Examining American Racial Slavery and its Legacies

Race and Housing: Connecting Historical Redlining to Modern Issues - Kathleen Moore

Race and Housing: Connecting Historical Redlining to Modern Issues

By Kathleen Moore

Dr. Maria Bollettino

Framingham State University

December 2020

Race and housing is a serious issue in the United States. The effects of redlining programs from the 1930s have left a serious mark on redlined communities. Residents of these communities – and their ancestors, and their descendants – have been impacted in so many ways. From the 1930s to the 1960s, people from redlined neighborhoods were discriminated against by lenders and housing agencies. In more recent years, health issues and the current COVID-19 pandemic have significantly – and disproportionately – impacted redlined urban areas. These redlined communities have struggled for years, and will continue to struggle greatly. This is a serious problem in society that needs to be addressed.

Redlining is defined as “a discriminatory practice by which banks, insurance companies, etc., refuse or limit loans, mortgages, insurance, etc., within specific geographic areas, especially inner-city neighborhoods.”^[1]

Black Past provides maps from the 1930s, which was when redlining was very common.[1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Communities were color-coded – green was most desirable, and red was least desirable. Housing agencies and banks discriminated against people from redlined neighborhoods. Undesirable neighborhoods were defined as “neighborhoods that were predominantly made up of African Americans, as well as Catholics, Jews and immigrants from Asia and southern Europe.”^[2]

The eugenic housing programs of the 1930s were an inherently racist way to justify white supremacy and the racial hierarchy. Race-based housing discrimination was unfortunately very common from the 1930s onwards, and the discrimination that people of the past faced can still be felt today because of that. Laura L. Lovett’s article, “Eugenic Housing: Redlining, Reproductive Regulation, and Suburban Development in the United States,” discussed the eugenic housing experiments of the 1930s. This is another instance of racially-based mortgage and housing discrimination. The article defines eugenics as filtering out desirable human population characteristics.^[1] The article’s abstract states, “Housing developers, federal agencies, and real-estate associations used a eugenically informed racial hierarchy to justify redlining and preferential home loans that discriminated against African Americans and immigrants.”^[2]

Richard L. Haney, Jr. looked at the issue of race and housing through a financial lens in his article, “Race and Housing Value: A Review of their Interrelationship.” His article was published in The Appraisal Journal in July 1977. He wrote, “financial institutions often draw a red line on a map around certain neighborhoods within a city that are undergoing a transition from ownership by one racial group to ownership by another.”^[1] Haney, Jr. also wrote about the financial and economic theories behind redlining. His article discussed racially-motivated mortgage and financial discrimination. He also stated that “nonwhites will be willing to pay more for the same quality of housing in nonwhite areas than whites will have to pay in white areas, because that quality of housing [white] is very scarce in the nonwhite areas.”^[2]

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 legally outlawed redlining and other forms of housing discrimination. The Fair Housing Act, which was also enacted in 1968, states that it “prohibits discrimination by direct providers of housing, such as landlords and real estate companies as well as other entities, such as municipalities, banks or other lending institutions and homeowners insurance companies whose discriminatory practices make housing unavailable to persons because of race or color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability.”[1]

Tracy Jan also discussed redlining and racially-based mortgage discrimination in her article, “Redlining was banned 50 years ago. It’s still hurting minorities today.” She wrote that the redlined communities of the 1930s were labeled hazardous, and those communities are still predominantly lower-income today, despite the fact that the 1930s were 90 years ago. These neighborhoods have been locked into severe poverty for generations. According to Jan, these neighborhoods were deemed “credit risks.”[1] Many of the “hazardous” neighborhoods are inhabited by Black and Latinx residents, but white residents make up desirable communities.[2]

Residents of redlined communities have problems with their health and wellbeing. Connections can be drawn to higher rates of asthma, poor health, poor diet, and poor air quality in redlined urban areas.[1] Nancy Krieger, et al. provided recent data from New York City in their article, “Structural Racism, Historical Redlining, and Risk of Preterm Birth in New York City, 2013-2017.” There is also evidence of preterm births in redlined communities.[2] This proves that health is connected to housing status, and that residents of redlined, undesirable communities have poorer health than residents of desirable communities.

            Even more recently, there are connections between historically redlined communities and the current COVID-19 pandemic. According to Cristina Kim of WBUR, “People living in formerly redlined neighborhoods are more susceptible to having COVID-19 complications.”[3] Residents of redlined urban neighborhoods are more likely to become sick and die from COVID-19. In addition to COVID-19, redlined communities are also plagued by “asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and obesity.”[4] There is most certainly a connection between redlining and health, including lower life expectancy for residents of redlined communities.[5] The mortality rates of COVID-19 are much higher for people of color than for white Americans: “Black Americans are dying from COVID-19 at rates 3.6 times higher than white Americans. Compared to white Americans, the mortality rate is 3.2 times higher for Latinos and 3.4 times higher for Indigenous people, the data shows.”[6]

            The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) also draws connections between race, housing, and COVID-19. Redlined neighborhoods have higher “risk factors” when it comes to COVID-19, as compared to neighborhoods that were not historically redlined.[7] Of redlined communities plagued by COVID-19, the NCRC writes, “Today, those same neighborhoods suffer not only from reduced wealth and greater poverty, but from lower life expectancy and higher incidence of chronic diseases that are risk factors for poor outcomes from COVID-19.”[8]

I think these problems can be addressed by giving reparations and more funding to so-called undesirable, underfunded communities. Redlined communities need to have more resources to help with the health and wellbeing of residents. State and federal government assistance, as well community-based programs, can help with this ongoing issue.