Fair Housing Act Needs Some Work at 50

50 years ago there were riots in a couple of cities, Martin Luther King was just laid to rest at the hands of an assassin, and the embattled President had just announced two weeks before that he would not seek re-election.  All this was the setting for passage of the Fair Housing Act on April 11, 1968.  They had tried to include housing justice into the original Civil Rights Act, but could not get it through the Congress.  It was the final leg of the stool only enacted after the death of an icon. Voting had been protected, discrimination at public accommodations was outlawed, court cases opened up public education, and the Fair Housing Act ended redlining of  insurance policies and the purchase of housing.

There is no doubt that the Fair Housing Act was a huge advancement by opening up neighborhoods to African Americans and making it harder for communities to force poor and minority citizens into ghettos.  The Fair Housing Act made banks more accountable to lending to members of the minority community and the law attempted to strike down artificial barriers to African Americans living in any apartment that they could afford.  But all of these needed some on-going help.

I view the Fair Housing Act as a garden that the owner never put in the work to keep out the Goat's Beard Weed.  He bought a bunch of perennials in 1968 from the garden center, planted them and let it go.  Never went back to weed or water or till the soil.  The first year of the garden was beautiful because the land was barren before, but after that it was just depressing.  Yes, the Fair Housing Act added a few protected classes over the years, so the garden got larger, but it was never managed.  I stopped at the Congressional Statuary Hall on one trip to Washington and they had a display of great pieces of legislation from their history including founding documents, war declarations, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Fair Housing Act.  For the most part, the Congress passed this document and then just moved on rarely visiting the housing crisis in America, but patting themselves on the back for their forward thinking.

There was so much left unfinished with the passage of the Fair Housing Act:

1. It is not easy to file a fair housing complaint.  There is this two or three step process that makes it cumbersome.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development is ultimately responsible, but there are local Civil Rights offices at various municipal governments who gather the complaints.  It is confusing and not a clean process like if you suspect discrimination in the workplace.  It is not supervised by the judicial branch of government like the Voting Rights Act.  The process for accepting complaints and then processing those could be streamlined and spelled out better for the average citizen. I am not sure that the executive branch of government has proven itself to be that good at enforcement activities without judicial oversight (FCC, FTC, Consumer Protection Agency, OSHA, FDA, and many more). I saw a woman with a mental illness file a complaint about discrimination that was clearly not.  The owner won, but the tenant was evicted because the landlord had to go through the process.  There are no protections for those using the complaint system. 
2. Why isn't the federal government more involved in attempting to reduce discrimination in lending, housing and the insurance industry?  How about going into a city like Cleveland and asking, "Why are you so segregated after 50 years?"  Are the leading banking institutions lending to African Americans for starting businesses and buying houses in the same percentage as the total population?  Can you believe that in 2015, the United States had a HUD Secretary who was actually talking about the failures of the Fair Housing Act and how government should try to fix these limitations on the PBS NewsHour?  It seems like so long ago.
3. There is an article by Jonathan Zasloff marking the 50th Anniversary saying that we need to pay people to integrate segregated neighborhoods.  I like this idea because the all white areas of this community are not the easiest place to live for those with a lower income.  There are no buses or pantries or even any social service agencies in these communities.  There are no doctor's offices that take Medicaid and then you have to put up with the grief from you neighbors.  Who would volunteer to move to Solon on your $1,300 a month minimum wage job even if you could find a landlord who would accept your voucher? 
4. All development in a community should take into account poverty in a given community.  Those struggling with poverty should get their fair share of all development.  If you are in a city with a quarter of the city living below the poverty level (like many of the inner ring suburbs) then 25% of all development within the city should serve that population with low income housing and other programs to reduce segregation. 
5. The lending community needs to be better regulated to remove blight (a problem they allowed to happen), fund essential services in a community, and force real minority owned businesses to be developed.  For too long we have looked the other way, while banks kept Community Re-Investment Act folders in their corporate offices, but have not actively eliminated segregation, biased lending practices or left behind communities of color.  If the federal government has removed itself from enforcement then the State's need to step up.  We need to demand that the State force these issues and demand a solution. 
   
6. The Fair Housing Act attempted to reduce the forced segregation of African Americans into neighborhoods so that they would have an opportunity for a better school and more lucrative jobs.  The result has not lived up to the promise because of "work-arounds" the law and the concentration of poverty through economics instead of blatant discrimination.  Instead of hoping that poor people are not forced to live together, we need to force the issue.  We need to remove geographic boundaries for school districts and remove transportation obstacles to get low income people to where there are jobs.  If low income people had access to Beachwood and Gates Mills Schools, we would see an amazing and quick end to segregation. 
7. County Executive Armond Budish in giving his State of the County Address he surprised many with his proposal to force landlords to accept housing vouchers throughout the County.  I had not heard that this was happening and I worked in the housing sector for decades, but this is needed.  I have never figured out why a landlord can say that they will not accept a voucher except racism.  These programs were put in place to reduce segregation, but the impact is blunted if half the landlords reject the voucher.  This is a huge step and I hope the County Executive is successful in this law.  I also hope that it is not a suggestion, which is traditionally how the County handles controversial measures.

There are a lot of things to do to make the Fair Housing garden something we can be proud of. Time to roll up your sleeves and start weeding racism out of the housing market. 

by Brian Davis