Resources and News

Resources

This section includes third party research and analysis that will support legal advocacy challenging policies and practices that perpetuate racial or ethnic segregation and discrimination in housing and neighborhoods. This includes advocacy challenging policies and practices that perpetuate unequal housing and unequal neighborhood conditions in racially and ethnically concentrated neighborhoods and advocacy to remove barriers that keep families and persons of color out of white neighborhoods.

The effort to remedy existing racial segregation and the resulting disparities in health conditions, provision of public resources, access to privately owned services and facilities, jobs, home and business lending, etc. requires access to specialized information resources. This includes U.S. Census tract location data for housing, assisted housing, environmental factors.

Government data

The listed resources in this section include links to relevant government data to show census tract data and place related environmental and demographic conditions. This data combined with the information on the tract location and occupancy characteristics of federally assisted low-income housing program units is needed to assess whether the Black and Hispanic occupied federally subsidized housing units and projects are equal to conditions in which Whites receive assistance. Other links include government sources with useful legal or other authority.

  1. Title VI Legal Manual

    The Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice publishes it Title VI Legal Manual at https://www.justice.gov/crt/fcs/T6manual . The manual is intended to provide guidance for federal agencies charged with enforcing Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. While it is useful for any claim involving either discriminatory intent or impact, it is also useful in evaluating whether federal agencies are satisfying their own Title VI obligations.

  2.  Environmental Justice Index by the CDC/ATSDR

    The Environmental Justice Index report by the Center for Disease Control the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry provides census tract level data in the Environmental Justice Index (EJI). This place-based nationwide index is designed to address cumulative impacts through the lens of EJ and health equity. The EJI Documentation states the content of “cumulative impacts” measured by the index.

    Cumulative impacts are the total harm to human health that occurs from the combination of environmental burden, pre-existing health conditions, and social factors. Cumulative impacts can result from long-term exposure to environmental pollution and community stress such as noise pollution, odor pollution, loss of natural resources, or lack of access to quality healthcare or other resources. These factors can have long-term effects on human health and well-being in communities experiencing the worst cumulative impacts. Degraded environmental conditions within an area can lead to economic disinvestment in highly polluted areas, also known as “sacrifice zones.” This can lead to further environmental degradation in these areas of low economic value and can perpetuate generational economic and health inequities for residents of such areas. Technical Documentation for the Environmental Justice Index 2022, page 5, available athttps://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/placeandhealth/eji/technical_documentation.html; Data and related documents available at https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/placeandhealth/eji/index.html.

  3.  EPA Environmental Justice mapping and data resources

    The Environmental Protection Agency provides data and mapping resources for the assessment of the environmental justice conditions for conditions ranging from census tracts to the nation. https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice; https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/resources-creating-healthy-sustainable-and-equitable-communities. This includes listing of Brownfield sites including those with a Phase I or Phase II Environmental Site Assessment.

  4. Justice 40 Initiative

    The White House Council on Environmental Quality developed the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool as part of the Justice40 Initiative.  https://screeningtool.geoplatform.gov/en/#3/33.47/-97.5This program seeks to help agencies identify disadvantaged communities for the purposes of the Justice40 Initiative and thereby inform equitable decision-making across the Federal Government. The data includes some of the same environmental elements and demographic characteristics in the Environmental Justice Index 2022. There additional data includes a ranking for each census tract based on the disadvantaged status of the adjacent tracts. https://screeningtool.geoplatform.gov/en/methodology. The census tract data is available to download at https://screeningtool.geoplatform.gov/en/downloads.

  5. Low-Income Housing Tax Credit data 

    The most complete set of Low-Income Housing Tax credits data is currently available from the HUD lihtcpub site. The data download available includes each LIHTC project in the country by census tract and many characteristics of each project. The data includes census tracts based on the 1990, 2000, and 2010 U.S. Census tract boundaries. There is no census tract demographic data or racial occupancy data for the projects. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/lihtc/property.html . There is also a Query tool for selecting specified census tract and project data by geography. https://lihtc.huduser.gov/. 

  6. HUD 50058 data of low-income voucher and public housing tenants 

    Each Public Housing Authority has to report census tract location, race of family, and various other characteristics for each federally assisted program the PHA administers. The data is reported on form 50058. The most accurate resource to obtain this data is an open records/public information request to the PHA. HUD collects the same 50058 data for the families living the Project Based Rental Assistance subsidized projects. The request should be framed to avoid obtaining information that would identify specific families receiving the benefits of the program.

News

 There are a variety of sources that generally report on events and developments that generally fall under the topic of the Fair Housing Act or other subjects generally related to the provision of remedies for housing discrimination. This section focuses on events related to the perpetuation of racial segregation in government programs that perpetuate fair housing choice and unequal neighborhood conditions.

HUD Findings of violations of the Fair Housing Act and other civil rights laws

  1. October 24, 2023, HUD letter asserting that the City’s continues to practice racial segregation in the selection of sites for public housing. This is the same practice that was ruled illegal in 1969. Gautreaux v. Chicago Hous. Auth., 296 F. Supp. 907, 914 (N.D. Ill. 1969).

     

  2. July 19, 2022, HUD Letter of Findings of Noncompliance with Title VI and Section 109, Southeast Environmental Task Force, et al v. City of Chicago. HUD finds:

    “The Department finds that the City caused and facilitated the relocation of a metal recycling facility from a predominantly White neighborhood to a predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood. The City's involvement in the relocation of the recycling facility, approval of the facility's new site, and the methods used to achieve these objectives were shaped by the race and national origin of the residents of each neighborhood.”

    The Voluntary Compliance Agreement for the discriminatory treatment of this Chicago neighborhood is here.

Articles

  1. Several Texas Homeowners Associations are enacting rental restrictions aimed at eliminating voucher tenants from renting within their HOAs. 

    “How Texas HOAs Are Keeping Low-Income Renters Out: A state law will prohibit homeowners associations from discriminating against tenants using rental vouchers. The practice is more widespread than lawmakers realized.” By Sarah Holder and Kriston Capps, Bloomberg, August 31, 2023, at https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-hoa-texas-homes-dallas-renters/

     

  2. Homes located within industrial zoning are disproportionately located in neighborhoods of color and are impacted by adjoining industrial uses 

    West Dallas Group Accuses the City of 'Environmental Racism' in Complaint

    The complaint alleges people in Dallas are being denied housing opportunities based on their race, color or national origin. By Jacob Vaughn

    September 19, 2023 at https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/west-dallas-group-accuse-the-city-of-environmental-racism-17501153#:~:text=The%20complaint%20alleges%20that%20Dallas,on%20their%20race%2C%20color%20or

     

    “The complaint alleges that Dallas’ industrial zoning adjacent to single-family neighborhoods of color violates the Fair Housing Act because the city enacted land-use rules and zoning ordinances that restrict or deny housing opportunities or otherwise make dwellings unavailable to people based on their race, color or national origin. The adjacency to industrial zoning harms residents because it makes them unable to sell or buy homes or obtain loans for their homes, according to the complaint….

    Michael Daniel and Laura Beshara, the lawyers for the groups, explain in the complaint that white, non-Latino neighborhoods are not subjected to the same industrial zoning placed on their homes.”

  3. Project Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) housing with uninhabitable conditions

    HUD enters into PBRA contracts with private landlords for low-income housing options. The projects in neighborhoods of color often suffer from unequal housing and neighborhood conditions.

    “I Donʼt Want to Stay Hereʼ: Half a Million Live in Flood Zones, and the Government Is Paying,” the New York Times, by Sarah Mervosh, April 11, 2019 at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/us/houston-flooding.html

     “The complex, Arbor Court Apartments, which is run by a private landlord that contracts with HUD, has been in a flood plain since 1985 and under HUD’s oversight since at least 1991, according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court last year.

    After the 2016 flood, HUD renewed its contract with the owner, for about $1.6 million a year. Only a year later, Hurricane Harvey wiped out the first floor, leaving many families displaced and others complaining of major problems, including mold.

     “Arbor Court is not a close question,” said Michael M. Daniel, a civil rights lawyer whose firm has worked with Lone Star Legal Aid and the affordable-housing group Texas Housers on behalf of the residents. “How in the world it hasn’t flunked the ʻdecent, safe and sanitary’ test — it’s beyond belief.” 

    “The last year at Forest Cove: Tenants abandoned and a renovation out of reach” by Stephannie Stokes | WABE February 8th, 2022 at https://www.wabe.org/forestcove/

     “Dallas-based civil rights attorney Laura Beshara said this leaves tenants with very little power; they’re forced to wait. Beshara, who, along with her law partner Mike Daniel, has spent years challenging conditions in properties like Forest Cove in Texas, says it doesn’t have to be this way. She pins delays tenants have endured squarely on HUD. Beshara says HUD has options it doesn’t use. Several years ago Congress approved an amendment to the law renewing HUD’s funding: now, when a property is unsafe, HUD can let tenants move out and take their rental assistance to a new place, similar to Section 8 vouchers. She says HUD can do this without canceling the contract. “At that point, they could say, ‘Okay, owner, fix the place up,’ then more tenants can move in and everything will be okay,” Beshara says. “Instead, they’re requiring the tenants to continue to live there.”

  4. LIHTC projects concentrated in unequal neighborhood conditions 

    WFAA Banking Below 30 

    A WFAA ABC news investigation explored the racial segregation of the LIHTC projects in Dallas and the location of the LIHTC projects in areas of high crime, high poverty, and slum and blight. The investigation highlights the national bank ownership of the LIHTC projects in racially concentrated areas of blight and the lack of bank home loans in these same neighborhoods.

    The WFAA news story, ‘You’re only crippling us’: Banks own many of Dallas’ low-income, high-crime apartments — and they're rewarded for it” Banking Below 30, February 28, 2021, is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SARhcjaN5m0 and the printed article is here

  5. “How a Tennessee housing policy concentrates poverty, denies opportunity:

    A little-known but powerful board steers affordable housing into segregated, poor neighborhoods where Black children have little chance to reach the middle class.” by Jacob Steimer, MLK50 Justice Through Journalism, April 4, 2022

    “Beshara and Daniel don’t think Tennessee’s handling of the federal program should count as abiding by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which was designed to produce “truly integrated and balanced living patterns,” according to one of its co-sponsors. The law requires the federal government to make sure all its programs “affirmatively further fair housing….”

    https://mlk50.com/2022/04/04/how-a-tennessee-housing-policy-concentrates-poverty-denies-opportunity/