Section 3 Fair Housing Strategies for the Future: A Balanced Approach by William R. Tisdale 147 The Fair Housing Act: A Latino Perspective.... 161 by Raul Yzaguirre, Laura Arce, and Charles Kamasaki Long Overdue: Desegregation Litigation and Next Steps To End Discrimination and Segregation in the Public Housing and Section 8 171 by Florence Wagman Roisman A Personal Reflection-Housing Opportunities for All. by Eva Plaza 197 Note Mobility Patterns of Lower Income First-Time Homebuyers in Philadelphia...... by Harriet Newburger 201 Guest Editors' Introduction John Goering U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Gregory Squires University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee The thirtieth anniversary of the national Fair Housing Act is an occasion for mixed emo- This collection of thoughtful articles examines many issues: Has the Fair Housing Act accomplished all that it could? Is this country closer to becoming a place where equal housing is more of a reality than it would be without such a law? And, if it is not all that it could be, do we know what more is needed to achieve its ultimate purposes? This volume is an occasion for only partial celebration because of the continuing racially divided nature of most housing markets in this country. These articles were born out of a discussion we had about how best to memorialize the then-forthcoming anniversary of the Act. We decided to both convene a panel of experts at the August 1998 annual meetings of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and to expand the resulting papers with additional contributions. Three of the four panelists' papers presented at the ASA meeting are included in this collection.' This volume is not designed as a definitive evaluation of all aspects of the movement toward equal housing in this country but to serve as a vehicle to permit a range of experts, including members of Congress, lawyers, advocates, and senior social science researchers, to engage in thoughtful consideration of how much has been achieved and how much more might be done to fully accomplish the goals of the Act. The contributors represent an eminent group that has devoted decades to assessments of the meaning of race, racial prejudice and discrimination, and government policies as they affect the right of any individual to own a home regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, or religion—the Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research • Volume 4, Number 3 • 1999 Cityscape 1 initial charter of protected groups-as well as the assessments of protection offered to the disabled and to families with children during the past 10 years. There is no intention to seek to create solely a celebratory volume in which only the best of achievements and important social policy advances are presented; it is not a festschrift to honor and praise the enforcement of the Fair Housing Act. Nor is this collection designed to explore all of the limits of past and prevailing programs. Rather the objective is to seek out thoughtful advice about how this Nation may best move forward in promoting the twin goals (in former Representative Charles Mathias' words) to provide “not only greater housing choice but also to promote racial integration for all Americans.” Hopefully, this collection, as well as those that follow, will help articulate the basis for future policies, research, and commitments. As you will note, there are three broad types of articles included within this edition of Cityscape. The first group of articles discusses the legislative origins and legal functioning of the Fair Housing Act, as amended. It includes contributions by Senator Edward Kennedy, one of the leaders in the fight for civil rights over the past 30 years, and former Representative Charles Mathias who, as member of the Republican party, served as a crucial voice in both the House and Senate in promoting the final language for the 1968 Act and for the important, transforming enforcement provisions enacted by Congress in 1988. This section also includes a detailed and thoughtful update of actions by the U. S. Department of Justice by the acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Bill Lann Lee. The fourth paper in this first section is by New York University Law Professor Michael Schill and Samantha Friedman who, under contract with HUD, have prepared this first careful, quantitative evaluation of several key aspects of the operation of the Fair Housing Act focusing in particular on the final stages of enforcement when relief is sought from either a Federal Court or from an Administrative Law Judge. These four contributions take us from the early days of 1966 when the Act was first debated to the present when we see evidence of who is served and how well by the existing enforcement process. The second set of papers includes five essays by sociologists, demographers, policy analysts, and economists on the question of how they view evidence concerning the Nation's progress towards equality in housing options. Joe Feagin, President-elect of ASA, has had a long and distinguished career examining the operation of the real estate industry and how racial disparities continue to function in our society. His article is followed by that of John Yinger, author of Closed Doors, Opportunities Lost, an important book on housing discrimination. Nancy Denton's article, "Half Empty or Half Full" builds upon her expertise as co-author of the major assessment of racial segregation in America, American Apartheid, which she published in 1993 with Douglas Massey. George Galster, the Clarence Hillbery Professor of Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, contributes his article next followed by James Carr's on the complexity of segregation. Each of these articles raises doubts and questions about the nature of racial segregation and the continuing plague of discrimination. They also raise questions about U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) efficacy in enforcing the Act over the past 30 years. The final section of this collection includes three articles by well-known advocacy analysts, including William Tisdale, executive director of the Milwaukee Fair Housing Council; Raul Yzaguirre, Laura Arce, and Charles Kamasaki of La Raza; and Florence Wagman Roisman of the Indiana University School of Law. These authors stimulate thinking about how much more could or needs to be done to redress the currently racially divided condition of housing markets. The final article is by Eva Plaza, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at HUD. We appreciate that many other voices could and should have been added to this collection-those of Native Americans; Muslim organizations; people with disabilities; those representing women's rights groups and families with children; established civil rights groups; and the multitude of housing industry groups, including real estate agents, developers, home builders, mortgage lenders, appraisers, insurance firms, and banking regulators. Many of these groups were unable to answer our invitation to submit articles. However, we look forward to the continued reexamination of the need for the fair housing movement by all those concerned with and involved in this cause. Overview Thoughts and Analyses Because we have each spent more than two decades wrestling with the issues of race and fair housing enforcement, we felt that we should not remain mere bystanders or conveners but rather should offer our own thoughts and observations as a guide through this collection. Our objective is not to resolve any issues, correct any errors, or debate opinions with the contributors but rather to try to portray a sense of what we believe have been signs or evidence of success and what appears to have stalled or failed over the past several decades as it relates to the movement toward equality in housing. That is what, if any, are the signs of progress toward a more just and equal society in relation to private- and public-sector housing markets? One of the most significant "missing pieces" in our ability to thoroughly and sensibly assess the meaning and impacts of the Fair Housing Act is independent evaluations of the operation and effectiveness of the law enforcement process as it is currently constituted. Neither independent researchers, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), nor HUD have conducted the necessary studies of the full range of implementation and impact issues associated with the 30 years of enforcement operations. Michael Schill and Samantha Friedman's article is perhaps the first major attempt to evaluate one crucial aspect of the Act's enforcement; the evaluation's funding is partly due to unique commitment of the senior researcher and the interest and support of the former Assistant Secretary of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, Elizabeth Julian. The meaning of the success or limitations of the Fair Housing Act can then only be judged inferentially, based upon evidence from studies of housing segregation, audit studies of discriminatory conduct of housing market actors, public opinion surveys, and the judgment of practitioners who have witnessed the slow, often recalcitrant progress toward enforcing equality in public and private sector housing. Limited Progress Over the Past 30 Years That there has been clear, recognizable progress in the area of race relations in the United States over the past half century can be appreciated by recalling what conditions for Blacks were like in the South in the early 1950s: They [Blacks] could not live where they desired; they could not work where White people worked except in menial positions.... They could not use the same restrooms, drinking fountains, or telephone booths. They could not eat in the same restaurants, sleep in the same hotels, be treated in the same hospitals.... They could not attend the same public schools. They could not vote (Jaynes and Williams, 1989). The transformation of our society to one in which greater racial acceptance and tolerance is commonplace is best reflected in the past 40 years of social surveys. When President Clinton's Initiative on Race, through the Council of Economic Advisors, prepared its assessment of racial indicators, key among them was a chart showing White's attitudes toward housing integration. The final chart in that report reveals a sharp, steady decline in the proportion of White Americans who said that they would move if Blacks came to live next door or if large numbers came into their neighborhood. The reaction of Whites who stated that they would move if Blacks "moved into their neighborhood in large numbers" fell from 80 percent to 18 percent from 1958 to 1997 (Changing America, 1998). Americans have apparently overcome their early stated opposition to housing integration. The chart reveals a relatively abrupt decline in the mid-1960s but the rate quickly returned to its former level-a steady downward slope. This suggests, but certainly does not prove, that while the debate over the Fair Housing Act might have caused a momentary rise in the numbers of people accepting housing integration, this effect soon reversed itself as the slope of change resumed its slow, monotonic, seemingly inexorable decline. Whatever the determinants of this change in attitude, they were set in place before the passage of the Act and continued seemingly despite its enactment. America may then count itself lucky that the majority of Americans have become, in principle, supportive of fair housing even though it remains unproven that the Act's passage was either a cause or result. Signs of Progress Signs of success, however, must be tempered by our clear awareness from the work of Howard Schuman, Charlotte Steeh, and Larry Bobo (1985, 1997) that Americans are good at accepting a broad statement of principle but are typically much less willing to endorse specific methods of implementing civil rights programs and reforms. Indeed, it is argued that some of the lack of support of methods, in fact, casts doubt upon the true degree of commitment to the principles. More tellingly, Galster notes in his article that when Whites are asked a related set of questions about their opinions of Blacks that a host of negative images, opinions, and stereotypes emerge. Bobo, James Kluegel, and Ryan Smith (1996) argue that judgments that Blacks are more likely to be lazy, on welfare, drug addicted, or involved in gangs represent a new form of racial judgment: "This new ideology takes as legitimate extant patterns of black-white socioeconomic inequality and residential segregation, viewing these conditions, as it does, not as the deliberate products of racial discrimination, but rather as the outcomes of a free market, a race-neutral state apparatus, and the freely taken actions of African-Americans themselves." We have then a clear sign of societal progress that makes it possible for fair housing to be endorsed in principle, but we also have major studies of attitudes that suggest Whites have created new forms of racial judgment that have some, if not many, of the same consequences as their former attitudes of traditional racial prejudice. There is then, as we began, good reason for mixed emotion and partial congratulation. Central to the current ambivalence and debate about the meaning and effectiveness of civil rights is the finding that Whites and most minorities profoundly disagree in their view about a core, bedrock issue: Just how much discrimination exists in this country today? Most White Americans for example, believe as Joe Feagin notes, that racial discrimination no longer constitutes a major problem for minorities. A June 1997 Gallup poll finds that three-fourths of Whites believe that "Blacks are treated the same as Whites." A 1995 poll by The Washington Post reveals that only 36 percent of Whites believe that "past and present discrimination is a major reason for the economic and social problems" facing Blacks. There are comparable differences for Hispanics.3 That is, while most Whites in this country do not believe there is much current discrimination, virtually all minorities believe and have experienced the opposite. Jennifer Hochschild (1995) comments: African Americans (and other minorities) increasingly believe that racial discrimination is worsening and that it inhibits their race's ability to participate in the American dream; Whites increasingly believe that discrimination is lessening and that Blacks have the same chance to participate in the dream as Whites. |