RESOLUTION NO. 138, SERIES 2022
title
A RESOLUTION TO ADDRESS THE ADVERSE EFFECTS OF DECADES OF REDLINING.
body
SPONSORED BY: COUNCIL MEMBER DORSEY
WHEREAS, the Federal Housing Administration, which was established in 1934, refused to insure mortgages in and near African-American neighborhoods. in a practice that became known as "redlining;" and
WHEREAS, the name "redlining" derived from the color coding used by the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration, and the Veterans Administration, with areas where, or near where, African-Americans were the primary residents were colored "red'" to indicate to appraisers that these neighborhoods were too risky to insure mortgages; and
WHEREAS the Federal Housing Administration was subsidizing builders who were mass-producing entire subdivisions for whites - with the requirement that none of the homes be sold to African-Americans; and
WHEREAS, African-Americans were left out of the new suburban communities - and pushed instead into urban housing projects; and
WHEREAS, Richard Rothstein, author of "The Color of Law", has written that housing programs initiated under The New Deal were tantamount to a "state-sponsored system of segregation" and were "primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle- class, lower-middle-class families"; and
WHEREAS, in 1968, the Kerner Commission, a bi-partisan group created pursuant to an Executive Order by President Lyndon B Johnson to study the causes for civil unrest in America, issued a far-reaching report that touched on many points relevant to housing and redlining, for example:
* The Commission noted that "negroes in large cities are often forced to pay the same rents as whites and receive less for their money or pay higher rents for the same accommodations." found that nonwhites were paying a definite color tax.
* The report highlights trends within the African American community that seem most unchanged even in...
Click here for full text