Table Of ContentPerspectives on Fair Housing
THE CITY IN THE TWENTY- FIRST C ENTURY
Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, Series Editors
A complete list of books in the series is
available from the publisher.
Perspectives on Fair Housing
EDITED BY
Vincent J. Reina,
Wendell E. Pritchett,
AND
Susan M. Wachter
FOREWORD BY
Marc Morial
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2021 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of
review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in
any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www . upenn . edu / pennpress
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Reina, Vincent J., editor. | Pritchett, Wendell E., editor. |
Wachter, Susan M., editor.
Title: Perspectives on fair housing / edited by Vincent J. Reina,
Wendell E. Pritchett, and Susan M. Wachter.
Other titles: City in the twenty- first century book series.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania
Press, [2021] | Series: The city in the twenty- first century |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020019214 | ISBN 978-0-8122-5275-0 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: United States. Fair Housing Act. | Discrimination
in housing— United States. | Housing policy— United States. |
Discrimination in housing— Law and legislation— United States.
Classification: LCC HD7288.76.U5 P47 2021 |
DDC 363.5/5610973— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020019214
CONTENTS
Foreword vii
Marc Morial
Introduction 1
Vincent J. Reina, Wendell E. Pritchett, and Susan M. Wachter
Chapter 1. The Long History of Unfair Housing 9
Francesca Russello Ammon and Wendell E. Pritchett
Chapter 2. Sociology, Segregation, and the Fair Housing Act 45
Justin P. Steil and Camille Z. Charles
Chapter 3. Parallel Pathways of Reform: Fair Public Schooling
and Housing for Black Citizens 74
Akira Drake Rodriguez and Rand Quinn
Chapter 4. The Economic Importance of Fair Housing 104
Vincent J. Reina and Raphael Bostic
Chapter 5. The Fair Housing Act’s Original Sin: Administrative
Discretion and the Per sis tence of Segregation 132
Nestor M. Davidson and Eduardo M. Peñalver
vi Contents
Chapter 6. A Queer and Intersectional Approach to Fair Housing 154
Amy Hillier and Devin Michelle Bunten
List of Contributors 187
Index 191
FOREWORD
Marc Morial
Let me tell you a story about the city I love.
New Orleans, like all American cities, was segregated in the mid- twentieth
century by discriminatory policies like racial zoning and redlining. The
Federal Housing Administration (FHA), in par tic u lar, was known to insure
loans exclusively for white house holds. In 1954, Mayor deLesseps S. Morri-
son asked the FHA to make an exception. There was a shortage of housing
units where Black h ouse holds were allowed to live, and Mayor Morrison
wasn’t about to let them move into white neighborhoods. So he made a deal
with the FHA: if the FHA insured a construction loan for a new Black hous-
ing development, he would make sure it remained completely segregated from
the FHA- insured white development next door.
The NAACP protested the mayor’s segregationist plan, but it only made
Morrison proud that he had angered them. An FHA spokesman likewise
bragged that this segregated proj ect was “the type of t hing [the] FHA wanted.”
He said this to African Americans.
The year 1954 was also when my f ather, Ernest N. Morial, became the first
African American gradu ate of the law school at Louisiana State University.
He spent the next twenty years fighting segregationist policies like Mayor
Morrison’s, and in 1977, my father succeeded in becoming mayor himself. If
I learned one t hing from his time in the courtroom, it is the lesson that in-
justice and intolerance do not dissipate without a fight. They hang on, grip-
ping tightly to their power, until the almighty force of law compels them to
desist.
It is a lesson I have been reliving in our current po liti cal environment.
The chapters in this book tell the story of the Fair Housing Act of 1968:
what it is, why it was needed, how it was interpreted, whom it has helped,
and where it has failed us—or perhaps more accurately, where we have failed
viii Foreword
it. The chapters paint a compelling portrait of a country still at war with the
demons that my father’s generation set out to vanquish. We have made great
pro gress since those early days. Explicit discrimination is outlawed, and by
some mea sures, segregation has decreased somewhat. But the per sis tent
chasm between the races—in economic opportunity, in social stature, in
health and safety, in public opinion—is impossible to deny. The legacy of our
nation’s sins is on display for all to see.
Where my generation has fallen short, new leaders are beginning to take
charge. I am inspired by the young men and women I see protesting, running
for office, and demanding equality. I have always believed that a hallmark
of leadership is optimism, and I see that hopeful quality in the leaders of
tomorrow. But a leader also needs a roadmap. She has to know how we got to
where we are, what has worked and what hasn’t, and which tools are avail-
able to her going forward. This book provides such a road map, and the Fair
Housing Act offers one impor tant tool kit.
It may seem, from t oday’s media coverage and po liti cal statements, that
“housing” ranks low on the list of priorities. Rarely does one hear the word
spoken in presidential debates or posted on placards in public demonstra-
tions. But I would argue— and the facts in this book would bear me out—
that housing is the foundation that underlies most, if not all, of our current
racial divides.
As my friend Raphael Bostic likes to say, housing is a platform. It is the
foundation on which we build our lives, our c areers, our communities, and
our democracy. Housing is a conduit to jobs, to health care, to public safety,
and to social interaction. When we segregate our housing, we cut our citizens
off from one another. We splinter the bonds that move us forward as one
nation. Is it any surprise, a fter fifty- plus years living in two worlds physically
apart from one another, that we seem unable to find common ground, trust
collective institutions, or elect politicians with compassion, with empathy,
and with re spect for all their constituents? The rot of our body politic did not
come from the top and work its way down. On the contrary, we instilled it in
our homes, and it eroded us from within. Let this be a warning to all who
seek to mend the fractures that cleave our land in two: only by living among
one another can our spirits truly be joined as one.
I have seen this transformation in my own city in recent years. I am proud
to say I lived to see something my father never i magined, when the Civil War
monuments erected to subjugate his generation and his father’s before him
came tumbling down, and the people of New Orleans turned their eyes at
Foreword ix
long last away from Confederate ghosts of the past t oward the diverse
opportunity of the future. Though we have not yet vanquished the ghosts of
segregation in the same fashion, the pro gress we have made would make our
ancestors proud, and they would advise us to do as they did: turn our eyes
toward the future and steel ourselves for the fight ahead, until at long last the
almighty force of law compels fairness, justice, and tolerance to triumph.
