch "A Woman's Place is in a Safe City," a data story on the use of #NirbhayaFunds for digital surveillance in India, in collaboration with @mitdusp.bsky.social Data+Feminism Lab, POV Mumbai @thesafecityapp.bsky.social & 3 anonymised Kolkata-based NGOs. bit.ly/3EvqV3R 🧵Read on:

Mac Properties diverts housing voucher holders from Hyde Park's desirable apartments, class-action suit says The complaint, filed in federal court, alleges Mac Properties systemically discriminates against voucher holders looking to rent in Mac’s newer, high-rise apartments in Hyde Park and steers them towar...

Terrible, monopolistic landlord in Hyde Park, Chicago, Mac Properties, is sued for housing discrimination, steering voucher holders away from some buildings and toward others.

Yay for Hope Fair Housing!

The cover of my book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, which shows an abandoned Toys R Us under an ominous sky.

I am extremely freaking thrilled to announce that Bad Company is *officially* available for preorder wherever you buy books. (I am linking to Bookshop but buy it wherever!) I worked so, so hard on this book, and it would mean a ton to me if you ordered it. bookshop.org/a/109816/978...

this stuff is so jank

I might sign up. The biggest barrier I see is this is some faint ink! I can read cursive but I'm squinting trying to see letters.

"covers people who owned Siri-enabled devices from September 17, 2014 to December 31, 2024"

for a huge admission of mass scale privacy invasion, $95M is a little slap on the wrist

Today is publication day for the new book - Critical Data Studies. But since my copies are stuck in Holyhead parcel pileup & open access version not yet available on publisher website I'm saving marketing stuff to new year. As a launch day it's a bit of an anti-climax! But it's no longer 'in press'

White House releases new data estimating the impacts of landlord joint price fixing (via algorithm) on rental prices in major cities, showing a pretty large impact in places like Atlanta: www.axios.com/2024/12/17/r...