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Course Description

Summary

Housing has become a crisis for many Americans, but how it is a crisis is still poorly understood. This class takes housing as an urgent question, and aims to use the classroom as a critical research hub to better grasp the national and local dimensions of the current housing crisis. Students will be expected not only to participate in the academic study of housing in America but also participate in a community research project to better understand and publicize what the housing crisis looks like in Vermont and in ¿­ÐýÃŹÙÍø. Topics we will review include: housing as a market versus housing as a right; the changing profile of who owns homes in Vermont and what purpose those homes primarily serve (investment, vacation, or shelter). We will also investigate how Vermont now has the second highest homeless population in the United States (per capita), and how hard it can be to see rural homelessness. Students will also be expected to leverage their research to envision what a more equitable housing policy might look like. Students will be trained in historical methods, semi-structured interviews, and ethnographic research, and we will use social research to understand how this crisis took shape, to summarize its measurable dimensions in Vermont and in ¿­ÐýÃŹÙÍø, and to describe how local residents experience it. While most of the work will happen within the classroom, there will also be mandatory trips into ¿­ÐýÃŹÙÍø. Together, we will produce a report on housing for the ¿­ÐýÃŹÙÍø community.