Where Do Black Men Live? A Case Study of Housing Transience and Insecurity among African-Descended Men in Cambridge, MA, USA

Where do Black men live? This is the overarching question addressed by this thesis. Using an abolitionist framework, it centres those who must fend for themselves and are in constant motion, trying to meet their shelter needs while evading carceral systems.

This case study, conducted in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2021–2022, provides an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data gathered from surveys, in-depth episodic interviews, participatory action research, and service-based ethnography.

In addition to the overarching research question, this study examines experiences of low-income transient Black men; the ways in which residential programme regulations contribute to the protraction of housing insecurity; the intersectional characteristics (i.e., gender and race) and relational ties of their housing networks; and the burning questions of who should and who does shoulder the burden of payment for housing these men.

The findings of this study are threefold.
1. There is a complex web of housing policies, programme regulations, and eligibility requirements that together result in de facto exclusion of low-income African-descended men.
2. Low-income African-descended men, to address their basic housing needs, rely on their social networks, networks composed predominantly of similarly low-income women, who end up bearing an inordinate burden.
3. The specific housing insecurity experienced by low-income African-descended men must be empirically examined in its own right. Collapsing African-descended men with other Black people or other men ignores the specificity of their social location.

An abolitionist logic and the concept of transience helps answer the questions posed by this thesis. Ultimately, this research finds that low-income Black men live in a state of perpetual motion, bearing more than their share of the burdens that are externally and politically motivated. Beyond the men, the members of their networks, the larger community, and even the government shoulder the burdens of ineffective and punitive social housing policies.