The barriers that low -income women face in achieving economic self -sufficiency and homeownership: Reports from a qualitative study in the midwest

This dissertation examines the complex, multilevel barriers that low-income women in a medium-sized Midwestern city face when trying to achieve economic self-sufficiency and homeownership. Data on which this dissertation are based include interviews with 25 low-income women enrolled in a local family self-sufficiency program and four of the program's administrators. All interviews were conducted by the author during Fall 2008. Low-income women in this study completed in-depth, face-to-face interviews and short demographic surveys. Agency administrators just completed in-depth interviews, to represent agency perspectives in the discussion of low-income women's barriers and goals. Intersectionality theory and standpoint feminism are the conceptual frameworks for this study, and data collection and analysis followed phenomenological methods of inquiry.;Existing literature suggests the following barriers to women's economic self-sufficiency and homeownership: low income, lack of savings, debt, poor credit histories, low levels of financial literacy, low levels of education, job instability, transportation, lack of access to child care and institutional discrimination by mortgage lenders. Except for literature about discrimination by lenders, barriers are characterized as occurring at the person-level. Most existing literature fails to point out that low-income women may face barriers on multiple levels simultaneously, at both a personal (micro) level and system (macro) level and also face barriers that intersect. Women in this particular study reported facing multiple barriers at both the personal and system-level, which further complicates their realities and makes individual barriers harder to overcome. In addition, based upon the interviews conducted with women in this study, women face many unacknowledged barriers, such as lack of mentors, criminal records, lack of self-esteem, and health and disability concerns. This chapter describes how women talk about these barriers and potential reasons why these barriers may be gendered and racialized. In addition, this study examined women's perceptions on the attainability of the American Dream, and how successful a local family self-sufficiency program is in bringing women in my study closer to their goals and dreams.;Based on the results of this study, there is a need for researchers to examine women's homeownership (or goals of homeownership, here) as an additional measure of their economic self-sufficiency. This is especially important if one considers that single mothers are less likely to be homeowners and the greater majority of those receiving government cash assistance are leading female-headed households. This qualitative study tracks women's homeownership goals and experiences with a local family self-sufficiency program and, in this way, provides a more comprehensive understanding of the barriers and opportunities that low-income women in this sample face, and how complicated barriers and opportunities really are for women of color in contemporary times.