New desegregation rule will break down barriers

Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark “disparate impact” decision declared that housing discrimination does not have to be intentional to be illegal, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has released a new fair housing regulation aimed at promoting diverse communities and overcoming the negative effects of segregation. Together, these developments will open doors of opportunity for millions of families throughout the country by eliminating discriminatory barriers.

In the Supreme Court’s June 25 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy described the ill effects that racial segregation has had on our society. Kennedy recalled the “dire warning” issued by the Kerner Commission, which was tasked by President Johnson with investigating the causes of several years of race riots that broke out in more than 100 cities across the country. In its report, the Commission warned of a nation that was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal.”

Kennedy pointed out that, under Johnson’s leadership, Congress passed the 1968 Fair Housing Act to eliminate racial isolation and move this country toward a more just and equitable society.

The riots that took place in the past year in Ferguson and Baltimore, like the riots of the 1960s, exposed the devastating conditions in many communities where segregation and poverty still coincide: underperforming schools, lack of access to jobs and job training, poor transportation, environmental hazards, high crime levels, and a host of other factors that make it difficult for residents to succeed and, worse, deprive them of the hope of creating a better life.

Nearly 50 years ago, the Kerner Commission found that this segregation is not the result of a natural sorting process or people’s preference to live among others of the same race or national origin. Rather, it is the result of policies and practices enforced over many decades by local, state, and federal governments – including those in Ferguson, Baltimore and many other cities – as well as those in the private sector who deliberately segregated people of color in isolated communities and prevented them from enjoying the same benefits and opportunities as their white counterparts.

The effects of those policies are still with us today. We see them in the research that shows that black children are much more likely than white children to attend high-poverty, underperforming schools, and in the persistent gap in homeownership between white households and households of color. The effects are reflected in the enormous racial wealth gap that exists in our country, and in the significantly higher unemployment and incarceration rates that people of color experience compared to their white counterparts.

These disparities harm us all. They undermine our collective productivity and prosperity, and our sense of cohesiveness as a nation. And they do not bode well for our future. Recently, the Census Bureau reported that for the first time ever, the majority of children under five years of age are now children of color. If these children, who represent our future, and their families do not have access to the kinds of opportunities they need to succeed, our country will not succeed.

{mosads}But that future is not inevitable. We have the means within our grasp to create diverse, inclusive communities. Our diversity can be a source of strength and prosperity for our country. We all benefit from it: children learn better in diverse classes, businesses benefit from having a diverse workforce and customer base, and regions that are more diverse and inclusive have economies that are more robust. That is the future for which the Kerner Commission hoped, and the future to which Congress aspired in 1968 when it passed the Fair Housing Act.

The Fair Housing Act regulation that HUD released this week will help create that future. It will put new data and analytical tools in the hands of every city, county, state, and public housing authority that receives HUD funding, enabling them to identify the barriers in their communities that prevent equal access to opportunity. With these new tools, jurisdictions will determine what steps must be taken to topple those barriers, and how they can use their resources most strategically to expand that access. This will require investing in communities that lack good jobs, good schools, good transportation, a healthy environment, and expanding affordable housing opportunities in communities that have all those positive characteristics but little housing for those of modest means.

This fair housing regulation is not a silver bullet; we will not see the changes overnight. It has a long phase-in period, and some communities will not be required to go through this process for another five years, although nothing would stop them from acting sooner. But if communities embrace this new approach, it will help them eliminate the racial isolation that leads to disruption and dysfunction, and turn them into the kind of vibrant, thriving places in which we would all like to live.

Henderson is president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Smith is president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance and co-chair of the Leadership Conference’s Fair Housing Taskforce.