Time March 2–9, 2020INEQUALITY| HOUSING
often doesn’t benefit anybody—and re-
veals the paradox of America’s hous-
ing crisis. At a time when one- quarter
of American renters are spending more
than half their incomes on housing, even
the working families lucky enough to re-
ceive federal housing assistance often still
end up without a roof over their heads.
The dilemma is decades in the
making. For nearly a century, key
government programs have explicitly
excluded minorities, creating a system
in which white families were able to
purchase houses in suburban areas, build
equity and pass down wealth to their
kids, while families of color couldn’t.
The 1934 National Housing Act, for
example, transformed the housing
market by offering federally backed
mortgages. But families of color were
denied access; appraisers were warned
to consider how “socially or racially
inharmonious groups” in predominantly
white neighborhoods would affect
neighborhood appeal. For decades,
agents used color-coded maps on which
black and mixed-race neighborhoods
were shaded red to determine where to
issue loans. Red lining, as the practice
was known, was outlawed in 1968. But
discrimination hasn’t disappeared.
“George Wallace is no longer here
stopping individuals from coming
places,” says Meachem, referring to
the segregationist former governor of
Alabama. “But it has now been rebornin policy. So we got little George Wallace
policies in these cities that are in a lot of
cases invisible to people.”
A 2018 Consumer Financial Protec-
tion Bureau report found that people of
color are still disproportionately denied
mortgages: 18.4% of black applicants
and 13.5% of Hispanic applicants were
denied, vs. an 8.8% denial rate for white
applicants. Today, the home ownership
rate among black households is just 7%
higher than it was in 1950.
It used to be that people in need of an
affordable home, like Lee and her daugh-
ter Lavi, were directed to public- housing
facilities. But President Richard Nixon
put a moratorium on the construction of
new projects in 1973 and shifted HUD’s
focus to giving families Section 8 vouch-
ers to offset rental costs in the market.
Private landlords have never loved theA THIRD-FLOOR WALK-UP isn’t ideal for
Shneila Lee’s children with special needs,
but she worries she won’t find another land-
lord willing to accept her housing subsidy