By Dawn Anastasi, RPA Board Member

This paper was discovered by one of our members while using Google Scholar. The paper was submitted as someone's dissertation for their Doctor of Philosophy in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University.

This paper is 399 pages, so not a bit of "light reading" but those who like reading long research papers may find this interesting.

The author, Anna Perlmutter, has spent the last 8 years as a landlord for lower-income tenants in Cleveland.

On page 5 of the paper, the author writes:

Small-scale, private market landlords work independently and are often structurally disconnected – with loose information networks and few integral ties to organizational participants.

One of the RPA's goals is to connect rental property owners not only to each other, through our monthly events and social outings, but also to outside resources such as Mediate Milwaukee, the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee, and more. And yet our membership doesn't contain all rental property owners in southeastern WI. Why do some rental property owners choose to operate as islands instead of making beneficial connections with others and invest in additional knowledge for themselves?

Also on page 5, the author continues:

This is evidenced by missed opportunities to engage landlords by public sector interventions and the widespread mistrust between landlords, tenants, and public/nonprofit sector professionals (PNPs) across the field.

The RPA has seen this many, many times over. We are constantly fighting to "get a seat at the table" at housing discussions by the city and state. We are constantly trying to fight bias by the media.

Do you know of other landlords who are not part of the RPA? If so, encourage them to join (or re-join if they have been past members). The RPA works hard to provide networking, educational, and legislative work for our members.

Read the entire paper here