Housing Reparations and the Policies that Necessitated Them

We the (Black) People

On March 22nd, Evanston, Illinois passed the Restorative Housing Program as reparations for its discriminatory housing policies. This bill is both a hit and a miss in restoratively addressing the history of housing discrimination. This episode, I turn to that history with Professor Paige Glotzer, author of How the Suburbs Were Segregated: Developers and the Business of Exclusionary Housing, 1890–1960.

This history begins with linking race and property value, a practice that is a result of conscious planning, starting with suburban developers and investors. Their nuisance clauses and restrictive covenants aimed to keep developments 'stable,' a code for white and wealthy. Sometimes that was explicit, but at other times exclusions were hidden behind 'color-blind' policies. They (and later realtors) legitimized the practice so well, that it became the basis for redlining, a federal, New Deal housing policy that Dr. Glotzer breaks down. Redlining had (and continues to have) huge consequences. Even though discriminatory housing was ruled illegal in 1968, discriminatory and predatory housing practices still persist to harm Black and Brown people. This is evident in examining the 2008 crash.

Being a continuing system, reparations must both right past wrongs and prevent their continuation. That is why a full picture of the history of housing discrimination matters.

Podchaser link to review We the (Black) People and help Meals on Wheels: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/we-the-black-people-1551466

For more information about Evanston's Reparation Plans: https://www.cityofevanston.org/government/city-council/reparations

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How the Suburbs Were Segregated: Developers and the Business of Exclusionary Housing, 1890–1960 by Paige Glotzer (https://amzn.to/3aaZESf)

Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (https://amzn.to/3dk94g5)

My source about Mrs. Susie Mae Rakestraw is "New Perspectives on New Deal Housing Policy: Explicating and Mapping HOLC Loans to African Americans" by Todd M. Michney and LaDale Winling

Music Credit

PeaceLoveSoul by Jeris (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/VJ_Memes/35859 Ft: KungFu (KungFuFrijters)