“So What Chance, What Opportunities Do We Have?” Homeowners Associations as Racialized Organizations

Meso‐level institutions are increasingly being examined as sites of racialization, specifically as racialized organizations that are seemingly neutral upon first look but in reality are racialized from the outset. Homeowners associations (HOAs), private organizations with governmental powers that oversee housing communities, are becoming increasingly common across the United States. Concurrently, ethnoracial minorities are increasingly becoming homeowners; as over three‐fourths of newly built houses in the U.S. are in the bounds of an HOA, it is likely more ethnoracial minorities will reside within these organizations, whether they rent or own their home. We further the burgeoning “racialized organizations” body of research by examining the role this meso‐level actor plays in the (re)production of racial and spatial inequality, particularly as it affects the ethnoracial minorities residing within them. By pairing the tenets put forth in racialized organizations theory with archival research, fieldwork, and interviews ( N  = 47) we conducted with ethnoracial minorities in one of the largest HOAs in the country, we discuss how homeowners associations—seemingly neutral structures with seemingly neutral policies—both create and perpetuate ethnoracial inequality. Including resident voices, we discuss how HOAs align with the tenets of racialized organizations theory, and show how the power and agency typically associated with homeownership is altered by the HOA. As HOAs continue to rise in number, homeownership is increasingly shadowed with meso‐level punitive functions and notions of white habitus as habitat, and the sociopolitical agency of ethnoracial minorities is still limited in meaningful ways, even after they reach the heavily‐touted achievement of homeownership. As homeownership rates rise, we argue the importance of examining HOAs as racialized organizations, as the implications potentially change the way we understand the meaning of homeownership for ethnoracial minorities in the U.S.