Raceing the News: Fair Housing, Opportunity and Equity

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Race(ing) the NewsFair Housing, Opportunity and
Equity

• Presentation to the Cincinnati Chapter
• of the Society of Professional Journalists
• Jason Reece, AICP
• Senior Researcher
• Reece.35_at_osu.edu
• The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race
  Ethnicity
• The Ohio State University
• January 16th 2008

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About the Institute

• Founded in 2003 at The Ohio State University
• Under the leadership of john a. powell, a
  national expert on issues of race, class,
  poverty, civil rights and housing
• Interdisciplinary and externally focused
• Working on projects at both the local, national
  and international level
• One of the largest race research centers in the
  nation
• More than 30 staff

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Discussion Points

• Access to Opportunity Matters
• Race, poverty, place and inequity
• Housing Our Link to Opportunity
• Reflecting on the 40th Anniversary of the Fair
  Housing Act
• Have we achieved fair housing?
• New and future challenges
• Journalistic implications

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Opportunity MattersRace, Poverty, Place and
Inequity
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Neighborhoods and Access to Opportunity

• Five decades of research indicate that your
  environment has a profound impact on your access
  to opportunity and likelihood of success
• Impoverished Blacks and Latinos are far more
  likely to live in neighborhoods of concentrated
  poverty
• These high poverty environments create deplorable
  living conditions and are a manifestation of
  living isolated from opportunity

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The Cumulative Impacts of Spatial, Racial and
Opportunity Segregation
Segregation impacts a number of life-opportunities
Impacts on Health
School Segregation
Impacts on Educational Achievement
Exposure to crime arrest
Transportation limitations and other inequitable
public services
Job segregation
Neighborhood Segregation
Racial stigma, other psychological impacts
Impacts on community power and individual assets
Adapted from figure by Barbara Reskin at
http//faculty.washington.edu/reskin/
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Housing location determines access to schools.
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jobs
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neighborhood amenities
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The Impact of Place Qualitative Research from
the MTO Program

• Reflections on living in a low opportunity
  community
• "It was like being in a war zone. It was really
  bad...A lot of drug dealings. Shoot-outs. Girls
  getting beat up by their boyfriends. Young
  girlsEverybody has such low self-esteem and no
  regard for each other. Nobody looked out for
  each other. It was horrible.
• Impact of moving to opportunity
• "I just got promoted to a higher
  position...Moving has done wonderful things for
  me and my family. It has given me an outlook on
  things that I'm surrounded by. Better
  neighborhood, better schools for my kids, a
  better job, great things for me."
• "It gave me a better outlook on life, that there
  is a life outside of that housing."

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Racial Segregation, Opportunity Segregation and
Racial Disparities

• Housing policies, discrimination, land use policy
  and patterns of regional investment and
  disinvestment converge to produce continued
  racial segregation in our society
• Producing a racial isolation in neighborhoods
  that are lacking the essential opportunities to
  advance in our society (fueling racial
  disparities)

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Who Lives in Concentrated Poverty Neighborhoods?

• Over 3.1 million African Americans lived in
  Concentrated Poverty Neighborhoods in 2000,
  Blacks and Latinos represent nearly 3 out of 4
  residents in these neighborhoods
• Nearly 1 out of 10 Blacks lived in a concentrated
  poverty neighborhood in 1999, compared to 1 out
  of 100 Whites
• Whites only make 30 of people living in high
  poverty neighborhoods, although they represent
  55 of the total population living in poverty

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Segregation from Opportunity Neighborhood Poverty

• In all three of Ohios largest metropolitan
  areas, African Americans live in neighborhoods
  with 2 to 3 times the poverty rate experienced in
  White Neighborhoods

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Housing Our Link to Communities of
OpportunityLocation, Location, Location
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Place and Life Outcomes

• Housing, in particular its location, is the
  primary mechanism for accessing opportunity in
  our society
• For those living in high poverty neighborhoods
  these factors can significantly inhibit life
  outcomes
• Individual characteristics still matter but so
  does environment
• Environment can impact individual decision making

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Housing Location, Location, Location

• Housing location determines (some examples)
• The appreciation you can expect to see in your
  home value
• The quality of schools your children will attend
• Your exposure to crime, violence and public
  safety risk
• Your access to employment, transit and job
  networks
• Where you live is more important than what you
  live in

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Housing and Wealth

• Housing is critical to building assets and wealth
  in the US
• Racial disparities in wealth are far more
  pronounced than disparities in income
• Wealth and assets are what we use to buy
  opportunity and it allows us to take risk which
  also creates new wealth

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Home Ownership Wealth

• Home Equity
• Home equity is often the largest component of the
  average American familys wealth
• It accounts for 75 of the assets held by the
  median household in the U.S.
• It has been critical in the growth of the middle
  class throughout the U.S. following World War II
• Unequal Access to Home Equity
• A legacy of historical discrimination in lending
  and access to home ownership, the cost of living
  in segregated communities and discontinued
  discrimination in the housing market have
  prevented families of color from accessing the
  wealth potential of home equity

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The Racial Wealth Gap
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Housing and Education
Produces Dysfunctional Schools
Housing Discrimination
Segregation
50 years after the Brown Decision, Americas
schools have re-segregated into affluent white
districts and poor under-funded African American
and Hispanic districts
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Economic Segregation and Racial Segregation in
Public Schools Southwest Ohio High Poverty
Schools (Red and Yellow) are Concentrated in
African American Neighborhoods (Areas in Gray)
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Segregation by Race and Class in Cincinnati
Schools
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Cycle of School Segregation
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Sprawl and Disinvestment in Urban Communities

• Decades of suburban flight have drained low
  income inner city neighborhoods of people,
  business and investment
• High vacancy rates and poor investment harms the
  quality of life for inner city residents and
  limits the resources (tax base) for low income
  communities

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Sprawl, Inequity and Economic Opportunity

• Jobs have moved away from the labor pool in many
  metropolitan areas, making connecting job-seekers
  with jobs a challenge (compounded by poor public
  transportation)
• In 2000, more than 40 of Cincinnatis jobs have
  moved more than 10 miles from downtown
• Public investment disproportionately favors
  highways over public transportation public
  transportation can not access most suburban job
  sites
• Nearly 60 of Cincinnatis black population is
  physically segregated from jobs
• The eighth highest rate in the nation among the
  largest 100 metropolitan areas

Source Brookings Institute
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Reflecting on the 40th Anniversary of the Fair
Housing ActHave we Achieved Fair Housing?
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The Significance of the Fair Housing Act

• Signed into law by President Johnson on April
  11th 1968
• Direct result of the tremendous efforts of Dr.
  Martin Luther King in opening up segregated
  communities (Bill passage tied directly to Dr.
  Kings assassination on April 4th)
• Places significant limitations on housing
  discrimination in the private market
• Places burden on the government to affirmatively
  further fair housing
• A critical provision in cases challenging the
  actions of public housing authorities

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Have we Achieved Fair Housing?

• Progress but no victory yet
• Homeownership increases
• Slight decline in segregation but still very
  prevalent
• Decline in incidence of housing discrimination
  but still prevalent
• Isolation from opportunity?
• New challenges in the future
• Sub-prime lending and foreclosure

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National Trends Home Ownership
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Fair Housing Integration
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Racial Disparity in Households Impacted by
Housing Problems Hamilton County 2000
Source US Dept. of Housing Urban Development
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Barriers to Fair HousingThe Web of Housing
Challenges
Housing Challenges
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New Threats The Sub-Prime and Foreclosure
Challenge

• The result of the sub-prime foreclosure crisis
  in the US may significantly erode fair housing
  gains and further isolate inner city
  neighborhoods
• 2 million foreclosures expected in the next two
  years
• Nationwide, nearly 55 of all high cost loans
  went to African American borrowers
• Experts estimate that the loss in home equity to
  African American and Latino homeowners will
  exceed a quarter of trillion dollars
• Why, direct asset loss (foreclosure) and loss in
  home value due to the geographic concentration of
  foreclosures in minority neighborhoods

Source United for a Fair Economy
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Predatory Lending and Race Example (Cleveland)
Maps Produced and adapted from Charles Bromley,
SAGES Presidential Fellow, Case Western University
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Predatory Lending, Foreclosure and Race Example
(Cleveland)
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• The number of sub prime loans in the Cincinnati
  region nearly tripled between 1995 and 2005
• Foreclosure in Hamilton County up by 18 in 2006
• African Americans more than twice as likely to
  receive sub-prime loans
• 43 of loans to African Americans were subprime
  between 2004 and 2006
• An estimated loss of 220 million in tax base
  for Hamilton County between 04 and 06

Source The Cincinnati Enquirer Center for
Responsible Lending
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Whats Missing in the Media Thinking of Race as
the Miners Canary

• The Miners Canary metaphor
• Disparities facing communities of color are
  indicators of larger impending societal
  challenges
• Example Race and predatory lending, which
  contributed to the subprime debacle
• Threatening the entire US economy

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