https://stevenschmidt.info Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. Thu, 27 Jun 2024 23:01:49 +0000 https://stevenschmidt.info en https://stevenschmidt.info/About Sat, 03 Sep 2016 05:07:37 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/About Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Boston University. Prior to BU, I was an NSF SBE Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California. I earned my Ph.D. in sociology from UC Irvine, and I hold a BA in Spanish from Kenyon College. My research appears in the American Sociological Review, Social Problems, City & Community, and the Journal of Marriage and Family and has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation, USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate, and the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC-MEXUS). https://stevenschmidt.info/CV Sat, 04 Dec 2021 19:24:49 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/CV CV (last updated September 2026) https://stevenschmidt.info/Research Tue, 03 Nov 2020 23:31:56 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/Research My research examines how two institutions—the rental housing market and the criminal-legal system—widen inequalities among contemporary US families. I advance three key lines of work: (1) how features of rental housing searches sort families into shelter unequally across income, race/ethnicity, and legal status, (2) how renters’ experiences during their housing tenures stratify households, and (3) how jail incarceration creates wide-ranging, symbiotic harms for families. I primarily use qualitative methods in my research. Much of my work focuses on Latino/a/x immigrants and seeks to bridge research on immigration with work in family and urban sociology.  https://stevenschmidt.info/Book Thu, 27 Jun 2024 23:01:49 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/Book My book manuscript, Priced In, examines how the rental housing affordability crisis shapes the im/mobility decisions and wellbeing of Latino immigrant families in Los Angeles County. It shows how immigrant renters fight to house their families, the barriers these families face in accessing safe and stable shelter, and the far-ranging trade-offs they make to avoid unwanted moves in an unaffordable rental market. Examining renters’ immobility experiences addresses a mobility bias in urban sociological research—an overemphasis on residential moves, with less attention to the experiences of families prior to displacement. To do so, I draw on in-depth interviews with Latino immigrant renters living in Los Angeles County, a subsample of whom were followed across four years. Priced In shows how unaffordable housing markets harm families well before they are displaced and how families work to mitigate these harms.   https://stevenschmidt.info/Writing Wed, 26 Jun 2019 22:41:09 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/Writing Peer-reviewed Journal Articles Schachner, Jared, Steven Schmidt, and Gary Painter. 2025. “Assessing Racial Heterogeneity in ‘Housing First’ Supports’ Effectiveness Among Older Adults Experiencing Homelessness: Evidence from Los Angeles County.” The Gerontologist 65(7). Online first.  Schmidt, Steven. 2025. “Finding a Home During the Affordable Housing Crisis: How Social Ties Shape Renters’ Housing-Search Outcomes.” American Sociological Review 90(1): 142—169.  Schmidt, Steven. 2025. “Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Renters’ Experiences with Maintenance Delays in the United States.” City & Community 24(1):26—50. Schmidt, Steven. 2024. “‘I Can’t Afford to Move’: Negotiating Neglect and Apartment Disrepair in Los Angeles.” City & Community 23(3):238—259. Schmidt, Steven, Kristin Turney, and Angie Belén Monreal. 2024. “‘We’ll Make it Work’: Navigating Surveilled Living Arrangements After Romantic Partner Incarceration.” Journal of Marriage and Family 86(2):391—411.  Schmidt, Steven. 2023. “Buen Crédito y Buen Seguro: Legal Status and Restricted Access to Shelter Among Low-Income Latina/o Renters in an Immigrant Gateway City.” Social Problems. Online first.  Schmidt, Steven. 2020. “Evaluating Informal Politics in Mexico City.” Sociology of Development 6(4):437—458. Mueller, Jason C. and Steven Schmidt. 2020. “Revisiting Culture and Meaning-Making in World-Systems Analysis: Engaging with the Cultural Political Economy Approach.” Critical Sociology 46(4-5):711—728. https://stevenschmidt.info/Contact Sat, 03 Sep 2016 16:31:28 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/Contact Steven Schmidt100 Cummington Mall Department of SociologyBoston Universityschmidts@bu.edu https://stevenschmidt.info/Footer Sun, 11 Dec 2022 02:08:35 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/Footer https://stevenschmidt.info/Running-on-Cargo Sun, 11 Dec 2022 02:08:36 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/Running-on-Cargo Running on Cargo https://stevenschmidt.info/Index-Desktop Sat, 04 Dec 2021 19:29:58 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/Index-Desktop Reading 1 ︎︎︎ Marcel Proust, Selection 1 Reading 2 ︎︎︎ Marcel Proust, Selection 2 Reading 3 ︎︎︎ Marcel Proust, Selection 3 Reading 4 ︎︎︎ Samuel Beckett, Selection 1 Reading 5 ︎︎︎ Samuel Beckett, Selection 2 Reading 6 ︎︎︎ Samuel Beckett, Selection 3 https://stevenschmidt.info/Index-Mobile Sat, 04 Dec 2021 19:29:58 +0000 Steven Schmidt, Ph.D. https://stevenschmidt.info/Index-Mobile Reading 1 ︎︎︎ Marcel Proust, Selection 1 ︎︎︎ Current Reading 2 ︎︎︎ Marcel Proust, Selection 2 Reading 3 ︎︎︎ Marcel Proust, Selection 3 Reading 4 ︎︎︎ Samuel Beckett, Selection 1 Reading 5 ︎︎︎ Samuel Beckett, Selection 2 Reading 6 ︎︎︎ Samuel Beckett, Selection 3