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E. !e Segregation Is Natural model. Members of the public take as a given the fact that neighborhoods are segregated both by class and race. #ey see residential segregation as natural—as the by-product of the tendency for people to "choose" to live with people "like" them. #is puts the blame for segregation on people themselves, rather than on the policies that have historically created this situation by constraining residential choice and mobility. Participant: #ere are certain zip codes for Caucasians or in$uential wealthy people. — Participant: Maybe I would be more likely to want to live or work or worship or go to school with people who looked like me, because race is more than just how you look. It can become your culture too. People de"ne themselves as—I don't just look white, I am part of the middle-class white culture. #at's who I am, but if I was African American, I would associate myself as part of that culture. Maybe that would determine where I would live. Key Implications of De#nitional Models • !e Housing Is Assisted Housing model can sidetrack discussion. Communicators should be aware of this top-of-mind association and, when they want to talk about other aspects of housing, they must "nd strategies for clearly setting the topic of concern at the top of messages in order to avoid confusion. As noted above, thinking about assisted housing brings with it unproductive models that people use to reason about poverty and race. While advocates certainly need effective ways of talking about subsidized housing, when they are not speci"cally concerned with this issue, communicators can avoid bringing these unproductive models into play by specifying their topic of concern. #ey should not assume that using the term "housing" will bring a broad set of housing-related issues to the public's mind. • !e Rising Costs and Segregation Is Natural models are highly fatalistic. Both models naturalize housing patterns, casting high costs and segregation as inevitable realities that are not amenable to change. To mute these unproductive models, communicators need strategies for explaining the sources of high costs and segregation, in order to help the public see the systemic roots of these problems, and in turn, to open up thinking about how solutions might address the problems and change outcomes. • !e Place to Lay Your Head model makes it hard to think about housing quality. Communicators should avoid cuing this model by emphasizing the continuum of housing quality and cuing other available models (such as the Where You Live Affects You model—see below) that enable people to think about the range of ways in which housing affects well-being. • !e Housing Is Protection model personalizes the issue and backgrounds systemic and community context. While the model productively brings to mind the relationship between housing and well-being, it focuses attention on the relationship between the home and the "A House, a Tent, a Box": Mapping the Gaps Between Expert and Public Understanding of Healthy Housing 18

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