TITLE:
Housing, Health, and Ageing in Texas Colonias and Informal Subdivisions
AUTHORS:
Francisca Bogolasky, Peter M. Ward
KEYWORDS:
Housing, Health, Elderly, Colonias, Self-Help, Texas
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.6 No.1,
March
12,
2018
ABSTRACT: Literature on housing and health outcomes among the elderly generally covers
issues such as the relationship between housing quality and health; the intersection
between place and space at different stages in the life course; and the
impact of public policy to mitigate negative morbidity and mental health outcomes.
However, there is little research about the ways in which certain types
of informally developed neighborhoods such as colonias and informal homestead
subdivisions offer micro-level spaces and housing arrangements that
are conducive to family building, household extension, and care for aging
parents, but which also have negative outcomes especially for the elderly by
exacerbating certain chronic health problems and impaired mobility. In short,
space and place matters. This paper provides an overview of the literature on
the intersection between housing and health, and drawing upon Texas survey
data we explore how low-income (largely) Hispanic households access home
ownership through informal homesteading and self-help in two informal subdivisions
in Central Texas. Viewed across the life course, this colonia-type
housing is associated with a number of particular negative health and mobility
impacts especially among the elderly, while at the same time providing an affordable
and socially embedded residential alternative of living through old
age.