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Civil rights legislation and the housing status of black americans: Evidence from fair housing audits and segregation indices

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The Review of Black Political Economy

Abstract

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made discrimination against minorities in the sale or rental of housing illegal. Twenty years later the Act’s coverage was expanded and its enforcement mechanisms strengthened in response to pressure from fair housing advocates and evidence of continued segregation and discrimination. Segregation indices and fair housing audits provide measures of the extent and nature of residential segregation and housing discrimination. High levels of residential segregation suggest that housing discrimination exists, and audits give a direct measure of the incidence of discrimination. To date, housing audits consistently show that black auditors encounter discriminatory treatment in the housing search process. Whether the strengthened enforcement mechanisms of the Act will have a substantial impact on housing market discrimination and, in turn, residential segregation, remains to be seen.

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Notes

  1. In an audit study, teams of individuals matched in every characteristic except skin color identify “differences in quality, content, and quantity of information and service given to them by real estate firms and rental property managers” during their housing search process. See Clifford E. Reid, “The Reliability of Fair Housing Audits to Detect Racial Discrimination in Rental Housing Markets,”Journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, Volume 12, Number 1 (Spring 1984), pp. 86–96, and Ronald E. Wienk and John C. Simonson, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Auditing But Didn’t Bother to Ask,” background paper prepared for a research colloquium given by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, onDiscrimination and the Audit: State of the Art (Washington, D.C.: 1984).

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  2. SeeThe Fair Housing Act, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs, the Committee on Banking and Currency, United States Senate (90th Congress, 1st Session, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967).

  3. See “Major Provisions of Fair Housing Legislation,”Congressional Quarterly, Volume 46, No. 34 (August 20, 1988), pp. 2348-2350.

  4. For a discussion of the debate surrounding passage of the Amendments see /’’ Should Congress Approve The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1987? Pros & Cons,”Congressional Digest, Volume 67, Number 6-7 (June-July 1988).

  5. Congressional Digest, p. 180.

  6. For a discussion of segregation trends during the 1970s see John N. Farley, “Segregation in 1980: How Segregated are America’s Metropolitan Areas?,”Divided Neighborhoods: Changing Patterns of Racial Segregation, edited by Gary A. Tobin (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1987), pp. 95–114.

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  7. See Gary A. Tobin, “Introduction: Segregation in the 1980s,”Divided Neighborhoods: Changing Patterns of Racial Segregation, pp. 8-14.

  8. For a discussion of the theories of residential segregation see: Joe T. Darden, “Choosing Neighbors and Neighborhoods: The Role of Race in Preference,”Divided Neighborhoods: Changing Patterns of Racial Segregation, pp. 15-42; and George C. Galster and W. Mark Keeney, “Race, Residence, Discrimination, and Economic Opportunity: Modeling the Nexus of Urban Racial Phenomena,”Urban Affairs Quarterly, Volume 24, Number 1 (September 1988), pp. 87-117.

  9. Darden, p. 37.

  10. See Harriet B. Newburger, “Discrimination by a Profit-Maximizing Real Estate Broker in Response to White Prejudice,”Journal of Urban Economics, Volume 26, Number 1 (July 1989), pp. 1–19.

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  11. All information regarding this multidimensional segregation index is from Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, “Hypersegregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Black and Hispanic Segregation Along Five Dimensions,”Demography, Volume 26, Number 3 (August 1989), pp. 373–391.

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  12. As a result of the 1980 Census, the designation for metropolitan area was changed, and the term SMSA is no longer used. The terms currently used are MSA (metropolitan statistical area), PMSA (primary metropolitan statistical area), and CMSA (consolidated metropolitan statistical area). See Wilhelmina A. Leigh, “ Trends in the Housing Status of Black Americans Across Selected Metropolitan Areas” in this issue (footnote 1) for a more thorough discussion of the definitions of these terms.

  13. For a list of 16 audit studies with published results conducted before HMPS, see Ronald E. Wienk and John C. Simonson (1984).

  14. A nationwide audit study of discrimination against Asians and West Indians seeking housing and employment was conducted in England during the late 1960s and early 1970s. See Neil Mclntosh and Davis J. Smith,The Extent of Racial Discrimination (London: The Social Science Institute, 1974).

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  15. All information regarding HMPS is from Ronald E. Wienk, Clifford E. Reid, John C. Simonson, and Fredrick J. Eggers,Measuring Racial Discrimination in American Housing Markets: The Housing Market Practices Survey (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1979).

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  16. See Raymond J. Struyk, “Race and Housing: Affordability and Location,” paper presented at the conference onNew Perspectives on Racial Issues: Middle-Sized Metropolitan Areas (Madison, WS: 1989).

  17. Numerous Hispanic/anglo audits, Native American/white, and Asian/anglo studies have also been completed. See Harriet Newburger,Recent Evidence on Discrimination in Housing (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984) and George Galster, “Racial Discrimination in Housing Markets During the 1980s: A Review of the Audit Evidence,”Journal of Planning Education and Research, Volume 9, Number 3 (1990), pp. 165-175.

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  18. The majority of these studies were conducted independently of one another, except for the forty SMS As audited in HMPS in 1977.

  19. See Galster (1990).

  20. See Massey and Denton (1989).

  21. See Massey and Denton (1989).

  22. See Galster (1990) and Wienk, et. al. (1979).

  23. The Urban Institute, “Proposal to Conduct a Housing Discrimination Study” (Washington, D.C.: 1988).

  24. See footnote 4.

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  1. Veronica M. Reed
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Reed, V.M. Civil rights legislation and the housing status of black americans: Evidence from fair housing audits and segregation indices. Rev Black Polit Econ 19, 29–42 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02895336

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