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| (Color Struck: How Race and Complexion Matter in the “Color-Blind” Era) |
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“We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty” -Matthew Desmond.
Poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions, which has been affecting individuals and families across the globe. Discrimination can both cause poverty and be a hurdle in alleviating poverty
. Housing discrimination leads to residential segregation, which leads to the deprivation of communities, especially those with a higher concentration of people of color living in poverty. In response to this social problem, the Fair Housing Act was created with the purpose of prohibiting discrimination by direct providers of housing whose discriminatory practices make housing unavailable to persons based on their color/race, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability. Patricia Hill Collins states that in order to understand and analyze the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences, as well as how they are not been shaped by a single axis of social division, we ought to draw upon intersectionality as an analytic tool (2016). Therefore, using intersectionality approach, we will analyze how class and race interact with the Fair Housing Act, mostly affecting individuals who are living or falling into poverty.
HOUSING DISCRIMINATION AND POVERTY
Poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions (Merriam-Webster). More than 3 billion people (almost half of the world’s population) live on less than $2.50 a day, while 1.3 billion live on less than $1.25 a day which is considered extreme poverty
. This means that while the richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income, the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population represents 5 percent of global income
. Some people are celebrating that, in the United States, last year’s poverty rate has fallen 2.5 percentage points -from 14.8 percent to 12.3 percent since 2014 (which is the third consecutive annual decline in poverty)
. However, during the same year, the Poverty and Inequality Report
points out that while the inner city provides the “prototypical image of poverty” in the country, rural poverty rates are often higher for some groups (Burton et al., 2017:9). To illustrate, African Americans had the highest poverty rate (27.4 percent), followed by Hispanics (26.6 percent) and whites (9.9 percent)
.
Homan, Valentino, and Weed claim that being born into poverty “is not in itself an explanation for poverty so much as a key schematic distinction people make in the process of attributing causes of poverty” (2017:1029). Nevertheless, studies made known that from childhood through adulthood, African Americans born into poverty, were more likely than Whites to remain in the bottom 10th of the income distribution (Burton et al., 2010:448). Furthermore, geographically speaking, when we look at racial and ethnic poverty and the population with the highest poverty rate in the country, in rural South we find African American (33 percent) and Hispanics (28 percent); in the rural Northeast, African American (31 percent); and in the rural West, Native Americans (32 percent) (Burton et al., 2017:9). In the same way, Camilla Stivers states that five of the six areas recognized as most deeply damaged are ‘project neighborhoods’ where “poverty rates ranged from 60 percent to 80 percent, unemployment was above 20 percent, 80 percent of residents were renters, and the population was predominantly black (2007:53).
Via his contribution to Pathways Magazine’s the Poverty and Inequality Report on Race and Ethnicity, Mathew Desmond claims that “the enduring legacy of these racial policies is seen clearly in the simple fact that today most white families in America own their homes and most nonwhite families do not” (2017:16). Desmond adds that more than 75 percent of all owner-occupied homes in the United States are owned and occupied by white families, despite them representing only 62 percent of the population (2017:16). But, who’s to blame? We can start with the media, politicians, organizations, and even the academia.
Gerrard and Farrugia claim that the media, organizations, and even researchers play an important role when creating “a dramaturgy of everyday poverty…which can be witnessed and surveilled outside of the specificities of its space and place” (2015:2221). Similarly, Desmond states that
“with books about single mothers, gang members, or the homeless, social scientists and journalists were writing about poor people as if they were cut off from the rest of society. The poor were said to be ‘invisible’ or part of ‘the other America.’ The ghetto was treated like ‘a city within a city.’ The poor were being left out of the inequality debate, as if we believed the livelihoods of the rich and the middle class were intertwined but those of the poor and everyone else [was] not…poverty was a relationship, I thought, involving poor and rich people alike. To understand poverty, I needed to understand that relationship (2016:317).
Poverty and housing discrimination go by hand with what we have learned about race since an early age and by which it has been portrayed on the media as well as shaped by some scholars. Omi and Winant argue that differences in skin color and “other obvious physical characteristics, supposedly provide visible clues to differences lurking underneath. Temperament, sexuality, intelligence, athletic ability, aesthetic preferences and so on are presumed to be fixed and discernible from the palpable mark of race” (1994:13). Likewise, Stivers adds that throughout American history, the idea of race based on biological physiognomies “has set black people apart and justified their exploitation” due to a belief that members of a certain race are “inherently inferior-less intelligent, less ambitious-has rationalized discriminatory treatment as fitting, proper, and without evil intent” (2007:49).
Unfortunately, underprivileged minorities, in particular, are the most affected by poverty and housing discrimination based on their race or color, despite laws put in place to protect them from such actions.
THE POLICY OBJECTIVES
The Fair Housing Act (FHA) of 1968 is the policy of the United States to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States
. The act protects people from discrimination by sellers, landlords, or financial institutions when they are renting or buying a home, getting a mortgage, seeking housing assistance, or engaging in other housing-related activities
. The FHA also makes it unlawful for those entities to refuse to rent, sell, or provide financing for a dwelling based on factors other than an individual’s financial resources
. The FHA was passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, a week after the assassination of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and after riots that followed (Desmond, 2016). The Act stands as the final great legislative achievement of the civil rights era, with an intention to be a follow-up (Title VIII) to the Civil Rights Act of 1964
.
Since the FHA was passed by Congress, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
holds the authority to manage the Act and “all executive departments and agencies shall administer their programs and activities relating to housing and urban development… in a manner affirmatively to further the purposes of this subchapter and shall cooperate with the Secretary to further such purposes” (Rieth, 2015:289). The FHA prohibits discrimination in housing because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex (added in 1974), familial status and disability (both included in 1988).
In the Sale and Rental of Housing, the Act stipulates that is illegal discrimination to take any of the following actions because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin:
· Refuse to rent or sell housing
· Refuse to negotiate for housing
· Otherwise make housing unavailable
· Set different terms, conditions or privileges for sale or rental of a dwelling
· Falsely deny that housing is available for inspection, sale or rental
· Make, print or publish any notice, statement or advertisement with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination
· Impose different sales prices or rental charges for the sale or rental of a dwelling
· Evict a tenant or a tenant’s guest
THE FAIR HOUSING ACT EFFECTS
Thanks to the Fair Housing Act, from 1950 to 1980, the total African American population in the US urban areas increased from 6.1 million to 15.3 million; regrettably, due to this changes in history, Whites progressively move out of the cities into the suburbs, taking with them, many of the employment opportunities the people who were left behind needed into communities where they were not welcome to reside
. Segregation then became one of both immediate and long-term effects of the Fair Housing Act. The American Bar Association states that many African American neighborhoods are “disproportionately located in high-nuisance or environmentally unsound areas zoned for mixed residential/industrial/commercial use, exposing their populations to the negative environmental effects of industrial and intensive land use” (2012).
In uncountable occasions, minorities have facing housing discrimination based on their race or the color of their skin, even 50 years after the FHA was passed.
The Department of Justice has brought many cases claiming discrimination based on race or color. Some of the cases have also alleged that towns and other local government entities violated the Fair Housing Act when they “denied permits or zoning changes for housing developments, or relegated them to predominantly minority neighborhoods because the prospective residents were expected to be predominantly African-Americans” (DOJ)
. Similarly,
The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) estimates that each year, there are more than 4 million acts of housing discrimination and that only a few of them are ever challenged in court or an administrative tribunal making the pervasiveness of housing discrimination exhibited in “continuing hyper-segregation in many of our nation’s largest cities and vast disparities in the rates of homeownership between non-Hispanic Whites and people of color” (Carr, 2018).
For instance, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, African American were disproportionally harmed. Stivers recounts how conditions linked to past oppression played a major role in people's ability to evacuate, “when 17 percent of poor whites lacked access to a car, but nearly 60 percent of poor blacks did” (2007:50).
Similarly, Kevin Leicht argues that the race and the gender differences in wealth accumulation are driven a lot by housing segregation, “which leads to the inability to build wealth through homeownership” (White, 2016). Residential segregation not only deprives communities of color of receiving equal access to quality education, but also access to employment, homeownership, and wealth accumulation. Although the Fair Housing Act has its purpose of protecting all people from housing discrimination, so often minorities seem not to be listed as part of ‘all people.’
Another group that deliberately disobey the Fair Housing Act are landlords. Matthew Desmond recounts how landlords contribute with the segregation of poor people, especially African Americans. Researchers have linked eviction to downward mobility, material hardship, savings and job loss, depression, suicide, and other negative outcomes, showing it to be a cause, not just a condition, of poverty (Desmond, 2017:18). In his book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Desmond states that eviction is a cause and not a condition of poverty. He adds,
Neighborhoods marred by high poverty and crime were that way not only because poverty could incite crime, and crime could invite poverty, but also because the techniques landlords use to ‘keep illegal and destructive activity out of rental property’ kept poverty out as well. This also meant that violence, drug activity, deep poverty, and other social problems coalesced at a much smaller, more acute level than the neighborhood. They gathered at the same address (2016:89).
When the Fair Housing Act was passed, Congress did not include families with children under their protection, allowing landlords to continue openly turning them away or evicting them. Caroline Fredrickson (2015) claims that one of the easiest ways to fall from poverty into destitution is to have children. We can find more examples of thin on Desmond’s book. “Some placed costly restrictions on large families, charging ‘children-damage deposits’ in addition to standard rental fees… families with children were turned away in as many as 7 in 10 housing searches” (Desmond, 2016:230-231). It took 20 years for Congress to pass the Fair Housing Amendments Act allowing, the law to prohibit discrimination in housing based on disability or on family status, which includes pregnant women or the presence of children
.
Some of the advancement in the history of the FHA happened in 1974 when gender was included as part of those protected by the Act. According to Mortgage Women Magazine, a semi-monthly publication led by publisher and mortgage industry veteran Ben Slayton, “Women have experienced significant economic and social benefits as a result of more equal access and reduced discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing” (Messerli, 2018). Yet, the magazine states that despite this improvement, many women are still experiencing challenges related to equality in housing, and “we have more progress to be made as a community to better address women’s issues under the Fair Housing Act.”
Another area that has not been fully covered is sexual orientation, despite many states and areas having laws addressing housing discrimination. In April 2017, Rachel Smith, a transgender woman, and Tonya Smith were denied a rental townhouse along with their two children by a landlord who gave as a reason their “unique relationship,” as they claimed in court
. The FHA protects people from facing discrimination based on their sex, familial status, or national origin, however, it does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Furthermore, the
only time the FHA implies ‘gender’ is written in the 42 U.S.C. 3602 note, under Section 802 when clarifies that “neither the term ‘individual with handicaps’ nor the term ‘handicap’ shall apply to an individual solely because that individual is a transvestite
.” Such ambiguity has caused this population to be and feel excluded and discriminated against. Thus, for the first time, a federal court has applied the FHA to anti-LGBTQ discrimination when U.S. District Judge Raymond P. Moore concluded that the FHA’s ban on sex discrimination prohibited discrimination against a same-sex couple, including transgender persons
. Thus far, nor ‘gender’ or ‘sexual orientation’ has been officially added to the FHA language.
IMPLICATIONS
The first time I learned about the Fair Housing Act was after being discriminated against, mostly due to my parental status. As a single mother of two children, Latina, and full-time college student, I have learned that the FHA does not always protect
all people from discrimination. After an extensive housing search and being asked if I have children, how many children do I have, whether I was a one-parent household, or if I can afford the payments, all I was being told was the typical “call back Monday” (Desmond, 2016:231). I once submitted a complaint
against
Merrimack Property Management in Lowell, after successfully booking an apartment showing but then being told, twice, to call them ‘tomorrow’ after finding out I have children -they never answered any of my calls or emails after that. After contacting the Attorney General’s Office, I received an email suggesting that I proceed by filing a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination because “I think they might be able to assist you better at this time because they might decide to investigate against a landlord of this size
.” My case was dismissed via a letter in the mail.
My recommendations are not only based on prior experiences but align with the thousands of voices who believe more actions need to be taken. Aside from the lack of more affordable housing across the US, how can we assure the FHA would be protecting us when landlords take advantage of the people who lack knowledge and the power to successfully file a complaint when we are being discriminated against based on our religion, race, color, parenting status, disability, including gender identity and sexual orientation?
Our voices need to be taken more seriously. While renters keep engaging in residential segregation by increasing the rent, more and more minorities are being unfairly excluded from areas we cannot afford.
THE ALTERNATIVE POLICIES
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC):
To incentivize private developers to build affordable housing developments, Congress created the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program under the Tax Reform Act of 1968. The LIHTC, also considered as “the largest and the most important resource for creating affordable housing in the United States today,” supplies State and local LIHTC-allocating agencies the equivalent of nearly $8 billion in annual budget authority to issue tax credits for the acquisition, rehabilitation, or new construction of rental housing targeted to lower-income households
. In brief, LIHTC provides developers with credits, which in turn, sell the credits to raise either capital or equity for projects." (Rieth, 2015:294).
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) created the LIHTC database
, which is available to the public since 1997 and contains information on 46,554 projects and 3.05 million housing units placed in service between 1987 and 2016. Metropolitan area projects must consist of new construction or substantial rehabilitation for (1) projects in which at least 75% of LIHTC units are single-room occupancy, efficiency, or one bedroom and are affordable by households whose income does not exceed 30% of the median income; (2) projects not restricted to persons fifty-five years of age or older, at least 75% of LIHTC units contain two or more bedrooms, one-third of that 75% must contain three or more bedrooms; or (3) simply substantial rehabilitation of projects the city targets for revitalization (Rieth, 2015:302).
The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing is an attempt to implement the Fair Housing Act more effectively
. This obligation to affirmatively further fair housing has been in the Fair Housing Act since 1968 (for further information see Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. 3608 and Executive Order 12892). HUD's AFFH rule delivers an effective planning method to support program participants in taking meaningful actions to overcome historic patterns of segregation, promote fair housing choice, and foster inclusive communities that are free from discrimination.
The Fair Housing Act not only prohibits discrimination but, in conjunction with other statutes, directs HUD’s program participants to take significant actions to overcome historic patterns of segregation, achieve truly balanced and integrated living patterns, promote fair housing choice, and foster inclusive communities that are free from discrimination… Through this rule, HUD commits to provide states, local governments, public housing agencies (PHAs), the communities they serve, and the general public, to the fullest extent possible, with local and regional data on integrated and segregated living patterns, racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, the location of certain publicly supported housing, access to opportunity afforded by key community assets, and disproportionate housing needs based on classes protected by the Fair Housing Act. Through the availability of such data and available local data and knowledge, the approach provided by this rule is intended to make program participants better able to evaluate their present environment to assess fair housing issues such as segregation, conditions that restrict fair housing choice, and disparities in access to housing and opportunity, identify the factors that primarily contribute to the creation or perpetuation of fair housing issues, and establish fair housing priorities and goals.
DATES: Effective Date: August 17, 2015.
CONCLUSION
Housing discrimination creates residential segregation which leads to the deprivation of communities, especially those with a higher concentration of minorities living in poverty. The Fair Housing Act (FHA) was passed in 1968 under the President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, a week after riots arose due to the assassination of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. Its purpose is to prohibit discrimination by direct providers of housing whose discriminatory practices make housing unavailable to individuals and families, based on their race, color, national origin, religion, sex (1974), familial status and disability (both included in 1988).
To understand and analyze the complexity of poverty and discrimination, as well as how they are not been shaped by a single axis of social division, we analyzed how these social problems interact with the Fair Housing Act and who is being affected by such. First, we provide an introduction and overview of an analytic approach. Second, we defined poverty and housing discrimination and segregation as the social problems addressed by the FHA. Next, we included the policy objectives, value premises, expectations and target populations. Additionally, we talked about how segregation became one of both immediate and long-term effects of the Fair Housing Act, followed by the discrimination based on gender and sexual orientations -which as for today, they have not been included in the FHA language. Further, we supplied our own critique and analysis of the FHD. Finally, we talked about some alternatives policies that could address inequality more effectively, such as the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.
Has the Fair Housing Act been able to break patterns of segregation and increase the levels of affordable housing for working-class families? We might not have concrete answers, but, thankfully, we have experienced improvements in the application of this law.
Works Cited
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