HUD And Its Discontents

October 4, 2018 9:05 AM

"Indeed, the real-estate industry grew in tandem with and helped to popularize racist, even eugenic ideas about African Americans, including the notions that Black residents negatively impact property values, are undesirable neighbors, and pose an existential risk to communities and neighborhoods. As early as the 1920s, the National Association of Real Estate Boards had threatened professional discipline against any agent who disrupted segregated neighborhood racial patterns." How Real Estate Segregated America (Dissent)
posted by The Whelk (11 comments total)

This is an interesting article, but I find it kind of weird that an article like it doesn't mention the predatory effect of credit scores on minority communities in relation to housing. It's one of the biggest public-private problems that is affecting housing - and I constantly see people of color forced out of housing even with employment and the financial ability to stay as a result of their credit score reflecting situations from years ago.
posted by corb at 9:13 AM on October 4, 2018 [14 favorites]

There's a pretty decent Adam Ruins Everything that is a good explainer of redlining and why it still affects us today.
posted by lumpenprole at 9:41 AM on October 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Reparations are owed. Full stop.
posted by nikaspark at 10:26 AM on October 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

Reparations aren’t really enough.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:30 AM on October 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Everybody should really read The Color of Law, mentioned in this article.

(Also, if you were wondering, George Romney was indeed Mitt Romney's dad.)
posted by praemunire at 10:47 AM on October 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

(Most of the time period this article is talking about is prior to the credit reporting agencies' gaining the outsized influence they wield today; that's probably why credit scores aren't featured.)
posted by praemunire at 10:48 AM on October 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

The deed restrictions of my home (FL) date from 1958, when the neighborhood was developed. They specifically exclude renting or selling to “negroes.” So, developers, real estate agents, and the civil courts enforcing such usual and common provisions at the time were all complicit.

The deed restrictions were renewed in 2008 and, in a mild surprise to me given the town and neighborhood, this language was removed. Of course, no blacks and very few other non-whites live here. The inflated prices, redlining, discrimination in mortgage lending, and the above-mentioned discriminatory assignment of credit scores continue the legacy of Jim Crow.
posted by sudogeek at 3:39 PM on October 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

I had relatives in Dayton, Ohio, they had a beautiful old house, as did my grandfather. After my grandfather died, I would want to go by and see his house. At a certain point they said no, that part of town has been ruined. Then a black person moved to their block, and they and their neighbors relocated, to shittier new condos further from the city center.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:19 PM on October 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

This is still going on. My friends mix-race son and daughter-in-law had houses pulled off the market after they viewed them. These are high income people who couldn’t get a house in the area they wanted because of race. In 2018, in metro Detroit, when the housing bubble was peaking. They had the money, probably could have paid cash!
It makes my blood boil.
posted by Gadgetenvy at 7:23 AM on October 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

/ sarcasm/ Anything but live near Black people or Hispanics, or Native people! /sarcasm/
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:00 AM on October 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

one of the more overt blockbusting tactic of developers trying to get white families to move out of middle-class urban areas was to hire black women to push strollers around the neighborhood.

When the first non-white family moved into a Levittown it sparked a near riot because they had been promised a racial covenant.
posted by The Whelk at 10:58 AM on October 5, 2018 [3 favorites]