The Direct Relationship

Between the Trials and

Tribulations of theFair
Housing Act and the
Obama Administration’s
Affirmatively
Furthering Fair Housing
Rule
Creator: Mostafa ElSanousi
 1.
Background Information
1A. The Fair Housing Act1B. The
Obama Administration’s Affirmatively
Furthering Fair Housing Rule
 1A. The Emergence of Redlining in
1933

Millions lost their homes due to

foreclosure and millions more awaited the
confiscation of their homes during the
Great Depression
Redlining — “Where certain
neighborhoods are cut off from lending
for reasons of race and class,” (Blumgart)

FDR’s Home Owners Loan Corporation

(HOLC) began the process of redlining
1937 map of Wichita, Kansas, that illustrates a large
redlined area near D-2, is described to have a “heavy
Negro population,” according to map notes
 1A. FDR’s Home Owners Loan
Corporation
FDR’s Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC),
alongside his Public Works Administration
enforced residential segregation through:a.
Ensuring mortgages to people excluding, even if
they do not pay the designated amount,
guaranteeing a loanb. The Federal Housing
Administration manual (1936) included a clause
that enforced residential segregation: “Prohibition
of the occupancy of properties except by the race
which they are intended” (“Underwriting manual:
Underwriting and Valuation”)
Assessors of the HOLC map state that the only
reason that the population would increase in the D-
2 area on the map is due to a “lack of birth control
Original 1938 HOLC map that color-coded neighborhoods among negroes and [minority] poor whites”
based on their risk levels with red being “economically
hazardous”
 1A. FDR’s Public Works Administration

The Public Works Administration (PWA)

facilitated affordable public housing

Segregated the housing based on race

Despite the fact that public housing would
sometimes be created in integrated
neighborhoods, the public housing was
racially segregated in its nature
nonetheless (MacKenzie)

Black children of Omaha, Nebraska, at the Logan Fontanel

Housing Project
Physical Evidence of Redlining: The Detroit Birwood
Wall

The “Birwood Wall”, or “Eight

Mile Wall”, was a wall built
between two residential streets
to segregate Black people from
the White (Einhorn)
Housing in the east, or White
side, of the wall, came with
deeds that ensured
1A. The Fair Housing Act of 1968

Prior to the passing of the act: i. African-

Americans would experience discrimination
related to the sale, rental, and financing of
housing due to their race
After the passing of the act: i. According to
U.S. Census data, Black home ownership
increased from: 35% (1950) to 42% (1970)
and decreased to 41% in 2017.
However, the act did not eliminate
residential segregation
 1B. Origins of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
Rule

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing

Rule is an Obama-era regulation that
aimed to enforce the Fair Housing Act
(FHA) through: a. Requiring cities and
towns to record and analyze “local
housing data” to identify potentially
discriminatory practices and patterns
(Fredman et al.)
This rule was conceived as a result of the
continued presence of residential
segregation in the United States
 2.
The Connection
Past-present Connection
 First-Hand Accounts of Residential
Segregation in Detroit

Margaret Watson’s account of

experiences as a child in the late
1930s in Detroit
In the spring of 1941, Watson
discovered a 6-foot-high, 4-inch-
thick, wall in her backyard
This wall is the infamous Detroit
“Birwood Wall” that facilitated
residential segregation between
the west, Black side, and the
east, White side of the wall
White tenants protesting Black people from using the
Sojourner Truth Housing Project in Detroit (1942)
“I don’t remember feeling any way
about it except [The Birwood Wall]
it was the same old, same old…I
mean, I lived in Detroit all my life”
— Margaret Watson, 93
 Past-Present Connection

Margaret Watson Experiences with More than half of

residential Black residents of
segregation Detroit
 The Overwhelming Residential Segregation
in Detroit
2010 Map of Detroit African Population Levels
52.4% of Black residents in the Detroit
area are situated in predominately
Black neighborhoods (Vuono et al.)
This is 16.8% above the national
average of residential segregation
According to Vuono et al., the areas
that were given a C or D rating through
the Federal Housing Administration
remain predominately Black as they
were in the 1930s
This provides evidence that Watson’s
experiences of residential segregation
in the 1930s reflect the experiences of
more than half of the Black residents
of Detroit
 The Unfulfilled Promises of the Fair Housing
Act

Detroit is the second-most residentially

segregated city in the United States
Therefore, the Fair Housing Act has not
fulfilled its goal of eliminating residential
segregation as it exists as a trend in
various cities in the U.S.
As residential segregation is a
generational issue, the future may hold
integrated neighborhoods if children of
the new generation are met with equal
standards of housing and education Integrated classrooms ensure that the quality of
education remains equal more or less
 The Effects of Residential Segregation
on Quality of Education in the 1930-40s

According to Adam Fairlough, in the 1930s and 1940s,

“Blacks associated school with failure, not with
success…black students were taught that they would
not succeed”
Predominately White schools were funded more in the
Jim Crow era

According to Peter Irons, Alabama spent $37 on each

White child in 1930 and $7 on each Black child, in
Mississippi it was $37 and $6, and in South Carolina,
it was $53 and $5—in most cases, it was a 10:1 ratio
Quality of education increased in predominately White
schools compared to predominately Black schools as As Blacks were concentrated in particular areas classified as
they had greater accessibility to educational resources economically hazardous by HOLC, they often attended schools in
their area that obtained lesser funding than White schools
 The Effects of Residential Segregation
on Quality of Education Today
Peace protest held on June 11, 2020 in order to acquire
equitable funding of schools
Racial segregation often occurs due to residential
segregation as schools operate in districts that often
results in low-income, often minority students
attending one school
Although the Jim Crow era has ended, particular U.S.
states, cities, such as Detroit, and towns contribute to
the socioeconomic divide in schools
K-12 funding inequities in Detroit were made apparent
when it was revealed that a Detroit school district
received $8,132 in federal funding while Bloomfield
Hills, a wealthy suburb in Detroit, received $12,354
despite the fact that the Detroit school district enrolls
more students (Catolico & Levin)
 What is the Connection?
The Fair Housing Act Obama Administration’s
Made it illegal to partake in Affirmatively Furthering Housing
discriminatory practices concerning Rule
the sale, rental, or financing of a Aimed to mitigate aforementioned
house or property discriminatory practices through ordering
Began as a result of past local communities that receive grants from
discriminatory practices that were the United States Department of Housing
more overt due to the Jim Crow laws and Urban Development to publicly report,
at the time that enforced segregation analyze, and develop strategies to solve
during and before the Civil Rights era discrimination in housing
Began due to concerns raised on the lack
Both are events are of integration and lower quality of life
(housing, education, etc.) in the low-
similar in nature and are
income, minority dominant, ghettos in the
even interchangeable to U.S.
an extent
 3.
The Significance
Significance of past-present
connection
The Significance of the Connection Between the Fair Housing Act and the
Obama Administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Housing Rule

The failure of the Fair Housing Act

and the delay of the Obama
Administration’s Affirmatively
Furthering Housing Rule have
clouded the future of residential
segregation

In order to achieve what these two

were unable to, contemporary
measures must be taken through the
citizens of the United States rather
than placing complete trust in federal
actions
The Connection’s Implication’s on the
Future
Integration at the educational level must be
considered as a solution to the multi-
generational issue of residential segregation

“80% of large metropolitan areas in the

United States were more segregated in 2019
than they were in 1990” (Semuels 2021)

Ensuring that children recieve an integrated

and equal education will slowly but surely
mitigate residential segregation as the racial
achievement gap between the fortunate and
unfortunate is relieved
4.Works Cited
 Thanks!
Any questions?
 Credits

SlidesCarnival
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Photographs by Unsplash
Paper texture by GraphicBurguer
Allison Vuono, Zoe Whalen. “Residential Segregation in Detroit.” ArcGIS
StoryMaps, Esri, 16 Nov. 2020,
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/149f751d32c14251a5643890d39eeca8.

“Analysis | America Is More Diverse than Ever - but Still Segregated.” The
Washington Post, WP Company,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/segregation-us-
cities/.

Commentary • By Richard Rothstein • November 12. “The Racial

Achievement Gap, Segregated Schools, and Segregated Neighborhoods – a
Constitutional Insult.” Economic Policy Institute,
https://www.epi.org/publication/the-racial-achievement-gap-segregated-
schools-and-segregated-neighborhoods-a-constitutional-insult/.

History.com Editors. “Fair Housing Act.” History.com, A&E Television

MacKenzie, Blake. “Race and Housing Series: Government's Role in Housing Segregation.”
Home, https://www.tchabitat.org/blog/housing-segregation-how-it-was-created-or-
reinforced#:~:text=The%20administration%20constructed%20separate%20projects,plan
%2C%20it%20was%20racially%20segregated.

Miller, Greg. “Newly Released Maps Show How Housing Discrimination Happened.”
History, National Geographic, 3 May 2021,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/housing-discrimination-redlining-maps.

“Obama Administration Advances Access to Opportunity through New Fair Housing Rule.”
PolicyLink, https://www.policylink.org/blog/obama-administration-fair-housing-rule.

Reardon, Sean F. “School Segregation and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps.” RSF, RSF:
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 1 Sept. 2016,
https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/2/5/34.short.