Housing Inequalities

Question 1

Fair Housing Act

Answer 1

Made housing discrimination illegal in 1968

Question 2

Douglas Massey and Garvey Lundy study

Answer 2

• after making 474 calls to agents, white collars were more likely to be told an apartment was available (70%), followed by middle-class Black callers (60%), followed by low-income Black callers (42%)

Question 3

Based on audit studies since the 1970s, housing discrimination against Black and Hispanic home seekers has declined, namely in terms of whether a potential customer is allowed to view an advertised unit. However, other forms of discrimination have increased, such as…

Answer 3

steering Black and Hispanic home seekers toward minority neighborhoods

Question 4

institutional discrimination

Answer 4

micro-level interactions transform into macro-level phenomena when individual acts take on a repetitive, patterned quality and eventually become embedded in the social structure

Question 5

institutional racism

Answer 5

macro-level policies and procedures that have a disparate racial impact

Question 6

the typical white family has _____ times the wealth as a typical black family

Answer 6

10
whites - $171,000
blacks - $17,500
Hispanics - $21,000
Asians - $92,000

Question 7

restrictive covenants

Answer 7

up until 1948, these were used by housing developers and owners to prevent particular groups of people from moving into particular neighborhoods - e.g. property deeds held certain clauses restricting particular groups from purchasing homes

Question 8

redlining

Answer 8

• many banks refused to approve mortgages for buyers who wished to purchase homes in “hazardous” neighborhoods
• the Federal Housing Administration started guaranteeing home loans
• to “protect its investments,” the government concluded that homes in neighborhoods with high percentages of minorities were unlike to appreciate in value, so those areas were “redlined” and denied investment through home loans

Question 9

How did the GI Bill exacerbate inequality?

Answer 9

• minority GIs were systematically excluded form opportunities that allowed whites to accumulate wealth
• the GI Bill provided 1) access to low-down payment, low-interest home loans and 2) the opportunity to pursue higher education
• BUT… because of restrictive covenants and redlining, minority veterans could not convert their GI bill into a new home… this therefore limited their ability to send their kids to good schools and accumulate wealth
• AT THAT TIME… there was legal segregation in education, so Black GIs were not allowed to attend most institutions - the institutions that did allow Black and Hispanic populations were less likely to offer degrees in law, medicine, and other professions

Question 10

What are some modern day examples of housing inequalities?

Answer 10

• undervaluing and underappraising black-owned homes
• e.g. it has been shown that homes in majority black neighborhoods are undervalued in comparison to other houses in similar neighborhoods
• underappraising - removing evidence of black individuals living in a home increased its appraisal value
• therefore, minority individuals may not benefit from the full price of their home if they take out a second mortgage or line of credit

Question 11

urban renewal

Answer 11

refers to the planned demolition of structures and the relocation of people and businesses - often minorities and minority-owned businesses in the inner cities - with the goal of improving infrastructure and business opportunities

Question 12

What is the impact of urban renewal?

Answer 12

• fed gov’t buys urban properties, and sells it to developers
• developers - destroy local businesses and evict residents, who are complied into high-rise apartments
• in Chicago, 425,000 unites were destroyed, but 125,000 were reconstructed - developers really didn’t care about creating affordable housing

Question 13

Dorothy Gautreaux v Chicago Housing Authority

Answer 13

• Gautreaux, an activist, sues CHA, claimig that its pubic housing system subjected residents to racial discrimination, because it was substandard and built solely in areas with high concentrations of poor minorities
• further research - the deliberate concentration of minorities in impoverished areas contributed to their poverty and deprived them of opportunities to improve their condition

Question 14

Gautreaux project

Answer 14

a study - demonstrated that poor urban residents randomly assigned to private housing units had better outcomes in finding employment, leaving welfare and moving children through school that those randomly assigned to large-scale public housing complexes in areas with connentrated poverty

Question 15

scattered-site housing

Answer 15

residents of subsidized housing are spread throughout middle class communities instead of concentrated in poor neighborhoods

Question 16

Federal Highway Act of 1956

Answer 16

• sought to connect people in the suburbs to the downtowns where they worked
• wanted to build a national-scale interstate highway system
• where to build? targeted minorities and poor individuals who were the least likely to stage a fight against eminent domain

Question 17

Eminent domain

Answer 17

refers to the power (usually by the government) to forcibly acquire private property and use it for public good - the US government used this principle to justify plowing through poor and minority neighborhoods

Question 18

What were the consequences of the Federal Highway Act of 1956?

Answer 18

• neighborhoods were carved up - residents no longer had easy access to parks and businesses
• white businesses thrived - workers could easily commute back and forth between their homes and jobs
• urban businesses were cut off from customers
• ## urban property values went down and less taxes were collected

Question 19

environmental racism

Answer 19

a term that refers to the disproportionate negative impact of environmental hazards on people of color

Question 20

What are some examples of environmental racism?

Answer 20

1) minorities are 75% more likely to live in close proximity to environmental hazards compared to whites (chemical manufacturing plants, toxic landfills, waste incinerators…. etc)
2) race is “the most potent variable in predicting where commercial hazardous facilities were located in the US”
3) Black veterans moved into a housing community built over an abandoned industrial site - Altgeld Gardens became known as a “toxic donut” - ring of the donut includes 50 toxic waste dumps, contaminated water, a chemical waste incinerator, etc.
4) cancer alley - consists of chemical manufacturing and industrial plants, and many minority and poor individuals live near these
5) corporations intentionally place environmental hazards in minority neighborhoods - corporations do not believe these individuals will move away or seek financial compensation for damages