By Jermaine Broadnax
Home buying while black:
The Homeownership gap between black and white Americans, is larger today than it was in 1934, the year the “Federal Housing Administration” [FHA] was established. Racial homeownership gaps, have been ranging between 20 and 30 percentage points over the last 100 years, between Black and white Americans. The government set up the Home Owners Loan Corp. in 1933. The origin of “The Redline Maps” which highlighted which neighborhoods in cities were safe investments for whites, and which were not, based off who you were. Neighborhoods with a poor return are apartment buildings, construction styles or a run-down appearance.
The 1970 census found 42% of black households owned their own homes. Today, the number is also 42%. This means since 1968, black Americans are paying everyone but themselves. Half of non-white buyers have stated that their real estate agents “may have been less eager” to do business with them because of their race. To get better housing opportunities blacks had to be creative going about it, such as endorsing European pronouncing names, to get their foot in the door, or before integrating, some blacks would wait until the real estate agent got out of his car, to speak about buying houses.
What was a “Racially-restrictive deed”?
These are covenant documents that “come with the land”, and it says that someone with your racial or ethnic background is not allowed to own the property. These laws were allegedly banned in the “Fair housing act of 1968”. (Which was a peace treaty offered by London B Johnson, to stop the “MLK Riots” from destroying American cities.) This “housing act” was a banned practice in writing, but in the physical world, now regulated laws have been endorsed. If homeowner breaks a covenant, they could forfeit ownership of the property. Racial restrictive covenants were designed to create and maintain neighborhood segregation. These rules were implemented on Black Americans to prevent them from moving into new white areas.
What’s Steering in Real Estate?
Steering is when a real estate agent influences a homebuyer to purchase in certain communities based on their race, therefore limiting the buyer’s choices. Real estate agents have a long history of steering buyers toward certain neighborhoods based on race, color, religion, and other discriminatory factors. In fact, steering is one of the big reasons for the widespread neighborhood segregation we see in the U.S., even today. Black buyers tend to be given fewer options, and they are steered toward predominantly Black or mixed-race neighborhoods.
Here are examples of Steering:
Discouraging White American clients from living in black areas for “safety and violence” ethics. Promoting the schools as bad, like a scene out of “lean on mean”. Promoting fear ,by glamorizing neighborhood concerns for blacks, by not addressing crime. Disparaging black communities to white clients. In a silent effort to promote segregation , the goal of white supremacy is to keep caste system of classism in every city in America. Black families in Chicago lost between $3 billion and $4 billion in wealth because of predatory housing contracts during the 1950s and 1960s.
What is Blockbusting?
This term is used to describe the practice of encouraging existing black homeowners living in primarily white neighborhoods to sell their properties to a real estate agent at below market value. When more than 10 percent of families in a neighborhood are black, home values fall because the community becomes less attractive to white clients. During segregation Black Americans understood white neighborhoods afforded more amenities & reliable public services because of racial hierarch.
White Flight:
In the 1960s, white families moved from cities to suburbs when they saw black neighbors move in next door. Many whites moved after desegregation to ensure that their children would not have to go to school with black Americans. Demolition and redevelopment, and expropriation of land all played into white flight. School busing, played a key factor with most white Americans fleeing their neighborhoods because too many black people moved in.
The black homeownership rate was 35% in the 1950 census and 42% in the 1970 census. That means despite redlining and housing discrimination against blacks, the black homeownership rate increased 20% from 1950 to 1970. Black people born between 1965 and 1975 will become part of the generation since the 1900’s to reach retirement age with more renters than homeowners. Today, black homeowners are five times as likely to own in a formerly redlined neighborhood than a greenlined one.
