Talk:Source of income discrimination

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Katiejg01.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:09, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Global perspective

The article starts by talking about "this country’s history" - remember that Wikipedia is accessed by people from all over the world, and will think of "this country" as their own country. In other places the article needs cleanup to conform to a global perspective. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikilinks

Wikipedia readers find articles by clicking links from other articles. This article needs to be wikified - add links within this article to other articles, like for example, a link to the section 8 article the first time that term is used. Also other articles should link to this article. If people find this article, then you will get feedback on it. I added some categories for this article also - if you search those you may find articles with which to link this one. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:33, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Title

Sorry for changing your title. You can change it again by moving it. The original title, "Discrimination in Section 8 housing", was unclear to me and I wanted to try to clarify before making the page live. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The title change isn't really accurate, though, because the issue is in using the voucher to obtain rental housing. I'm stumped for a short but clear way to say that.Rachel Garshick Kleit (talk) 23:30, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's a better title "Discrimination in using Section 8 housing." As a new user, I'm uncertain how to change the title. Can someone help? Rachel Garshick Kleit (talk) 18:44, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I think a better title would be "Source of Income Discrimination," which would be more general than the current title. Most news sources refer to "source of income discrimination" and it is a common phrase for the phenomenon in the United States. Additionally, titling it "source of income discrimination" would be a more globally aware title, since "section 8" is an American term, not a global one. Catboy69 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 16:50, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Peer review from Protonk

Hi, I'm an online ambassador in the US education program and I have been asked to take a look at this article and give some general comments. Many of these will be only suggestions and you can (and should) click through to some of the style guides and policies I link to determine for yourself if my comments merit large changes in the article.

Style

• You will want to wikilink to specific terms, events or people which may be of interest to your reader. Part of the function of a wikipedia article is to lead people to different articles and subject areas so one single article doesn't have to exhaustively cover every potential tangent. Very basic terms need not be linked and you want to take care to avoid overlinking but you should imagine a layperson reading an article and link words or phrases which are not completely explained within the text. For example, "gentrified" could link to Gentrification either through a piped link using [[Gentrification|gentrified]] or merely by linking gentrified (which redirects to gentrification).
  • In almost all cases you will want to wikilink government agencies, laws and programs where they have a wikipedia article (and many of them mentioned in this article do). You only need to link to them once, but if you bring up HUD you should link to United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
• the lede of the article offers a good summary of the contents. Providing inline citations within the lede isn't forbidden but if you imagine that a good lede will introduce and summarize the body of an article any contentious claim in the lede will be cited below. If that isn't the case, you should edit the body of the article to add that citation rather than leave the lede as the only place where the claim is made and cited. there are a few cases where claims are made in the lede and not substantiated below and I'll point them out where I see them.
• the section titles may be too long and repetitive. Remember, in most cases the reader knows which article they have landed on so if the title of the article is "Discrimination in awarding Section 8 housing" then a section title of "Background on the Section 8 Housing Voucher Program" may simply be renamed "Background". This isn't a hard and fast rule but try changing the titles to something pithier and you will find it improves the flow of the article and allows you to be more descriptive.
• the formatting of your references is perfectly acceptable. All the style guides ask for is a consistent style and all our Verifiability policy demands is a reference which could allow an interested reader to find the original reference. However it can dramatically improve the readability of the article as well answer questions on factual matters if a link is made available where possible. Even if the link is to jstor or a paywalled journal this can allow a reader or editor to quickly land on the source in question. In some cases (like the New York Times or sections of US Code) have canonical persistent links available to any reader. Those should definitely be improved by linking to the original source. If you like you can use the citation templates made available in the editor. Sometimes they make linking easier, even for books.
• You might want to consider adding a "see also" section. This is much more personal preference than anything else. If you add wikilinks to a number of terms and still feel that there are other articles which aren't linked in the body but still may relate to your article you can add them in their own section. Some people like these sections, some people don't.
• Traditionally a wikipedia article begins with a bolded statement including the title of the article. E.g. "Discrimination in awarding Section 8 housing is a historical trend in the United States whereby certain housing voucher recipients are denied access to housing or housing vouchers." The wording doesn't have to be exactly that but it avoids a problem I'll discuss in a minute.

Content/tone

• too many of the paragraphs in this article begin with phrases like "...have been a major problem throughout this country’s history." or "One of the major problems..." In some cases they can be empty statements. Informing the reader that discrimination is a problem in American history is true and potentially relevant to the article but it can also crowd out what may actually be a more appropriate sentence for the article. Is there research that places Section 8 voucher discrimination in context with other discriminatory practices in housing? If so, it may be better to assert the claim that voucher/housing discrimination occurs in a broader context of redlining, covenant contracts, etc.
• The article may benefit from a history section. The lede informs the reader of important dates (1968/1974 for instance) but the body of the article doesn't delve into the history any further. How many of the cases or examples in your cited sources are current? How many are historical? The article itself doesn't have to be chronologically ordered but it may improve the flow to give the reader some sense of history.
• in the section titled "Background on the Section 8 Housing Voucher Program" the second paragraph duplicates a lot of information in the first. I would break those two paragraphs apart conceptually. The first could describe the subsidy and applicability, including the crucial information that housing is sought on the private market and landlords must meet the guidelines set out by HUD. The second could break down the chain of authority from the federal government to local PHAs.
• "The low success rates can be attributed to landlords declining to accept the vouchers either because of discrimination against the participants in the program or because of the burdens the program places on housing providers." this seems like supposition on the part of the author. Is there a source for a claim like this? what did the HUD studies attribute the placement rate to?
• "In 2001, HUD conducted a study to determine the success rates of voucher holders..." This sentence and the following sentences seem a little confusing. How many studies were written? What time periods did they cover? Try writing about the studies from that standpoint, then break into the results. You will find that the text reads much better.
• "A problem with the Section 8 Housing Voucher Program has to do with the fact that participation in the program is voluntary." Again, this feels like supposition on the part of the author. Is that a problem, per se? The alternative is mandating participation in housing subsidy programs. Try simply stating "Participation in the Section 8 Housing Voucher Program is voluntary." Later you can point to research suggesting this voluntary nature may lead to increased discrimination but you want to leave it up to the reader to determine if this is a "problem".
• "This is a type of source-of-income discrimination that occurs..." the claim here does not follow from the preceding sentence. What is "this"?
• "Section 8 Housing Voucher Discrimination creates barriers to people finding affordable housing opportunities." the paragraph starting with this sentence is likewise problematic. Housing comprises a large proportion of a family's budget when family income is at or below the median. Consequently housing vouchers can provide crucial support to those families and failure to locate in a subsidized apartment can be a large blow. But stick to the research and articles you can find. It is possible to make all those claims and source them to the available material rather than merely claiming it in the text. Remember, a core tenet of Wikipedia is neutral point of view. A wikipedia article should not advocate for a position even if that position is universally laudable. Housing discrimination is bad, but it isn't the job of this article to convince readers of that. Rather the article should lay out the facts around section 8 voucher discrimination.
• One core question the article never answers is what is the actual incidence of voucher discrimination? The article points to low placement rates and hints at differential impact (or disparate impact, really) but never shows the rate of placement for different ethnic groups. Showing actual incidence of housing discrimination is hard (ask the Boston Fed), but the the article should make an attempt to do so.
• the disparate impact section would be enlivened by a wikilink to Disparate treatment along with a quick comparison between impact and treatment in the eyes of the law.
• "A few federal courts have allowed plaintiffs..." which courts? Where? When? the wikipedia article doesn't need to serve as a replacement for Black's Law but if we bring up court cases we should situate them in time and place. sometimes the individual court cases may have wikipedia articles already.
• "Without more legal protections, voucher discrimination can continue and the Section 8 Housing Voucher Program can be in danger of meeting its intended goal of increasing the quantity of options and quality of housing for low-income individuals and families." this sentence is almost a normative claim. Remember we are in the position of illustrating an issue, not advocating for legal restrictions (or against them).

Overall

Ok, so I've made a bunch of comments on the article. However, as a whole I don't feel the article is bad. It is relatively neutral, mostly comprehensive and cites sources where needed. Making even a small number of the changes I have suggested would dramatically improve the article in terms of presentation and tone. But even without those changes you should be proud that you have improved Wikipedia's coverage of an important legal issue. Protonk (talk) 02:49, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Section 8 vs Housing Choice Voucher

Hi Will:

Most people in the policy world in the U.S. call this program by its current title--the Housing Choice Voucher program. Somewhere in the start of the article there needs to be acknowledgement of the formal name of the program. Rachel Garshick Kleit (talk) 18:33, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, in 1974, the program that was created was the Section 8 existing program--which provided certificates. With a certificate, a resident could only rent at the FMR. Vouchers were introduced later, and vouchers and certificates consolidated in the the Quality Housing and Work Responsiblity Act of 1998. Rachel Garshick Kleit (talk) 18:57, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Move to more general title

Move to Section 8 discrimination which covers not just the awarding of the voucher, but the usage of the voucher for housing. -Inowen (nlfte) 00:22, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Notification: Housing in the United States

A request has been submitted to WikiProject United States for a new article to be created on the topic of Housing in the United States. Please join the discussion or consider contributing to the new article. Best regards, -- M2545 (talk) 08:50, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Q3 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:48, 2 January 2023 (UTC)