2_Housing Integration
THE FACTS
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave us our marching
orders.
His generation worked vehemently to implement a social
justice Tri-lateral construct to integrate the below institutions to form a
more perfect union.
· Education · Employment · Housing
1. American Legion - out of this sprung Major
William Francis Deegan in 1919 ahead of Dr. King.
2. U.S. Military - out of this sprung Isaac
Woodward in post WWII 1946 ahead of Dr. King.
3. Education - out of this sprung Brown v Bd.
of Ed on May 17, 1954.
4. Employment - out of this sprung
Elenore Norton Holmes and EEOC on July 2, 1965
5. Housing - out of this Dr. King was
assassinated on April 4, 1968. This is the unfinished business of our
generation.
One week later on April 11, 1968, LBJ
signed the 1968 Civil Rights Act into law thereby expanding on previous acts
that prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of
housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, (and as amended)
handicap, and family status. Title VIII of this Act is also known as the Fair
Housing Act (of 1968). Arguably, this has been an unfulfilled promise. It
has been nearly 50 years, and the Fair
Housing Act still has not been fully implemented or enforced.
Continuing - Lyndon Johnson stepped
down from being President in 1968. Nixon was then sworn in on January 20, 1969
- 9 months after the above-cited Fair Housing Act was signed into law by LBJ.
Nixon then quickly defunded HUD throughout his tenure ending on August 9, 1974.
As a result, Dr. King's 3rd prong was never implemented.
Why Integrate?
Integrating Housing is the unfinished business of our
lifetime!
Apartheid America is pregnant with segregated housing and clustered neighborhoods, gerrymandered congressional districts, income inequality tied to P52 and zip codes, health disparities, political violence, and other impacts of segregated housing hiding in plain site as race based pricing listed below.
Q: Will Integrating Housing Dilute P52 Political
Power in Congress?
A: Paraphrasing in pertinent
part: The relationship between segregation and P52 civic efficacy is
ambiguous. On the one hand, the more segregated P52s are - the more contact
they have with other P52s and thus the more likely they are to be able to
influence only P52 political behavior.
On the other hand, the more integrated P52s are - the more
contact they have with non-P52s and the more likely they are to be able to
influence non-P52 political behaviors.
Take the example of South Fulton, Georgia. Political
moves or thinly hidden racism in Georgia's Sandy Springs, Johns Creek and
Milton split from Fulton County and incorporated as independent cities —
citing the desire for autonomy but in the process stripping the county of tax
dollars that funneled to P52, relatively poorer South Fulton - an all Black
City. These are inherent problems with housing segregation that often lead to
political violence.
A further distinction is made between a Metropolitan
Statistical Area (MSA) and a Congressional District.
The more segregated the MSA, the less likely that its
residents are represented in the United States House by a P52 representative or
by an individual of either race who is from the Democratic Party or who votes
in accordance with the desires of P52 residents on civil rights and other
issues.
For example, imagine a state with 10 districts. P52s make
up 10% of the state population. If all P52s are located in one district then
that district will likely elect a P52 representative. Yet, on average
P52s will not likely have their substantive interests met by this
legislative delegation as P52s only directly influence (through the vote) one
tenth of their state’s representatives.
Recall - it is the State's representatives that draw up the
redistricting map, that currently lead to gerrymandering. This must stop. The
solution is integrated housing!
The above findings were largely researched and conducted by
Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat & Ebonya L. Washington in their working paper
entitled "Segregation and Black Political Efficacy" November
2007. All Rights Reserved. https://www.nber.org/papers/w13606
Culturally-Conditioned Held Beliefs Relating to Housing
Segregation include...
* “White people have a right to keep
P52s out of their neighborhoods if they want to, and P52s should respect
that right.” Agree or Disagree?
* Racial and ethnic clustering is a
benign outcome of economic disparities and the preferences of
people to “be with their own.”
* It is an inevitable natural
consequence of profound racial differences, reflecting moral shortcomings
rather than structural barriers.
THE PROBLEM: Race Based Pricing
1. Exacerbates
P52/white wealth disparities by affording P52 American homeowners lower returns
on their investments. Discrimination in housing markets costs the current
generation of P52s about $82 Billon. Of this sum, $13.5 billion is lost through
denied mortgages. The presumption of “creditworthiness” lies at the heart =
FICO scores developed in 1989. This equates to an additional loss of
$10.5 billion to higher interest rates on mortgages paid by P52s in comparison
to similarly situated whites because of creditworthiness & FICO.
2. Segregation
has a negative financial consequence for P52 Americans in the form of reduced
home appreciation that goes back to the National Association of Real Estate
Appraisers. This is the biggest price of housing segregation. This is
essentially a segregation tax. http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Housing_Affordability_Child_Wellbeing.pdf
3. P52
Americans implicitly pay out an average of $2.6 Billion per year in the form of
higher search costs and lost housing opportunities due to discrimination.
4. Lower-income
P52s have concentrated poverty; tend to have higher crime rates, drugs, teenage
pregnancy, lower self-esteem, and other social disparities.
5. Even for
middle-income P52s, the spatial payoffs of upward mobility are lower for them
than for whites because of racial segregation. For example, one study
found that a middle-income P52 family is 3x likely as a similar white family to
have neighbors on welfare.
6. Poor P52s
live under unrivaled conditions of poverty and affluent P52s live in
neighborhoods that are far less advantageous than those experienced by the
middle-income class of other groups.
7. Segregation
isolates P52s by constraining employment opportunities. It limits employment
opportunities.
8. Isolation
from necessary informal networks that are often the best source for finding
jobs.
9. Fewer
benefits such as services, quality schools, recreation areas, etc. for their
home investment.
10. The real estate tax base
imbalance directly affects school resources.
11. Maintaining racially separate
and unequal schools is a direct result of segregated housing patterns.
12. Studies suggest that P52
American students growing up in segregated environments later perform less well
academically than their more integrated counterparts.
The individual predictors of low Children’s achievement are
well documented:
13. With less access to routine
and preventive health care, disadvantaged children have greater absenteeism,
and they can’t benefit from good schools if they are not present.
14. With less literate parents, they
are read to less frequently when young, and are exposed to less complex
language at home.
15, With less adequate housing,
they rarely have quiet places to study and may move more frequently, changing
schools and teachers.
16. With fewer opportunities for
enriching after-school and summer activities, their background knowledge and
organizational skills are less developed.
17. With fewer family resources,
their college ambitions are constrained.
18. Segregation results in
exposure to unusually high levels of violence while growing up. To learn
more, read here: http://www.epi.org/publication/modern-segregation/
19. Congressional redistricting
is often drawn according to racial and ethnic geographic lines.
20. Police misconduct, abuse, and
militarization.
21. Limits the potential for
political alliances with for example other communities and/or individuals.
Cleveland with Lakewood or Parma. White Plains with Mount Vernon. Newark with
Union County.
22. Segregation naturalizes and
reinforces racial differences.
23. Segregated places of Assembly
e.g. churches, synagogues, mosques, community centers, etc.
24. Wealth and income and power
are a unifying variable for whites to commit discrimination.
25. Mortgage tax deduction v no
rent tax deduction thereby empowering landlords and emasculating renters.
26. https://belonging.berkeley.edu/roots-structural-racism
Consistent with our mission, we have an overriding legitimate business purpose that we believe is sufficiently compelling to override any racial impact where our objective is to eliminate macroprudential or market risk or social and/or political risk exposure to FIs, Bond issuers, and insurance carriers by integrating housing and thereby building wealth.