Street Roots • April 20-26, 2018
News
Page 7
The Fair
Housing Act
turns 50
P S U housing and segregation researcher
Leanne Serbulo talks about the impact o f
the landmark legislation and the challenges
to fu lfillin g its ultimate ideal
A R E D L IN E D M A P F O R P O R T L A N D R E A L E S T A T E /S T R E E T R O O T S IL L U S T R A T IO N
BY SARAH HANSELL
S T A F F W R IT E R
ifty years ago, a national advisory
body known as the Kerner
Commission released its landmark
report on the causes behind the rise in
racially-charged violence in America’s cities.
The report became a scathing critique of a
white-dominated society and its policies -
around laws, employment and housing -
that isolated and oppressed African-
Americans.
Among the report’s documented
inequalities was homeownership - the
fulfillment of the American Dream. In 1968,
when the report was released, black
homeownership in the United States was at
41 percent, compared to 66 percent white
homeownership.
That same year, President Lyndon
Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, the
culmination of campaigns by civil rights and
faith-based activist groups. It promised
protection from housing discriminations on
the basis of race, color, religion and national
origin. Protections based on sex, disability
and familial status were added in the 1970s
and 1980s.
Under the Fair Housing Act, public
housing began to be integrated, but private
housing was and still remains harder to
regulate, said Leanne Serbulo, a University
Studies Professor at Portland State
University who does research on housing
and segregation in Portland. (In Portland,
following the win of a class action lawsuit,
housing discrimination complaints are
processed through the city, which developed
systems to hold sellers and renters
accountable to the Fair Housing Act.)
,
Yet in 2018, there is one thing that hasn’t
changed, in fact has barely budged - the
percentage of black homeownership. It has
hovered at 41 percent for the last 50 years.
White homeownership has increased
modestly, from 66 percent to just over 70
F
percent.
Street Roots sat down with Serbulo and
talked about what impact the Fair Housing
Act really had, and what we can learn from it
today as it’s threatened by the Trump
Administration.
" W ith o u t
h o a s la f
a ffo r d a b ility
a n d a c c e s s ib i l it y
a n d j a s t b a s ic
h o m in g n e e d s
b e in g m e t , w e ^ re
n e v e r g o in g
t© a c h ie v e f a i r
h e s s ta g /'
Sarah Hansell: The Fair Housing Act
was passed in 1968, but there were aspects of
discrimination that didn’t necessarily stop, like
redlining I recently saw statistics that
homeownership of black Americans between
1968 and 2018 hasn’t changed. So, what
impact did the Fair Housing Act really have
for the black community, particularly in
Oregon?
Leanne Serbulo: The Fair Housing Act
in some ways addresses one aspect of
housing discrimination, and that’s kind of
that direct discrimination that happens
when someone refuses to rent or lease or
show a home to somebody. It did not
necessarily address some of the deeper
structural problems associated with racism,
so it didn’t do much to alleviate the
disproportionate economic situation
between blacks and whites, or employment
discrimination. Though there were laws
banning employment discrimination, that
still persisted over time, and that has the
impact on the spending power of people and
on the ability to purchase or rent housing.
And it also didn’t address the kind of
cumulative effects and the generational
effects of having been denied an opportunity
to own a home or denied the opportunity to
own a home in a way that wasn’t exploitative
or that wasn’t substandard. So in that way,
it’s addressed one aspect of segregation but
unfortunately it hasn’t been able to address
a lot of the more persistent and generational
impacts.
S.H.: What did activism look like for fair
housing in Portland at that time?
L.S.: In the late 1950s, a lot of the
activism centered around faith-based
movements in both black and white
churches. There was an effort before the
Fair Housing Act was passed here in Oregon
— first of all, to get that passed, and to get
other anti-discrimination legislation passed,
but also to educate people. There was a real
problem, when color barriers were broken
in neighborhoods, and black families would
move into a neighborhood, with white
residents fleeing, because a fear that
somehow their property values were going
to be effected by having a multiracial
neighborhood. And so there was an effort to
educate people about that.
In the early 1960s, the efforts to
integrate public housing were led by the
National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) and neighborhood
groups and the Urban League. They were
picketing, and holding meetings, going to
City Council to put pressure on City Council
about where housing was being built. And
the faith-based movements at that time were
also involved. I believe it was the Council of
Churches that had come up with a study.
The League of Women Voters had done a
study on the impacts of fair housing.
S.H.: How impactful would you say that
grassroots activism was in fair housing policy
or enforcement of that policy?
L.S.: I think it was critical. Because
without people drawing attention to it, there
would’ve been nothing done. I think it was
helpful to a lot of the grassroots
organizations when their goals were aligned
with federal regulations around it. The feds
have the power to withhold funding, for
example. So when those two were aligned, it
seems like that’s when things were most
effective, because the city didn’t want to
lose money or the state didn’t want to lose
funding, businesses wanted to get contracts.
When you see the federal government
retreating from and having a backlash
against anti-discrimination and civil rights
legislation under Reagan, then you see
grassroots efforts really having to ramp up
and take the full burden of that on. But
without grassroots organizing, there
Learn more
What: Making Home and Community
Before and After the Fair Housing Act:
A panel discussion with Faye Burch,
Donna Harris, Ronnie Hartley and Ken
Adair, moderated by Dr. Carmen
Thompson
When: 7-8:30 p.m., Monday, April 30.
Doors open at 6 p.m.
Where: McMenamins Kennedy School
5736 NE 33rd Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97211
Cost: Free and open to the public
Page 12: Allan Lazo, executive director
of the Fair Housing Council, reflects on
the ongoing fight for fair housing.
wouldn’t be a Fair Housing Act.
S.H.: In your opinion, what issues related
to fair housing are most pressing in Portland?
L.S.: It’s really difficult to tear out fair
housing from affordable housing in general.
We don’t have a right to housing in our
society, and without having a basic right to
housing, the idea of having a safe,
affordable, accessible fair home is
nonexistent. Here in Portland, just making
sure that everybody has a roof over their
heads is critical to even begin to fully
implement and enforce fair housing. But
that being said, it doesn’t mean that fair
housing should be ignored or should be
subsumed to any sort of struggle to get
people’s basic human right to housing. But
without housing affordability and
accessibility and just basic housing needs
being met, we’re never going to achieve fair
housing.
And also in our attempts to try to get
affordable housing, I think its important to
focus on homeownership opportunities too,
and especially because there’s a gap
between black and white homeownership
rates, and that gap is part of a legacy of
See FAIR HOUSING, page 12