Housing Discrimination in Glassboro?!
After the troops returned home from Vietnam, many Hispanic and African-American soldiers struggled renting or buying homes in areas easily accessed by their white contemporaries. These struggles are unfortunately reminiscent of the ones faces by minority troops who returned to America after World War II. Housing practices had still not improved since then, despite Supreme Court cases like Shelley vs. Kraemer in 1948, which outlawed the exclusion of minorities from particular sections of cities (History). The effects of redlining, the denial of financial services like home loans and insurance based on the race and/or the racial makeup of the home’s surrounding community, seemed too great to overcome. Had it not been for the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King and his death, nothing would have been done about this injustice.
In 1968, two years after the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act (FHA) was signed into law. Originally, the bill was intended to extend federal protection to civil rights workers, but after lobbying efforts from the Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, G.I. Forum and NAACP and political pressure brought about by Dr. King’s assassination, it was expanded to prohibit racial discrimination in housing. When it passed, the FHA outlawed discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing on the basis of race, religion, color and national origin (History). The FHA gave affected minorities legal backing to file complaints with the government about housing discrimination and if found valid, the complainee pays a fine and sometimes putative damages to the complainant (Jankelow). Nothing changed overnight. Minorities were still largely concentrated in the cities, creating ghettos with rates of high unemployment and crime, and at the same time, white flight to the suburbs increased (History).
It’s been a slow recovery since then. The aftershocks of redlining and other discriminatory practices still effect minorities today despite the FHA. The connection of race and housing opportunities effectively stunted the economic growth of minorities. Generations and generations of people have grown up in the ghetto and have never lived in a place that wasn’t rented and haven’t built up any wealth to pass on. Generations and generations of people have grown up and have never received proper schooling because the tax base cannot support it because few own their homes and therefore, people haven’t been able to escape the ghetto. Generations and generations of people have grown up in a pipeline that goes straight to jail and because of that, people have been fatherless, motherless and lacked the guidance they needed to get out of the pipeline. Still it’s because of many successful complaints, won on the basis of the FHA, that some minorities have been able to integrate into better communities and have opportunities.
The FHA was amended in 1974 to include sex and in 1988 to include disabilities and familial status, but sexual orientation and gender identity are still not included in the bill today (Britannica).
Resources:
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Fair Housing Act." Encyclopædia Britannica. April 04, 2019. Accessed May 11, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fair-Housing-Act.
History.com Editors. "Fair Housing Act." History.com. September 12, 2018. Accessed May 11, 2019. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fair-housing-act.
Jankelow, Laurence. "Penalties for Fair Housing Violations." Avail. April 04, 2019. Accessed May 11, 2019. https://www.avail.co/education/guides/fair-housing-laws/penalties-for-fair-housing-violations.