Bureaucratic Inequality: How Administrative Processes and Policy Design Shape Housing Outcomes
Income inequality in the U.S. is growing, made unsustainable by the high cost of housing. Of the 35% of the country who rent their homes, the average tenant spends more than 30% of their income on rent (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Government support for this issue is meager, and the programs that exist heavily rely on the private sector (Vale & Freeman, 2019). In fact, governments have largely shifted away from the public provision of welfare programs and towards contracting out. In doing so, public programs are left to the dynamics of market logic. The profit incentive that characterizes the private sector could create perilous externalities for government service recipients. Governments often frame the decision to privatize public services as efficient and rational approaches to the use of public dollars. However, technical rationality can legitimize and mask harmful outcomes (Adams & Balfour, 1998). In this dissertation, I explore how inequality is perpetuated through the hidden mechanisms of the bureaucracy, where contracting out can be seen as an obscure decision. Two empirical chapters explore a hyper-contracted-out program: rental assistance. I first analyzed Source of Income anti-Discrimination (SOI) policies—a policy intended to bolster the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, a kind of low-income rental assistance. Intended to desegregate neighborhoods by providing a wider array of housing to choose from on the private market, the HCV program faces limitation in its success, including the willingness of landlords to accept a tenant’s voucher. Using a large-n dataset of urban neighborhoods, I find that SOI policies only modestly bolster the HCV program’s success. SOI policies are associated with only slight decreases in poverty concentration. However, I find that policies designed with administrative enforcement mechanisms are more effective than those with court enforcement mechanisms. In considering ways to support the HCV program, I turn to the literature on administrative burdens to explore the dynamics of rental assistance programs from the perspectives of those receiving services. In Chapter three, I conducted semi-structured interviews with rental assistance recipients. I find that those who receive support through a case worker have vastly different experiences in navigating the onerous processes of the program. However, in my sample, those with access to a quality case worker tend to be men, leaving Black women to navigate the program alone. These women, who are mostly mothers, endure untenable housing conditions. In this, the role of the case worker in navigating the private rental market not only reduces administrative burdens but ameliorates the embodied costs of inadequate housing. Finally, in the last empirical chapter, I explore the consequences for neighborhoods when local governments contract out the collection of delinquent property taxes—a process called property tax lien sale. Using a case study of Marion County, Indiana, I find that tax lien properties disproportionately cluster in Black neighborhoods which the city targets for urban renewal. Even more, properties sold in tax sale which are owned by an individual rather than a corporation, have higher average code enforcement fines than delinquent property taxes. In this, the privatization of delinquent property tax collections may displace Black residents in favor of neighborhood redevelopment. Across these chapters, I demonstrate how hidden, bureaucratic mechanisms can contribute to inequality. In the concluding chapter, I consider the potential for and limitations of public administration in addressing inequality and draw upon broader literatures to invoke a deeper understanding of political power dynamics.
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