Housing Discrimination And Housing Policy Analysis Essay

, Research Paper

As we look back at the history of the United States, one of our worst legacies is our poor treatment of minorities. In our country’s earliest years we were importing and selling blacks into slavery, an issue that tore our country in two. Yet through trying and often tragic efforts, minority leaders have elevated the legal status of blacks. With the passing of the Civil Rights Act early this century, the 1968 signing of the Fair Housing Act, and the recent enactment of Affirmative Action, it seemed as if African Americans would now have the same opportunities as white Americans. However, this is clearly not the case. Through subverted and underhanded tactics, many white Americans continue to limit the opportunities of minorities, and because of the nature of these tactics, the individual oppressed minorities are usually unaware of their existence. The problem lies in the racism that is deeply rooted in the foundation of this country, whose capitalist origins started in large slave owning plantations. As a result, a general attitude of minority inferiority has permeated our culture. Because of these attitudes, many white Americans in a position of authority segregate minorities and subsequently segregate themselves, altogether eliminating contact between the two groups despite their relative proximity to one another. These segregated areas are the poverty stricken inner cities inhabited by minorities, and the wealthy suburbs, inhabited by whites. Because of the lack of interaction between the two groups, white American attitudes toward minorities have changed from one of inferiority, to one of fear and misunderstanding. These attitudes take the form of what is now know as housing discrimination. Housing discrimination refers to the illegal methods used by those in the real estate business to segregate minorities into certain living areas. Housing discrimination is increasingly being seen as a problem and a major hindrance to the advancement of minorities in our country. Recently, many groups have been organized and are currently taking action to prevent housing discrimination with the ultimate goal of creating an integrated society.

On the surface, housing discrimination simply segregates minorities into specific living areas, however its implications reach far beyond the location of an individual’s house. Where a family lives determines what schools their children will attend as well as the quality of their education. Since minority areas are necessarily those with low income and sometimes terrible poverty, the education systems in these areas are well below par. In addition, access to the job market is astoundingly limited and almost non-existent. As a result, parents who are forced to live in these areas are clearly at an economic disadvantage. Not only are parents limited in the jobs they can find to support their children, but if their children are lucky enough to make it though the education system, their access to the job market it even further limited. In addition, minority families who are segregated into these neighborhoods are forced to raise their children in an environment of crime and violence. When we realize all this, the devastating impact of housing discrimination becomes clear.

A major tactic used to segregate minorities in know a “steering.” Steering involves the real estate agent showing a minority customer only those houses located in areas inhabited by minorities. Steering also occurs when real estate agents deter white individuals from living in area that are inhabited by many or a majority of minorities. Another tactic to keep minorities out of white living areas involves real estate agency boycotting. Essentially, rich, white suburb communities boycott real estate agencies that sell houses to minorities in their area. Since the real estates agents are trying to make money they cannot afford to lose the business of wealthy suburb residents, so they make an effort to steer minorities away from houses for sale in that area. Clearly the latter is a more overt and direct example of racism and deliberate segregation, but the concept of steering is a little more sneaky and difficult to pinpoint. Certainly, there exist real estate agents who are not racist, but simply show houses in minority areas to minority customers because they genuinely feel as if the customer would “rather” or would “feel more comfortable” in those areas. On the other hand, there are also real estate agents who will discourage white customers from living in minority areas by suggesting that they take a drive through the area or call the local police and inquire about the area. From the outside, however, each of these agents appears the same, and as a result, minority customers are unaware that they are being discriminated against.

Although many individual minorities are unaware of their own circumstances, the intense segregation of minorities in general has become a major issue. When the racial diversity of certain cities were analyzed, and it became clear exactly how intense the segregation actually was, some decided that the presence of housing discrimination should be investigated. They decided to use a process called “testing.” When an organization “tests” a real estate agency, they will send in a member of a minority group, protected under the Fair Housing Act, and a white control tester. These individuals present themselves to the agency at separate times but with the same credentials. The idea behind testing being that if each individual has the same credentials, than he/she should receive the same information about housing opportunities. This is not what happened. In most instances, minority customers were only shown those houses in minority area, and white customers were shown houses in white areas.

The emergence of testing awoke many to the problems and dangers of housing discrimination. As a result, agencies were set up to investigate and create awareness regarding housing discrimination. The Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington is one of these such agencies and is a tremendous resource to those who truly wish to eliminate housing discrimination. The Council will investigate complaints of housing discrimination in the form of testing and will assist individuals in filing housing discrimination suits. In addition, the council provides services to real estate agencies that wish to incorporate fair housing into their daily business as well as providing education and outreach services to spread awareness. The Council was founded on the belief that “housing discrimination in the most formidable barrier to the achievement of our national goal of an integrated society,” and they have helped to eliminate the problem with “legal precedents that have expanded and clarified fair housing protections, injunctive relief, landmark judgments and record-setting settlements, all of which have inflated the cost of discrimination for its perpetrators.” These quotes from the Council’s mission statement clearly illustrate how determined they are.