Housing. It’s an issue full of inequities that continue to impact minority and Black families in California.
Whether it was redlining in the 1930s, a discriminatory practice of denying financial services to residents of certain areas based on their race or ethnicity, or racist language embedded in property records, people of color have battled housing inequality for far too long.
But despite the signing of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, which outlawed housing discrimination based on race, color, religion and national origin, housing inequality has not gotten any better – it has worsened.
According to the California Housing Finance Agency, during the entire 2010 decade, California’s Black homeownership rate was lower than it was in the 1960s, when it was legal to discriminate against Black homebuyers. For example, in 2019, the statistics show that just 40.9% of Black families owned their own homes compared to 68% of white families. In the 1960s, 42.4% of Black families were homeowners.
And now, Proposition 19, which voters narrowly passed last year, is making the dream of homeownership and passing along small family-owned businesses even more difficult for our next generation – particularly in Black communities.
Click here to read the entire article at Cal Matters.
