Fair Housing

Shelterforce talks with John Henneberger of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service, one of the 2014 MacArthur Fellows.

The passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act promised greater suburban housing opportunities for people of color in the U.S. Yet, progress has been slow. Over half of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians live in the suburbs, but the typical middle-income African American household still lives in a neighborhood with a higher poverty rate than […]

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in a very important fair housing case, and the Justices’ comments from the bench have had court watchers buzzing ever since. Here’s my take on what the legal back-and-forth in the case does and does not mean. It’s safe to say that the oral argument in […]

It’s important to remember, as Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project reaches the Supreme Court of the United States later this month, the actual people who bear the brunt of Texas’ history of housing discrimination. As Alan Jenkins’ earlier post on Rooflines points out, on January 21 the Supreme […]

When a housing policy has the effect of perpetuating racial exclusion, and that policy is unnecessary or unjustified, it must be set aside or changed under the Fair Housing Act, whether or not the politicians who passed it were intentionally focused on racial discrimination. But now, that important principle is at risk.

We all experience stress in our daily lives, whether financial worries or problems at work or at home. Few of us escape some exposure to “adverse childhood experiences.” But many low-income families have to live, day in and day out, with corrosive fear for their children’s basic safety. A new policy brief, authored by researchers […]

There’s a danger, and a disrespect, in assuming the fair housing/mobility cause must rely on portraits of “war zones” to win.

In June, Alexander Polikoff, lead counsel in the decades-long Gautreaux Chicago Public Housing desegregation litigation, spoke to HUD staff on the FHEO Speaker Series.  Here is an excerpt of his […]

Last week, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly confirmed San Antonio Mayor Juliàn Castro to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  One of Castro’s first official acts as HUD Secretary […]

The appraisal industry has a long, sordid history of discrimination, and bias still creeps into almost every step of the property assessment process today. Nonetheless, appraisals have been virtually invisible […]

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling doubled down on bigotry this week, disparaging NBA icon Magic Johnson for his HIV positive status, and saying that Johnson and other African-American entrepreneurs […]

[Editors Note: NYC housing advocates are calling for more home rule for New York City in setting policies such as rent stabilization. Given that rent stabilization basically only affects New […]