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COMMENTARY: After 51 Years, Fair Housing Still an Unfinished Journey

NNPA NEWSWIRE — “According to the National Fair Housing Alliance, individuals filed 28,843 housing discrimination complaints in 2017,” said Waters. “Under the Trump Administration, fair housing protections are under attack…. According to news reports Secretary Carson proposed taking the words ‘free from discrimination’ out of HUD’s mission statement,” the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

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Charlene Crowell is the Center for Responsible Lending’s Deputy Communications Director. She can be reached at Charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org.

Charlene Crowell is the Center for Responsible Lending’s Deputy Communications Director. She can be reached at Charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org.

By Charlene Crowell, NNPA Newswire Contributor

Fifty-one years ago, this month, the Fair Housing Act (the Act) was enacted to ensure that housing discrimination was illegal. Yet, just days before the annual observance of Fair Housing Month began, headline news articles reminded the nation that housing discrimination still exists.

For example, on March 19, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined Citibank $25 million for violations related to mortgage lending. At issue was Citibank’s “relationship pricing” program that afforded mortgage applicants either a credit on closing costs or a reduced interest rate. These cost breaks were intended to be offered to customers on the basis of their deposits and investment balances. According to OCC examination at Citibank, these ‘relationships” did not include all eligible customers – particularly people of color. The regulator’s conclusion was that the bank’s practices led to racial disparities.

The settlement calls for all 24,000 consumers affected to receive $24 million in restitution.

Days later on March 28, the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) charged Facebook with violating the Act by enabling its advertisers to discriminate on its social media platform. According to the lawsuit, Facebook enabled advertisers to exclude people based on their neighborhood – a high tech version of the historical redlining of neighborhoods where people of color lived.

With 210 million Facebook users in the United States and Canada alone, the social media mogul took in $8.246 billion in advertising in just the last financial quarter of 2018.

As April’s annual observance of Fair Housing Month began, the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee used that leadership post to bring attention to the nagging challenges that deny fair housing for all. In her opening statement at the hearing held April 2, Chairwoman Maxine Waters set the tone and focus of the public forum.

“According to the National Fair Housing Alliance, individuals filed 28,843 housing discrimination complaints in 2017,” said Waters. “Under the Trump Administration, fair housing protections are under attack…. According to news reports Secretary Carson proposed taking the words ‘free from discrimination’ out of HUD’s mission statement.”

“He also reportedly halted fair housing investigations”, continued Waters, “and sidelined top advisors in HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. These are unprecedented attacks on fair housing that must not go unanswered.”

Several committee members posed similar concerns and offered comments that echoed those of Waters. Additional issues raised during the hearing spoke to a lack of enforcement, data collection, gentrification, racial redlining, restrictive zoning, and disparate impact.

A panel of housing experts provided substantive testimony that responded to many of these issues, while also acknowledging how many fair housing goals have not yet been achieved.

Cashauna Hill, the Executive Director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center provided additional information on delays encountered with HUD’s Fair Housing investigations.  Although HUD set a standard for these complaints to be investigated within 100 days, many complaints go well beyond the agency’s own guidelines. Cases older than 100 days are categorized as “aged” in HUD parlance.

“In 2017, HUD had 895 cases that became aged during that same year, and it had 941 cases that were already considered aged at the beginning of the fiscal year,” noted Hill. “During that same time period, Fair Housing Assistance Program agencies had 3,994 cases that became aged and 1,393 cases that were already considered aged at the beginning of the fiscal year.”

“Practically, what this means for groups like the Fair Housing Action Center,” continued Hall, “is a delay in making victims of discrimination whole, and a delay in correction of housing providers’ discriminatory behavior.”

Speaking on behalf of the Zillow Group, Dr. Skylar Olsen, its Director of Economic Research cited additional data that underscored racial disparities and problems that continue with access to credit.

“Homeownership is a key tool for building wealth, and more than half the overall wealth held by American households is represented by their primary residence,” said Olsen. “But access to homeownership is not shared equally. In 1900, the gap between black and white homeownership rate was 27.6 percentage points. Today it is 30.3 percentage points.”

Further according to Olsen, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) shows that “black borrowers are denied for conventional home loans 2.5 times more often than white borrowers.”

Even among renters, Skylar noted racial disparities in major metro areas like Atlanta, Detroit, Houston and Oakland, California adding, “local establishments and amenities including banks, health institutions and recreational facilities are less prevalent in communities of color than white communities.”

Debby Goldberg, Vice President of Housing Policy and Special Project with the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) was also a panelist.

“Not all neighborhoods were created the same,” testified Goldberg. “The long history of housing discrimination and segregation in the U.S. has created neighborhoods that are unequal in their access to opportunities. They are not unequal because of the people who live there. They are unequal because of a series of public and private institutionalized practices that orchestrated a system of American apartheid in our neighborhoods and communities, placing us in separate and unequal spaces.”

Goldberg also stated that racial discrimination included consumers of color with varying incomes.

“While many low-income communities, no matter their racial composition, suffer from disinvestment and lack of resources, even wealthier, high-earning communities of color have fewer bank branches, grocery stores, healthy environments, and affordable credit than poorer white areas.”

Ms. Goldberg also posed a core question that was as basic as it was direct.

“How do we ensure that future generations of all backgrounds live in neighborhoods rich with opportunity?” said Goldberg. “Fair housing. Fair housing can ultimately dismantle the housing discrimination and segregation that caused these inequities in the first place.”

Charlene Crowell is the Center for Responsible Lending’s Deputy Communications Director. She can be reached at Charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org.

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Trump Set to Sign Largest Cut to Medicaid After a Marathon Protest Speech by Leader Jeffries

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S.

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By Lauren Burke

By a vote of 218 to 214, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed President Trump’s massive budget and spending bill that will add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S. With $175 billion allocated in spending for immigration enforcement, the money for more police officers eclipsed the 2026 budget for the U.S. Marines, which is $57 billion. Almost all of the policy focus from the Trump Administration has focused on deporting immigrants of color from Mexico and Haiti.

The vote occurred as members were pressed to complete their work before the arbitrary deadline of the July 4 holiday set by President Trump. It also occurred after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the House floor for over 8 hours in protest. Leader Jeffries broke the record in the U.S. House for the longest floor speech in history on the House floor. The Senate passed the bill days before and was tied at 50-50, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski saying that, “my hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.” There were no changes made to the Senate bill by the House. A series of overnight phone calls to Republicans voting against, not changes, was what won over enough Republicans to pass the legislation, even though it adds trillions to the debt. The Trump spending bill also cuts money to Pell grants.

“The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs,” wrote Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in a statement on July 3.

“The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 17 million people will lose their health insurance, including over 322,000 Virginians. It will make college less affordable.  Three million people will lose access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And up to 16 million students could lose access to free school meals. The Republican bill does all of this to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” wrote Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a statement. The bill’s passage has prompted Democrats to start thinking about 2026 and the next election cycle. With the margins of victory in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate being so narrow, many are convinced that the balance of power and the question of millions being able to enjoy health care come down to only several thousand votes in congressional elections. But currently, Republicans controlled by the MAGA movement control all three branches of government. That reality was never made more stark and more clear than the last seven days of activity in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

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WATCH: NNPA Publishers Pivot To Survive

7.2.25 via NBC 4 Washington

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7.2.25 via NBC 4 Washington

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9oZc5Sz0jQQ&feature=oembed

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#NNPA BlackPress

Congressional Black Caucus Challenges Target on Diversity

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — we found that the explanations offered by the leadership of the Target Corporation fell woefully short of what our communities deserve and of the values of inclusion that Target once touted

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By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Target is grappling with worsening financial and reputational fallout as the national selective buying and public education program launched by the Black Press of America and other national and local leaders continues to erode the retailer’s sales and foot traffic. But a recent meeting that the retailer intended to keep quiet between CEO Brian Cornell and members of the Congressional Black Caucus Diversity Task Force was publicly reported after the Black Press discovered the session, and the CBC later put Target on blast.

“The Congressional Black Caucus met with the leadership of the Target Corporation on Capitol Hill to directly address deep concerns about the impact of the company’s unconscionable decision to end a number of its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts,” CBC Chair Yvette Clarke stated. “Like many of the coalition leaders and partner organizations that have chosen to boycott their stores across the country, we found that the explanations offered by the leadership of the Target Corporation fell woefully short of what our communities deserve and of the values of inclusion that Target once touted,” Congresswoman emphasized.  “Black consumers contribute overwhelmingly to our economy and the Target Corporation’s bottom line. Our communities deserve to shop at businesses that publicly share our values without sacrificing our dignity. It is no longer acceptable to deliver promises to our communities in private without also demonstrating those values publicly.”

Lauren Burke, Capitol Hill correspondent for Black Press of America, was present when Target CEO Cornell and a contingent of Target officials arrived at the U.S. Capitol last month. “It’s always helpful to have meetings like this and get some candid feedback and continue to evolve our thinking,” Cornell told Burke as he exited the meeting. And walked down a long hallway in the Cannon House Office Building. “We look forward to follow-up conversations,” he stated. When asked if the issue of the ongoing boycott was discussed, Cornell’s response was, “That was not a big area of focus — we’re focused on running a great business each and every day. Take care of our teams. Take care of the guests who shop with us and do the right things in our communities.”

A national public education campaign on Target, spearheaded by Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the NNPA’s board of directors, and with other national African American leaders, has combined consumer education efforts with a call for selective buying. The NNPA is a trade association that represents the more than 220 African American-owned newspapers and media companies known as the Black Press of America, the voice of 50 million African Americans across the nation. The coalition has requested that Target restore and expand its stated commitment to do business with local community-owned businesses inclusive of the Black Press of  America, and to significantly increase investment in Black-owned businesses and media, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU, Black-owned Banks, national Black Church denominations, and grassroots and local organizations committed to improving the quality of life of all Americans, and especially those from underserved communities. According to Target’s latest earnings report, net sales for the first quarter of 2025 fell 2.8 percent to $23.85 billion compared to the same period last year. Comparable store sales dropped 3.8 percent, and in-store foot traffic slid 5.7 percent.

Shares of Target have also struggled under the pressure. The company’s stock traded around $103.85 early Wednesday afternoon, down significantly from roughly $145 before the controversy escalated. Analysts note that Target has lost more than $12 billion in market value since the beginning of the year. “We will continue to inform and to mobilize Black consumers in every state in the United States,” Chavis said. “Target today has a profound opportunity to respond with respect and restorative commitment.”

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