9/02/2021

TO MARCIA FUDGE HUD Secretary

 Dear Marcia Fudge

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

photo of brittle grass




Housing discrimination exists today. It slides under the radar in high cost, market scarcity, natural disaster, and racial disparity. Housing is the American Dream.

The disparate-impact standard endorsed by “Inclusive Communities” case applies to the Fair Housing Act. Inclusive Communities held that claims based on third-party policies limiting a defendant’s discretion and should be dismissed. HUD’s disparate-impact regulation should parallel The Supreme Court precedent recodifying the 2013 Rule is inconsistent with Inclusive Communities ruling. Granting funds to developers to build low-income housing resulted in increasing “ghettos.”

Residential segregation and a racially segmented housing markets hold back African Americans’ economic mobility. Housing provides a method to pull out of poverty.

Segregation, disparate access to credit and homeownership, and the consistent devaluation of homes in black neighborhoods6 combine to constrict the ability of African Americans to build equity and accumulate wealth through homeownership.

Allow me to suggest the following:

1.     Local jurisdictions are responsible for planning to achieve fair housing. Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule should be fully reinstated. Cities and counties are directly on the line with needs and services of their communities.

2.    Empower federal, state, and local governments and nonprofits to enforce the Fair Housing Act. Marcia Fudge I ask you to boost the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO).

3.    HUD goal to the end racial steering by Real Estate agents, Property Management companies, and rental agencies. Some Real Estate agents still steer African Americans. Real estate agents are loosely organized by the National Association of Realtors. NAR to maintain a public website registry of clients by race, sex, national origin, age… to track discrimination. Revealing trends discourages behaviors. Rental property agencies, websites, and aggregators to pay into a pool of resources for this tracking.

4.    According to the Urban Institute’s 2012 audit study Housing providers often do not advertise available units. There are no for rent signs or online listings of many homes for rent or for sale. Social media and online housing aggregators such as Zillow allow discriminatory digital marketing.50 A 2016 ProPublica investigation51 reveals Facebook’s practice of allowing its advertisers to exclude Facebook users from seeing housing ads based on their race and ethnicity. Those companies who profit from advertising real estate should provide a portion low-income housing, i.e.: taxation.

5.    HUD to provide structures to build low-cost housing. After the Covid pandemic Americans may not return to city or suburban homes and require access to internet to work remote. USDA to offer a loan program that includes $30000 towards the addition of: internet towers, roofing, or solar systems at zero interest rate.

6.    Natural disasters: flood, tornado, hurricane, fire, earthquakes… offer opportunities to rebuild safer, stronger, lower cost housing alternatives. HUD in coordination with FEMA to reinvent methods for funds to fairly disperse to people. Road Home Project’s disparate distribution of grants ultimately failed Black Americans. How many thousand Black Americans left New Orleans after Katrina for rural Mississippi, Texas, other places ~ never to return to New Orleans? Now years later, be great. Offer zero interest loans to low-income families who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina in the Lower Ninth Ward. Fast track permits for foundations which are eight feet above ground level and allow for two- and three-story housing structures. Covid pandemic adds to the list of dead malls.  HUD and our Federal Government can lead guidance as to the reuse of this land. Rehabilitate dying retail malls into condominiums and low-cost housing in: Syracuse NY, Rochester NY, Rockford IL, Peoria IL, Philadelphia PA, Erie PA, Los Angeles CA, San Francisco CA, Portland OR, New Orleans LA, Detroit Areas IL, Chicago IL, Houston TX…  Review recent rehab mall projects: Medley/Irondequoit/Skyview Mall Rochester NY was changed to community center.  Is it being used? Should the city have knocked down a couple of the larger retail structures and created five story senior low-income condos, or built on the parking lot?

 

7.    Provide available safe units for families who are homeless, 

Veterans struggling on the streets, and the most vulnerable. 

Divide housing programs into units for: a) elderly, b) homeless with mental disability, c) those who require drug rehabilitation, d) and low-income individuals who recently became homeless. 

Housing should be dispersed into all neighborhoods and not restricted to traditional badlands thus becoming ghetto areas.  

Density to be not concentrated in one block. Repurpose vacant housing. 

The cost to retrofit plumbing for condo/housing from retail is largest cost is plumbing. New plumbing retrofit to residential is about $23000 for a two-bedroom one bath unit. With $190000 I can build a single-family house of 1200 square feet not including lot or utility tie ins.

 

8.    Come up with plans to encourage the dot.com companies who gentrified neighborhoods which displaced long term residents to build affordable       housing in those same backyards.

 

Housing product is needed. Be bold. Think diverse. Ask for our help.

 

Caroline Gerardo Barbeau

San Juan Capistrano, California

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2019/07/15/469838/racial-disparities-home-appreciation/