The impacts of foreclosure on collective efficacy and civic engagement: findings from two Central California communities.

Weffer, Simon E. ; Sylvester, Dari ; Mullooly, James 等

The Central San Joaquin Valley, the agricultural heart of California (and the nation), is among the areas hardest hit by the latest economic downturn, and it stands on the leading edge of the foreclosure crisis. The downturns in construction caused by the recession, combined with limited employment opportunities in this region, led to skyrocketing unemployment rates. According to US Department of Labor estimates, nine of the 10 worst cities in terms of unemployment were in the San Joaquin Valley--including our three urban research sites of Fresno, Merced, and Stockton (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).

To this point, sociologists have failed to examine how foreclosures affect collective efficacy and civic engagement. In this article, we seek to fill this gap by applying Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earl's (1997) concept of collective efficacy to the study of two communities, one urban and one rural, in California's Central San Joaquin Valley. In their pioneering research on neighborhood dynamics in Chicago, Sampson et al. (1997, 918) argue that collective efficacy is the common intent to reduce the existing problems within a neighborhood. Since neighborhood collective efficacy is dependent on social cohesion and social control, these factors are crucial indicators of how foreclosures affect neighborhoods. Social cohesion is defined as the ability of neighbors to coexist and work well together. Social control is defined as the ability of neighbors to work together to prevent and solve problems within their community. To this point, much of our knowledge about this topic comes from anecdotal stories and news reports that suggest that neighborhood foreclosures cause a strain in neighborhood efficacy. The moving in and out of families disrupts the order of the neighborhood, causing relationships to be less stable than in neighborhoods where foreclosures are not as common.

What Sampson et al. (1997) show is that increased neighborhood cohesion is associated with positive outcomes as well as fewer social dislocations. The greater the level of social cohesion within a neighborhood, and the greater overall social control, the better able a neighborhood is to ameliorate negative outcomes such as violence. For example, if a neighborhood has high cohesion, there is likely to be a greater sense of trust among its residents. In order to retain this trust, neighbors are more likely to exercise behaviors that reaffirm this belief and work together to prevent disruptions of trust (such as violence). Therefore, individuals are more likely to intervene in situations in which the common good of the neighborhood is threatened. Greater collective efficacy was positively associated in the study with higher socioeconomic status, homeownership, and older age. This reaffirms the association between residential stability on the one hand and neighborhood cohesion and social control (and therefore collective efficacy) on the other. Foreclosures interrupt this stability and negatively affect the lives of the people within the neighborhood.

Sampson, Morenoff, and Earls (1999) show that diminished social control leaves the neighborhood more vulnerable to crime, or at least causes individuals to feel less safe. Empty houses within neighborhoods seem to decrease safety because they serve as an outlet for gangs, the homeless, drug addicts, and teenagers. Furthermore, when houses are empty for extended periods of time, they may become less presentable, lowering market values and discouraging potential new neighbors from entering the area. Again, this could result in less social cohesion since the neighborhood's population is shrinking, but the likelihood of crime is growing.

Other scholars have used the concept of collective efficacy to study a variety of topics. For example, Browning and Cagney (2002) show that collective efficacy can be (along with financial stability) an indicator of the capacity of local schools to affect educational outcomes. They document a positive association between collective efficacy and education, so that when collective efficacy is high, it helps to protect the quality of public education. Therefore, when neighborhoods experience frequent foreclosures, their collective efficacy is likely to decline, and this in turn could negatively affect their school systems. Additionally, there is a relationship between neighborhood stability and collective efficacy regarding self-reports of overall health. Browning and Cagney (2002) note that when a neighborhood experiences frequent instability, its residents are more likely to report poorer health outcomes.

Using a modified version of Sampson et al.'s (1997) collective efficacy scale, Williams and Guerra (2011) found that lower collective efficacy is positively correlated with bullying within schools. In their study, rates of bullying were lower in schools with higher levels of cohesion and trust among students and teachers. This sense of cohesion and collective efficacy is likely to be affected by the shifts within neighborhoods associated with foreclosures. If a neighborhood is experiencing frequent foreclosures, the student population in a particular school may be altered due to the relocation of some students to other school districts. Hence, there could be a positive association between neighborhood stability and school stability.

Galster, Cutsinger, and Lim (2007) argue that neighborhoods with higher poverty rates show lower efficacy and higher levels of residential instability. Individuals with a lower socioeconomic status are also more likely to experience foreclosures. When residential shifts are a frequent occurrence in a neighborhood, it is difficult to build a sense of cohesion, and the lack of strong relationships among neighbors reduces collective efficacy. Allen (2010) further suggests that the residential instability associated with foreclosures weakens the support networks within the neighborhood, because some families are forced to leave in search of new housing. Furthermore, foreclosures decrease the value of the remaining properties. When houses are uninhabited, they are often left unkept, further discouraging potential new residents from moving to the neighborhood (Immergluck and Smith 2006).

The problems associated with foreclosures are likely to be concentrated in minority neighborhoods. Minority households are more likely to experience foreclosure than white households are, regardless of loan type. One reason for this may be the fact that most immigrants in the United States are racial or ethnic minorities and are more likely to have low to moderate incomes in relation to native-born inhabitants. Additionally, neighborhoods inhabited by a majority of immigrants are more likely to experience the negative impacts of a foreclosure (Allen 2010; Rugh and Massey 2012). Rugh and Massey argue that the segregation of the United States has "racialized and intensified the consequences of the housing bubble" (2012,645). They show that the higher the concentration of Latino/as and (especially) African Americans in an urban area, the higher the number and rate of foreclosures. They suggest this is because financial institutions disproportionately provided subprime and predatory loans to residents in those neighborhoods.

In this article, we build upon the literature reviewed above to explore the civic outcomes of high rates of foreclosure. Immergluck and Smith (2006, 57) note that "these [foreclosed] properties ... discourage the formation of social capital." However, few scholars have systematically addressed the ways in which high rates of neighborhood foreclosure may promote or hinder various forms of civic participation. Mothorpe (2008) suggests that increased foreclosure rates tend to increase the number of homes converted to rental units, and that renters may be less inclined to fully engage in the civic life of the community, including neighborhood programs. Ross and Squires (2011) studied the perceived individual costs of increasing foreclosure rates. They found that foreclosures have resulted in reported increases in feelings of general mistrust, stress, and insecurity; often, these feelings were not directed only toward mortgage lenders. Although Ross and Squires do not take this up directly, it is plausible that individuals who are increasingly mistrustful of financial institutions may not feel entirely trusting of governmental and civic institutions either. Estrada-Correa and Johnson (2012) have found that high foreclosure rates depressed rates of voter turnout in the 2008 presidential election, even when controlling for a variety of other variables such as education and habitual voter participation.

Research Design

Data for this article come from the Partnership for Assessing Communities project, which has collected data from semi-structured interviews in six communities in the Central San Joaquin Valley since 2007. We employed a mixed-methods design for our research (Creswell 2008). Qualitative and quantitative methods were combined to investigate the questions surrounding foreclosure in the San Joaquin Valley. Our research design reflected the various disciplinary perspectives represented in our research team, including anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and political scientists.

The authors of this study were fortunate to be able to collect residents' perceptions of the quality of life in the San Joaquin Valley before the inception of the foreclosure crisis. As noted by DeLugan et. al (2011), although "there are a handful of recent regional studies on specific topics ... the Central San Joaquin Valley lacks consistent, longitudinal data about local communities and their well-being." The team considered a wide variety of issues in the initial construction of the study, given the different backgrounds and stakeholders involved with the project. Project stakeholders included nongovernmental organizations and governmental leaders, Valley residents, and academic researchers hoping to improve life in the Central Valley.

In this article, we focus on the impact of foreclosure rates on various measures of social control and cohesion, based on semi-structured interviews conducted in one urban and one rural community in the San Joaquin Valley, South Merced and Planada, respectively. At the time of writing, data from four other communities in the study were incomplete and were still being coded. Each semi-structured interview lasted between 45 minutes and one hour.

Site Selection

The annual survey data collected in South Merced and Planada were part of a larger study, begun in 2007, of the quality of life in six population centers. The six selected locations represented economically struggling neighborhoods in rural and urban centers across the Valley. The areas selected were the most likely to be adversely affected by downturns in the economy, and they proved to be ideal sites of research once the deep recession began. Data were collected from three urban communities (Midtown Magnolia in Stockton, El Dorado Park in Fresno, South Merced in Merced) and three rural communities near each of those cities (Riverbank, Orange Cove, and Planada, respectively). Once the sites were established, faculty-student teams were built at each campus and trained to generate data for this study. We collected data through site visits and annual surveys of at least 25 subjects from each site. (1)

Data and Methods

For this article, we focus on the survey responses regarding issues of social control and social cohesion. We used questions drawn from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods that was first discussed in Sampson et al. (1997). (These are a series of questions using a five-point Likert scale; for the exact wording of the questions, see Appendix A.) We combined the scores associated with each question to obtain a total score between 11 and 55, with 11 being the highest feeling of efficacy and 55 being the lowest. To examine the levels of efficacy, we first ranked the scores and then coded them from the highest to the lowest quartile using the following categories: High Efficacy, Moderately High Efficacy, Moderately Low Efficacy, and Low Efficacy. To understand community barriers, we asked an open-ended question, "What are the three biggest challenges to improving the quality of life in [location]?"

Based on previous research on neighborhood dynamics and efficacy and foreclosure, we examined the impact of the following independent variables on our measure of collective efficacy for each respondent:

* Gender

* Employment status

* Race

* Education attainment

* Number of years lived in the community

* Relocation from a foreign country to Central Valley

* Census-tract residential stability (as measured by the 2010 Census)

* Number of friends/family members experiencing foreclosure

* Number of foreclosures on the respondent's block

For the analysis of respondents' civic engagement, we included all of the above variables as well as the respondent's efficacy score. We used the following questions to examine levels of civic engagement:

* Have you worn a campaign button, put a sticker on your car, or placed a sign in front of your house?

* Have you contributed money to a candidate, a political party, or any organization that supported candidates?

* Have you contacted or visited a public official--at any level of government--to ask for assistance or to express your opinion?

* Have you worked together informally with someone or some group to solve a problem in the community where you live?

* Have you spent time participating in any community service or volunteer activity? (By volunteer activity, I mean actually working in some way to help others for no pay.)

Results

Initially, we wanted to get a sense of how demographic factors were related to respondents' collective efficacy scores. Thus, we first examined descriptive statistics from our four years of data collection, 2007-2010, in Planada and South Merced, California. We created a scale of collective efficacy based on 11 items that captured the respondents' sense of social control and social cohesion within their communities on a scale ranging from 0 to 100. (The exact wording of the items in the scale can be found in Appendix A.) An efficacy score of 100 would indicate an individual who believes that people in his/her community would work together to solve problems, trust one another, and can be trusted. By contrast, a score of or near zero would indicate an individual who is extremely pessimistic about the ability of the community to work together toward collective goals or who believes that people in his/her community are very untrustworthy.

Table 1 reports mean efficacy scores broken down by our main variables of interest. It is worth noting that residents of Planada reported significantly higher average levels of efficacy when compared to their South Merced counterparts: whereas South Merced respondents had an average efficacy score of 67.3, Planada respondents averaged 72.2. These results are consistent with our previous research findings across a number of geographic locations showing that residents of rural areas tend to cite higher levels of collective efficacy (see Weffer et al., forthcoming). In addition, the mean efficacy score for females was slightly higher than for males, at nearly 70 compared to 68.

In our view, rural respondents have higher perceptions of efficacy than urban ones do because they have denser social networks. In Planada in particular, we found a congregating spot known as "El Centro," a community center that provided programs ranging from day care to senior services to job assistance. It was located near the local post office and health clinic, occupying a central area where individuals could meet and connect. South Merced lacks any such center of gravity, so we were not surprised with the lower efficacy scores.

The gender difference was not very large, but we suspect that in general women might view their communities more positively than men do. For example, in Planada there is a particularly strong and effective community organization, Las Monarchas (named after the Monarch butterfly), which is comprised of women whose husbands work as migrant laborers and who are living in a two-block radius of each other. This group gets together quite frequently and is very involved in the community. As this example shows, women's networks tend to be stronger and denser than men's, which explains their higher efficacy.

Next, we were interested in how the growing rates of foreclosure have changed the perceptions of Central Valley residents. Our survey respondents were asked an open-ended question about the impact of empty houses in their neighborhood; their responses are summarized in Table 2A. Four major concerns accounted for 74 percent of responses. Crime and safety concerns topped the list of fears, with 36 percent of respondents mentioning one or both. Respondents say that the foreclosures and resulting empty houses "invite crime" and "hay mas inseguridad--las pandillas se meten dentro" (there is less security--the gangs get inside). The second-largest category of responses pertained to the appearance of empty houses in the neighborhood. The impact that empty homes would have on home values accounted for the third-largest category of concerns. For many communities in the San Joaquin Valley, empty homes have contributed to a vicious cycle in which the blight leads to severe depression of the housing market, which in turn brings additional foreclosures because the mortgage debt is much higher than the property is worth. In a related vein, 6 percent of respondents were concerned about the broader economic impact empty homes would have. These economic concerns included the ability of communities to keep existing stores open and to bring new businesses to the area.

In Table 2B, we tabulated responses to the open-ended question, "What are the three biggest challenges to improving the quality of life in [location]?" Responses generally clustered within six major categories. Again, the most often-cited challenge was crime and safety, named by 25 percent of the respondents. Perhaps more interesting, however, is what is missing from the remaining categories. Although many individuals mentioned challenges of access--whether to goods/services, youth programs, or social services--none of them identified the dramatic increase in foreclosure rates among the main problems. So even though respondents attribute a large number of negative consequences to foreclosure, as shown in Table 2A, those same respondents do not seem to view foreclosure as one of the top three challenges facing their communities. To what extent, then, was the highly visible foreclosure crisis coloring the perceptions of residents living in what one may call Foreclosure Ground Zero?

Table 3, which presents our findings from our Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis, sheds some light on this question. When examining Table 3, there are two components that should be focused on: the direction of the effect (positive or negative) and its statistical significance. A positive effect will increase the efficacy score; a negative effect will decrease it. For example, we see that women have higher efficacy scores compared to men, or that being unemployed decreases one's efficacy score. The second component, statistical significance, allows us to examine how sure we are that these relationships exist. The relationship between gender and efficacy has a statistical significance level (or p-value) of .001. This means we are 99.9 percent sure that being a woman has a positive effect on perceived collective efficacy. Similarly, we are 95 percent sure that unemployment has a negative relationship with perceived efficacy. However, we have less certainty that the number of foreclosures on the block is related to efficacy, because the statistical significance of this relationship is above the 0.05 level.

How did the respondents' social identities relate to perceptions about collective efficacy in the community? Interestingly, we found no statistically significant impact of race on respondents' efficacy scores. Having a college education (or more) shows a statistically significant and positive effect on perceived efficacy, though a relatively small one. Moreover, we found that individuals likely lose .75 points off their efficacy scores for each year spent in Planada or South Merced, controlling for other factors.

A pattern appears pertaining to the efficacy and stability of residents who relocated to the Central Valley from abroad (98 percent of whom migrated from Mexico). We found that individuals who relocated from Mexico had significantly higher efficacy scores (up to four points in Model 2), holding all else constant. This effect seems to capture the dynamics noted in the immigrant incorporation literature, which suggests that recent immigrants tend to have a positive attachment to the United States. However, as that literature also noted, this stronger sense of efficacy unfortunately tends to fade over time, as relocated individuals become increasingly more familiar with (and alienated from) their surroundings. Thus, for each additional year that the relocated individual lives in his/her new community, his/her efficacy score decreases by more than 2.5 points, holding all else constant.

In earlier work, Sampson (1997) has shown that the longer an individual resided at his/her home, the higher the rates of collective efficacy and stability. However, our results indicate that longer periods of residential stability tend to slightly depress one's sense of efficacy, holding all else constant. For instance, in Model 2, we found that, for each additional year at the same residence, the respondent's efficacy score decreased by 1.13 points. Yet, there seems to be an aggregate community stability effect.

The results in Table 3 show that higher rates of neighborhood stability (as measured by the Census based on residential moves) are significantly related to higher rates of collective efficacy; this is consistent with Sampson's (1997) conclusion that communities that are stable have more efficacy. However, residing for a long time in the Central Valley does not necessarily mean being in a stable housing situation. So although stable communities offer greater efficacy, being a longtime resident of the Valley may negatively affect one's efficacy. Perhaps the high levels of inequality found in the Central Valley have long-term negative impacts on individuals' efficacy, which might be offset by living in stable neighborhoods where friendships and dense networks, like Las Monarchas in Planada, can develop.

The results shown in Table 3 suggest that foreclosure only seems to have a discernible impact on respondents' perceived efficacy when it directly touches the life of the respondent or his/her friends. For instance, as shown in Model 1, a person with at least one friend who has faced foreclosure has a 1,5-point lower efficacy score than someone who does not, holding all else equal. More dramatically, in a slightly more specified Model 2 we see that individuals with three or more friends who have experienced foreclosure have efficacy scores more than eight points lower, holding all else equal. An interesting result emerges, however: the presence of three or more foreclosed homes on one's block is not a statistically significant predictor of lower efficacy scores. Also notably, being unemployed has a significant impact on efficacy, lowering one's score by nearly 2.5 points.

These findings support the conclusion that one's sense of collective efficacy is only shaken by events that touch the respondent personally. Thus, individuals may be cognizant of empty homes on their street and fret about the potential for crime or depressed home values, but fundamentally, unless those empty homes once belonged to the respondent him/herself, they aren't likely to depress his/ her sense of efficacy. As long as foreclosure is not a part of one's own life, an individual can continue to feel trust in his/her community and work alongside neighbors to accomplish neighborhood goals. One possible explanation for this finding could be that foreclosure, unlike other types of social dislocations such as poverty, homelessness, gangs, and so on, is relatively new. Residents may be more cynical about their ability to change persistent social problems than they are about affecting newer ones, such as the foreclosure crisis.

Table 4 presents our results using binomial logistic regression, which allows us to calculate the probability of something happening or not happening given a one-unit change in a particular variable or factor. In Table, 4 we examine if individuals are more or less likely to participate in certain activities given certain attributes. Because binomial logistic regression supplies us with coefficients that are difficult to interpret, we have expressed our findings in terms of odds ratios.

We look at the odds of a person participating in either of our two types of civic action: political involvement (i.e., wearing a campaign button/contributing to a campaign/visiting a politician) or community involvement (i.e., volunteering/ working with other community members to solve a problem). Table 4 reveals that women are 12 percent more likely than men are to participate in the political process. Each year lived in the community increases the likelihood of political involvement by 0.18 percent (i.e., 10 years lived in the community result in a 1.8 percent increase in political participation). Asians are 12 percent less likely than Latinos are to participate in politics. (2) Those with less than a college education are 13 percent more likely to participate politically. As expected, there is a positive relationship between respondents' efficacy scores and their likelihood of participating in politics. All of those results are significant at least at the .05 level.

We see similar patterns with regard to community involvement: women were 47 percent more likely than men are to act civically, and there is a positive relationship between years lived in the community and civic engagement. Asians are 11 percent less likely than other racial/ethnic groups to volunteer or work with community members. As Table 4 shows, those with a college education or more are significantly more likely to be involved in their community (these findings echo the seminal findings of Verba et al. 1995). Efficacy still has an impact, with a 1.03 percent increase in community involvement for each unit change in efficacy.

Most important, an individual who has one to two friends or family members who have lost their home to foreclosure is almost 34 percent less likely to volunteer or work together with a community member. If an individual has three or more friends/family members who have lost their homes, he/she is over 81 percent less likely to volunteer or work with the community. These findings broaden the dismal civic picture presented by Estrada-Correa and Johnson (2012), who find significant decreases in voter turnout in communities with higher levels of foreclosure.

It is somewhat surprising to find that unemployment is not a significant predictor of political or community involvement. Much of the work on the topic of civic engagement and unemployment shows a negative and statistically significant impact of unemployment on civic engagement. However, the existing work tends to examine the impact of unemployment rates on civic engagement at the state or national levels (Lim and Sander 2013). Here, we focus on the impact of individuals' unemployment on their likelihood of engaging in political and voluntary activities. Consistent with earlier macro-level studies, the results in Table 4 indicate that the relationship between unemployment and civic engagement is negative. However, this relationship is not as statistically significant as the one found at the macro-level.

Conclusion

Whereas society at large has focused on the economic and individual impact of foreclosures, social scientists are just now turning their attention to how the dynamics of foreclosures are affecting communities and neighborhoods .This study contributes to that effort by examining how foreclosures influence individual perceptions of cohesion, collective efficacy, and civic engagement in two disadvantaged communities in California's Central San Joaquin Valley. We found that residents are concerned that foreclosures might bring about crime and other negative outcomes; however, they tend not to identify foreclosures as one of the top three obstacles to the community's success. Moreover, it is not the number of foreclosures per se, but rather the closeness to someone who suffers foreclosure, that mostly affects an individual's perception of collective efficacy.

Our findings also seem to dispute and concur with Sampson et al ,'s (1997,1999) original results. Like Sampson and colleagues, we find that residential stability (as measured via the Census) is positively related to perceived efficacy; however, we find the opposite to be true for time in residence. Our research suggests that the longer one stays in either South Merced or Planada, the more his/her efficacy score decreases. Perhaps this is due to the overall disadvantage of these communities, as well as the limited ability to gain employment outside agriculture (particularly after the housing market collapse). This is particularly true for immigrants, though they tend to start with a higher level of efficacy (all else holding constant) when compared to other respondents. This would seem to be consistent with recent work in the immigration literature that suggests that immigrants arrive with visions of upward mobility in the "land of opportunity," but become disillusioned after a while. Perhaps the systemic inequality found in the Central San Joaquin Valley saps them of their positive outlooks over time (Dohan 2003).

Finally, we explored how foreclosure affects the probability that individuals will engage in political and civic action. Our results suggest that foreclosures do not influence routine political behavior such as wearing a campaign button or making a campaign contribution. However, foreclosures have a very large negative impact on volunteering, which arguably takes more time than those routine political activities do. Here we may see the first tangible consequences of foreclosure for collective participation. At a time when communities greatly need members to come together to help solve common problems, individuals are pulling back from community involvement. They may tend to focus inwardly and help their friends or family to survive incidences of foreclosure, rather than outwardly through community engagement. Our research thus extends the findings of Ross and Squires (2011) and Estrada-Correa and Johnson (2012), which suggest that foreclosures reduce overall trust and social capital as well as civic participation. Moreover, we find that one's feeling about the community, measured through efficacy, is negatively affected by foreclosure. Together, these findings suggest that foreclosures diminish how we think about and act in our communities.

How do we reverse these consequences among disadvantaged communities? A possible answer may be to launch initiatives that focus on empowering communities. We could provide them with tools to create systemic change where they live and improve the networks among individuals, organizations, and service providers. Since 2008, the California Endowment, a private foundation, has become involved in the communities included in our study through the Building Healthy Communities initiative. Moving forward, it will be of interest to see whether this program will positively affect efficacy and civic engagement in these communities. If so, it may provide a road map for how disadvantaged communities can increase their collective efficacy and action.

APPENDIX A: COLLECTIVE EFFICACY SCALE

How likely are your neighbors to take action if children were skipping school and hanging out on a street corner-very likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely, very unlikely?

How likely are your neighbors to take action if children were spray-painting graffiti on a local building --very likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely, very unlikely?

How likely are your neighbors to take action if children were showing disrespect to an adult--very likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely, very unlikely?

How likely are your neighbors to take action if a fight broke out in front of your house--very likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely, very unlikely?

How likely are your neighbors to take action if the closest fire station were threatened with budget cuts--very likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely, very unlikely?

How likely are you to work together with your neighbors for a specific goal--very likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely, very unlikely?

MEASUREMENT OF NEIGHBORHOOD/AREA FELT EFFICACY (PT 2-SOCIAL COHESION/TRUST)

Please tell me how much you agree with the following statements:

People around here are willing to help their neighbors--strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree?

This is a close-knit neighborhood--strongly agree .somewhat agree .neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree?

People in this neighborhood can be trusted--strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree?

People in this neighborhood generally don't get along with each other--strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree?

People in this neighborhood do not share the same values--strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree?

REFERENCES

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Estrada-Correa, Vanessa and Martin Johnson 2012 "Foreclosure Depresses Voter Turnout: Neighborhood Disruption and the 2008 Presidential Election in California." Social Science Quarterly 93(3): 559-76.

Galster, George, Jackie Cutsinger, and Up Lim 2007 "Are Neighborhoods Self-Stabilizing? Exploring Endogenous Dynamics." Urban Studies 44(10): 167-185.

Immergluck, Dan and Geoff Smith 2006 "The External Costs of Foreclosure: The Impact of Single-Family Mortgage Foreclosures on Property Values." Housing Policy Debate 17(1): 57-79.

Lauria, Michey and Vem Baxter 1999 "Residential Mortgage Foreclosure and Racial Transition in New Orleans." Urban Affairs Review 34(6): 757-86.

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Mothorpe, Christopher A. 2008 "The Impact of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis on Community Health." Georgia Institute of Technology. At http://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/22546.

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Ross, Lauren M. and Gregory D. Squires 2011 "The Personal Costs of Subprime Lending and the Foreclosure Crisis: A Matter of Trust, Insecurity, and Institutional Deception." Social Science Quarterly 92(1): 140-63.

Rugh, Jacob S. and Douglas S. Massey 2010 "Racial Segregation and the American Foreclosure Crisis." American Sociological Review 75(5): 629-51.

Sampson, Robert J., Jeffrey D. Morenoff, and Felton Earls 1999 "Beyond Social Capital: Spatial Dynamics of Collective Efficacy for Children." American Sociological Review 64: 633-60.

Sampson, Robert J., Stephen Raudenbush, and Felton Earls 1997 "Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy." Science 277: 918-24.

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Weffer, Simon E., James J. Mullooly, Dari Sylvester, Robin M. DeLugan, and Marcia D. Hernandez 2013 "Partnerships across Campuses and throughout Communities: Community Engaged Research in California's Central San Joaquin Valley." In Community Quality-of-Life Indicators IV, edited by M.J. Sirgy, 119-141. New York: Springer.

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NOTES

(1.) The research team also met to discuss the site visits. Follow-up group analysis sessions and snowball sampling techniques were influential in garnering a broad sample of residents. Survey participants varied by site, but we ensured inclusion of younger participants, members of specific racial or ethnic groups, and residents from specific parts of the neighborhoods.

Although the inclusion of students in the research team required close supervision, student researchers proved to be pivotal to the success of the project. At times, they helped to provide entree into communities and events. Although not listed as criteria to work on the project, many of the student researchers were bilingual and were from the local region. Their language skills and insider's knowledge were invaluable. For example, one of the student researchers was actually a member of one of the rural sites under investigation, and his participation in the project was very influential in garnering support at the street level as well as informing the project overall. In general, our research team was particularly well positioned to approach and study the question of foreclosure and its associated challenges because of our arrival in these locations prior to the onset of the foreclosure crisis.

(2.) This is consistent with Ramakrishan et al.'s (2008) finding in phone surveys conducted in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties that Asian Americans were the least likely among racial/ethnic groups to sign petitions and write to elected officials.

Table 1: Mean of Efficacy Score (0-100) by Selected Variables

Variable                                                         Mean

Gender
  Male                                                           68.0
  Female                                                         69.8
Respondent home
  South Merced                                                   67.3
  Planada                                                        72.2
No. of empty houses on block
  0                                                              70.7
  1-2                                                            68.8
  3                                                              67.3
No. of friends and/or family with foreclosed home
  0                                                              69.1
  1-2                                                            69.1
  3                                                              69.7
No. of friends and/or family with foreclosed home by location
  0
    South Merced                                                 68.1
    Planada                                                      70.7
  1-2
    South Merced                                                 64.4
    Planada                                                      74.5
  3 or more
   South Merced                                                  63.8
   Planada                                                       72.3
No. of empty houses on block by location
  0
    South Merced                                                 68.8
    Planda                                                       70.4
  1-2
    South Merced                                                 66.6
    Planada                                                      77.1
  3 or more
    South Merced                                                 64.3
    Planada                                                      70.2
If respondent moved to Central Valley, where from?
  Bay Area                                                       61.8 *
  Southern California                                            70.9
  Other Central Valley Community                                 71.3
  Other California Area                                          67.6
  Other US area                                                  67.6
  Mexico                                                         71.1 *
Race
  White                                                          78.8
  African-American                                               61.3
  Asian/Pacific Islander                                         64.3
  Latino                                                         69.0

 * Significance level: p < .05

Table 2A: Response to Survey Questions Regarding Impact
of Empty Houses (Due to Foreclosure) on a Neighborhood

Response categories         No. of responses   Percentage

Crime safety                       40             29.0
No answer                          36             26.0
Appearance                         20             14.5
Neighborhood value                 12              8.5
Depressing                         10              7.0
Economy                             7              5.0
Neighborhood cohesion               6              4.0
No impact                           4              3.0
Not elsewhere classified            2              1.5

Table 2B: Response to Survey Question Regarding the Top Three
Barriers to Improving Community Success from Planada and South
Merced from 2007-2010

Response categories                  No. of responses   Percentage

Crime/safety                                40             25.0
Goods and services                          39             25.0
Lack of youth services/structures           21             13.0
No community cohesion                       18             11.0
Social services                             18             11.0
Education                                   10              6.0
Infrastructure                               7              4.5
Not applicable                               4              2.5
Environment                                  2              1.0
Housing                                      0                0
Employment                                   0                0

Table 3: Ordinary Least Squares Regression of Efficacy by Place and
Demographics in Planada and South Merced

                                        Model 1           Model 2

Female                              2.80 (.12) (c)    1.20 (.520) (a)
Unemployed                          -2.40 (.12) (a)   -2.40 (,120) (a)
White (vs. Latino)                    1.19 (.95)        2.01 (1.15)
African American (vs. Latino)         -0.05 (.04)       -0.07 (.06)
College education or more           0.50 (.20) (a)    0.61 (.21) (a)
Years lived in community            -0.75 (01) (c)    -1.13 (.02) (c)
Foreign-born                        2.25 (.094) (b)   4.01 (.007) (b)
Foreign-born X years in community         --          -2.57 (.009) (c)
Census tract residential
  stability                         2.50 (.003) (c)   3.05 (.004) (c)
1-2 friends/family lost house to
  foreclosure                       -1.46 (.66) (a)   -1.39 (.59) (a)
3 or more friends/family lost
  house to foreclosure               -2.93 (1.31)     -8.13 (.91) (c)
Number of foreclosures on block
  (self-reported) [greater than
  or equal to] 3                      1.13 (1.09)       0.98 (1.12)
Adjusted [R.sup.2]                     26.65 (b)         31.12 (a)

Table 4: Percent Change in Likelihood of Participating in
Political or Civic Action by Efficacy, Foreclosure, and
Demographic Characteristics

                                  Wear a button    Volunteer or
                                  contribute to     work with
                                   a campaign.      community
                                   or visit a        members
                                   politician       to solve a
                                    (percent)        problem
                                                    (percent)

Female                              11.7 (a)         46.9 (b)
Years lived in community            0.18 (b)         0.3 (a)
White                                  2.9             2.2
Asian                               -12.1 (a)       -11.0 (a)
African American                       7.4             6.4
College education or more           13.3 (a)         6.4 (a)
Unemployed                            -3.2             -4.3
Efficacy score                      1.13 (a)         1.03 (a)
1-2 Friends/family lost house
  to foreclosure                      -16.1         -33.9 (a)
3+ Friends/family lost house
  to foreclosure                      -93.2         -81.3 (a)

The numbers shown above are the odds ratios. Significance levels:
(a.) p < .05, (b.) p < .01.

Simon E. Weffer, Dari Sylvester, James Mullooly, Marcia Hernandez, Alex Leigh Parnell, Rafael Maravilla, and Nicholas Lau *

* SIMON E. WEFFER is assistant professor of sociology and Latino and Latin American Studies at Northern Illinois University (email: [email protected]). His work focuses on collective action and inequality, including the study of protest and civic engagement in Chicago, immigration rights protest in California, and the relationship between protest and voter turnout. He earned his PhD and Masters in sociology from Stanford University. DARI E. SYLVESTER is associate professor of political science and executive director at the Jacoby Center for Public Service and Civic Leadership at the University of the Pacific. She holds a PhD from Stony Brook University. JAMES MULLOOLY is associate professor of anthropology at California State University Fresno and applied cultural anthropologist interested in improving the quality of life in Fresno. He holds a PhD in anthropology and education from Columbia University. MARCIA HERNANDEZ is associate professor of sociology at the University of the Pacific and assistant dean of the college. Her scholarship interests include black Greek-letter organizations, higher education, popular culture and media studies, and images of beauty within African American communities. ALEX LEIGH PARNELL is a recent graduate of the University of California, Merced, with a double major in psychology and cognitive sciences. She is former fellow of the UC Merced Center of Excellence in Health Disparities Undergraduate Research Training Program. RAFAEL MARAVILLA is a current undergraduate at the University of California, Merced, double-majoring in sociology and political science. He is a former fellow of the UC Merced Center of Excellence in Health Disparities Undergraduate Research Training Program and a former participant in Harvard's Latino Leadership Initiative program. NICHOLAS LAU is a recent graduate of University of California, Merced, majoring in sociology. He has worked on multiple research projects focusing on inequality in the Central Valley. Portions of this study were funded by the Great Valley Center, California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, and the UC Merced Graduate Research Council.