Fair Housing History Highlights Critical Efforts of Women and People of Color to Improve Economic Mobility, but the Work Continues
March 16th, 2023
By Sara Miller, Senior Policy Analyst
“I remember a nice white man who asked me during the open housing marches, ‘What is it you people want?’ I said, ‘My dear man, the same things you want. A place to live, green grass, a white picket fence, a place to go to work, and good schools for our children.’”–Vel Phillips
The Fair Housing Act, enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibits discrimination in the sale or rent of housing based on race, color, sex, national origin, religion, and (as amended) familial status and disability. The act has been critical in efforts to end housing discrimination and to promote economic mobility, but much more work is needed to truly realize fair housing. The Fair Housing Act, like other civil rights legislation, is an outgrowth of an evolving movement towards equity, adapting to the challenges faced by people of color whose voices have been critical to identifying discrimination, finding solutions, and ultimately promoting economic mobility.
The Fair Housing Movement
More than 55 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech titled “The Other America” about segregation and its effects on economic mobility for people of color at Stanford University. The speech was undoubtedly informed by King’s recent involvement in the Chicago Freedom Movement, which centered on fair housing issues.[1] While based in Chicago, King, and his family rented a small West Side apartment that was in substantial disrepair. In doing so, King brought attention to the prevalence of substandard housing in neighborhoods where people of color often lived and how discrimination created these substandard housing conditions. During that time, the movement for fair housing was also gaining momentum in other northern cities. Civil rights advocates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, marched for 200 consecutive days in 1967 and 1968 for fair housing.[2] The movement in Milwaukee was led by the NAACP Youth Council and Alderwoman Vel Phillips, who was a long-time fair housing advocate who eventually became Wisconsin’s first Black judge and first Black Secretary of State.
After the tireless efforts of fair housing advocates, Congress finally passed the Fair Housing Act as a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, just one week after Dr. King’s assassination in Memphis, TN. The Act, along with other federal efforts, like the Community Reinvestment Act, has made strides in combating racial discrimination and exclusionary housing policies like redlining and restrictive covenants.
The Act, along with other legislation like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 (ECOA), also helped address housing discrimination on the basis of sex. Until the ECOA, women could often not get a loan unless it was co-signed by a man. This limited the financing options women had for owning a home. In both rental and home purchase transactions, women who were mothers were often discriminated against with rules not allowing children. Further, even after explicit sex discrimination was not allowed, many women face hurdles in housing due to the wage gap and due to sexual harassment.
Recent Developments in Fair Housing
Despite its critical importance, the Fair Housing Act has faced significant threats in recent years. One of these threats was the 2019 proposal to significantly weaken the disparate impact provisions. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) disparate impact rules allow fair housing challenges based on the adverse effects of an action on a group protected by the act, which includes women and people of color, even if the action on its face appears to be neutral. Another threat was the effort to eliminate HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule that required grantees to take proactive action to counteract the effects of longstanding discriminatory practices. Both of these rules were restored in 2021.
More recently, HUD has released a new proposed Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule that would strengthen fair housing efforts. It would require grantees to set goals for furthering fair housing in partnership with the communities they serve. Public comments on the proposed rule are due April 10, 2023.
Fair Housing at HOPE
At HOPE, we understand the inextricable link between our success and the communities where we conduct business. Accordingly, we place a priority on serving all residents in a fair and responsible manner. Through fair lending practices, we have substantially increased our mortgage lending by reaching untapped markets. We design products and procedures to align with the economic realities faced by underserved residents. This includes manually underwriting loans, considering nontraditional indicators of credit, and discounting deferred student debt. In addition, we offer a 100% financing product, as many low-wage earners have the cash flow for a monthly mortgage payment but lack the ability to save for a down payment. As a result of these efforts, a large majority of HOPE’s mortgage lending is to women and people of color. In 2022, 65% of HOPE’s mortgage lending was to women, and 90% went to homeowners of color.
HOPE, as a Black and women-owned financial institution and policy center that works in historically underserved communities across the Deep South, recognizes the critical importance of fair housing and equal access to credit. The need for a robust and effective Fair Housing Act is acutely felt here in the Deep South. A compelling reminder for the need for robust, fair housing enforcement is the wide racial disparities in Black and white homeownership, mortgage loan denials, and predatory lending in our region. By ensuring that credit for a home purchase is available on an equally accessible basis, the Fair Housing Act is a critical tool that fosters a climate that increases economic mobility for women and people of color.
[1] National Low Income Housing Coalition, “The Chicago Freedom Movement,” October 23, 2018 https://nlihc.org/resource/chicago-freedom-movement
[2] University of Wisconsin Milwaukee library, “March on Milwaukee: Open Housing,” accessed February 23, 2023, available at https://uwm.edu/marchonmilwaukee/keyterms/open-housing/
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