A Communities of Opportunity Approach to Fair Housing

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A Communities of Opportunity Approach to Fair
Housing

• Fair Housing Law and Practice
• Seattle University School of Law
• March 15-16, 2007
• john a. powell
• Williams Chair in Civil Rights Civil Liberties,
  
• Moritz College of Law
• Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race
  and Ethnicity

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Roadmap of todays presentation

• Disparities threaten everyone linked fates
• How can we close the disparity gap, while
  uplifting outcomes and growing opportunity for
  all?
• Communities of Opportunity approach
• Example in fair housing litigation
• Thompson v. HUD
• The Seattle context
• Closing Linked fates transformative change

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Place and Life Outcomes

• Where you live is more important than what you
  live in
• Housing -- in particular its location -- is the
  primary mechanism for accessing opportunity in
  our society
• Housing location determines the quality of
  schools children attend, the quality of public
  services they receive, access to employment and
  transportation, exposure to health risks, access
  to health care, etc.
• For those living in high poverty neighborhoods,
  these factors can significantly inhibit life
  outcomes

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Housing and Opportunity

• Housing is Critical in Determining Access to
  Opportunity

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Who Lives in High Poverty Neighborhoods?

• Over 3.1 million African Americans lived in high
  poverty neighborhoods in 2000
• Whites only make 30 of people living in high
  poverty neighborhoods, although they represent
  55 of the total population living in poverty
• Source Stunning Progress, Hidden Problems The
  Dramatic Decline of Concentrated Poverty in the
  1990s. The Brookings Institute (2003)

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The Miners Canary

• As housing affordability declines, communities of
  color bear a disproportionate impact
• Approximately 40 of African American and Latino
  households had housing problems (usually due to
  cost) in 2000 (vs. 25 of whites)
• The housing challenges and disparities facing
  communities of color are indicators of larger
  societal challenges in the housing arena
• These disparities reflect structural
  institutional barriers that will soon threaten
  everyone

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Housing affordability gap for many

• According to a report by the National Low Income
  Housing Coalition, Out of Reach 2006
• Roughly a third of American households rent
  (Seattle MSA 38)
• There is not a county in the country where a
  full-time minimum wage worker can afford a 1 BR
  apartment at fair market rents (FMR)
• In Washington, the FMR for a two-bedroom
  apartment is 776, which translates to a housing
  wage of 14.91 (In Seattle, its 16.42)
• However, the median wage for a Washington renter
  is 12.51 (In Seattle, its 15.48)
• The average renter is struggling along with
  low-income renters.

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Fair Housing Benefits Everyone

• People of color are not the only ones negatively
  impacted by our housing market dynamics
• Low-income Whites and Whites living in the city
  and inner suburbs are harmed as well
• Low-income Whites have their opportunities
  limited by some fair housing impediments,
  negatively impacting their lives
• The Communities of Opportunity approach attempts
  to improve everyones access to social, economic,
  and educational opportunities

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Communities of Opportunity

• The Communities of Opportunity framework is a
  model of fair housing and community development
• The model is based on the premises that
• Everyone should have fair access to the critical
  opportunity structures needed to succeed in life
• Affirmatively connecting people to opportunity
  creates positive, transformative change in
  communities

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Communities of Opportunity

• The Communities of Opportunity model advocates
  for a fair investment in all of a regions people
  and neighborhoods -- to improve the life outcomes
  of all citizens, and to improve the health of the
  entire region

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Communities of Opportunity

• The Communities of Opportunity framework is
  inherently spatial
• Inequality has a geographic footprint
• Maps can visually track the history and presence
  of discriminatory and exclusionary policies
• This opportunity mapping has been completed for
  many metropolitan areas in the U.S. and is used
  by advocates to further fair housing and
  community development goals
• The Communities of Opportunity model uses
  state-of-the-art geographic information systems
  (GIS) and extensive data sets to analyze the
  distribution of opportunity in our metropolitan
  areas

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The Web of Opportunity

• Opportunities in our society are geographically
  distributed (and often clustered) throughout
  metropolitan areas
• This creates winner and loser communities or
  high and low opportunity communities
• Your location within this web of opportunity
  plays a decisive role in your life potential and
  outcomes
• Individual characteristics still matter
• but so does access to opportunity, such as good
  schools, health care, child care, and job
  networks

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The Cumulative Impacts of Racial and Opportunity
Segregation
Segregation impacts a number of life-opportunities
Impacts on Health
School Segregation
Impacts on Educational Achievement
Exposure to crime arrest
Transportation limitations and other inequitable
public services
Job segregation
Neighborhood Segregation
Racial stigma, other psychological impacts
Impacts on community power and individual assets
Adapted from figure by Barbara Reskin at
http//faculty.washington.edu/reskin/
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Economic Conditions
High Opportunity
Low Opportunity
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School Conditions
High Opportunity
Low Opportunity
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Housing and education nexus
Sprawl
Dysfunctional Schools
Segregation
50 years after the Brown Decision, Americas
schools have re-segregated into affluent white
districts and poor, under-funded African American
and Hispanic districts
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Economic Segregation and Racial Segregation in
Public Schools Cleveland and Akron High Poverty
Schools (Red and Yellow) are Concentrated in
African American Neighborhoods (Areas in Gray)
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Disinvestment in Communities of Color

• Decades of suburban flight have drained
  low-income neighborhoods of people, business and
  investment
• High vacancy rates and lack of investment harms
  the quality of life for inner city residents and
  limits the resources (tax base) for low income
  communities

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Opportunity Segregation

• This segregation from opportunity can be
  quantified, as illustrated in these examples
• Milwaukee
• Chicago
• Cleveland
• In all examples, African Americans are
  disproportionately segregated into neighborhoods
  of low opportunity

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The Dynamics of Opportunity in the Milwaukee
RegionLight Colors Lowest Opportunity
Neighborhoods Dark Colors Highest Opportunity
Neighborhoods

• Low opportunity communities are clustered in the
  inner city, high opportunity areas are found in
  the suburbs
• Based on multiple indicators of neighborhood
  opportunity including Poverty rates, vacancy
  rates, population change, unemployment rates,
  home values

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Opportunity and Subsidized Housing in Milwaukee
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ChicagosCommunities of Opportunity

• This example is a 6 county Communities of
  Opportunity map for the Chicago region
• Red Lowest Opportunity
• Blue Highest Opportunity

Source Report published by the Leadership
Council for Metropolitan Open Communities 2005
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Cleveland opportunity analysis race
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Case Studies Opportunity Segregation by Race
(Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland)
Chicago 1 Lowest Opportunity 5 Highest
Opportunity
Milwaukee
Cleveland
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Communities of Opportunity

• To remedy such opportunity segregation, the
  Communities of Opportunity approach emphasizes
  investment in
• People
• Places
• Linkages

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Linking Housing to Opportunity

• Need to move beyond thinking of affordable and
  subsidized housing in terms of fair share or
  suburban/urban dichotomy
• Need to think in terms of opportunity
• Opportunity structures are the resources and
  services that contribute to stability and
  advancement
• Employment
• Safety from crime and environmental pollution
• Good schools
• Neighborhood investment
• Health care
• Child care

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Housing

• People
• Subsidies for affordable housing in
  high-opportunity neighborhoods with good schools
• Places
• Regional housing and neighborhood development
  plans
• Opportunity-based Zoning
• Linkages
• Improved public transportation to jobs

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This approach reflects the evolution of fair
housing strategies

• Fair Share . Anti-Snob . Workforce Housing .
  Opportunity Housing
• Opportunity-based housing is more comprehensive
• More reflective of todays regional dynamics
  moves away from city vs. suburb dichotomy
• Gentrification
• Redevelopment
• Declining inner suburbs
• Exurban development multi-modal regions

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Communities of Opportunity a holistic model

• The Communities of Opportunity model is more
  holistic than previous integrated or inclusionary
  housing models
• While acknowledging the primacy of housing as an
  anchor to opportunity, emphasizes its leveraging
  relationship with education, community economic
  development, health care, etc.
• Its measure of success would be better outcomes
  across the board (more capital investment, better
  educational attainment, cleaner air), not just
  desegregation per se
• Its mission includes growing opportunity for all,
  not just remedying a disparity gap (not zero-sum
  but win-win)

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Communities of Opportunity a holistic model

• The Communities of Opportunity model can explore
  relationships relevant to, but not restricted to,
  housing
• Are low-income communities burdened with high
  food costs?
• Are primary care physicians on public transit
  lines?
• Are minority businesses able to access growing
  markets?
• Therefore, it can mobilize diverse constituencies
• Housing, health care, economic, smart growth,
  faith-based
• And lead to structural, transformative change

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Education

• People
• Vouchers for students to access high-performing,
  low-poverty schools
• Places
• Magnet and charter schools
• Targeted support (service learning, de-tracking,
  early childhood education, high-quality teachers
  to high-need schools)
• Links
• Collaborative education with community
  stakeholders
• Link P-12 to University and employment

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Economic development
Industry-focused workforce development
MBE/SBD development
Equitable Economic Development Practice Areas
Leveraging and distributing resources
investments
Neighborhood development
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The Communities of Opportunity Approach in Fair
Housing

• Thompson v. HUD
• Lawsuit filed on behalf of 14,000 African
  American public housing residents in the City of
  Baltimore
• Plaintiffs representatives include the Maryland
  ACLU and NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• In January 2005, US District Court Judge Garbis
  found HUD liable for violating the federal Fair
  Housing Act, for not providing fair housing
  opportunities to Baltimores African American
  public housing residents
• The current remedial phase involves designing a
  court ordered remedy to address HUDs fair
  housing violation

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Thompson v. HUD Liability ruling

• HUD failed to affirmatively promote fair housing
  by failing to consider a regional approach to
  desegregating public housing
• The failure adequately to take a regional
  approach to the desegregation of public housing
  in the region that included Baltimore City
  violated the Fair Housing Act and requires
  consideration of appropriate remedial action by
  the Court.

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Thompson v. HUD

• Submitted expert reports in both the liability
  and the remedy phases of the litigation, on
  behalf of plaintiffs
• Used GIS to analyze current conditions of
  segregated public housing (liability phase) and
  frame solutions for desegregation (remedy phase)

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Conditions in Baltimore

• Subsidized housing opportunities in Baltimore are
  generally clustered in the regions predominately
  African American neighborhoods

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Litigation challenges

• Two homeowners lawsuits filed to block
  replacement housing in white communities, one of
  which was upheld in Fifth Circuit court
• Highlands of McKamy et. al. v. the DHA
• Fifth Circuit ruling vacates district court
  ruling and upholds homeowners argument that the
  DHA Remedial Orders provision requiring the
  location of 474 units of new public housing in
  predominantly white areas is an unconstitutional
  violation of the rights of the homeowners under
  the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution
• The Court argues that the Section 8 program is a
  more appropriate remedy

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Litigation challenges

• Given the Fifth Circuits preference for a
  race-neutral remedy
• vs. abundance of research showing that
  unrestricted Section 8 vouchers dont effectively
  de-segregate
• What are options for effective remedies?

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Ruling remedy must be regional

• Geographic considerations, economic limitations,
  population shifts, etc. have rendered it
  impossible to effect a meaningful degree of
  desegregation of public housing by redistributing
  the public housing population of Baltimore City
  within the City limits. Baltimore City should
  not be viewed as an island reservation for use as
  a container for all of the poor of a contiguous
  region.
• The Court finds an approach of regionalization
  to be integral to desegregation in the Baltimore
  Regionby the term regionalization the Court
  refers to policies whereby the effects of past
  segregation in Baltimore City public housing may
  be ameliorated by the provision of public housing
  opportunities beyond the boundaries of Baltimore
  City

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Proposed remedy identifies Communities of
Opportunity

• Used 14 indicators of neighborhood opportunity to
  designate high and low opportunity neighborhoods
  in the region
• Neighborhood Quality/Health
• Poverty, Crime, Vacancy, Property Values,
  Population Trends
• Economic Opportunity
• Proximity to Jobs and Job Changes, Public Transit
• Educational Opportunity
• School Poverty, School Test Scores, Teacher
  Qualifications

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Proposed Remedy Principles

• The remedy should connect subsidized housing
  residents to communities of opportunity
• The remedy must be sensitive to opportunity
• The remedy must be metropolitan-wide
• The remedy must be race-conscious
• The remedy must not force dispersal of public
  housing residents
• The remedy must be goal-driven
• The remedy should make use of a variety of tools
  available to HUD

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Equitable development and fair housing in Seattle

• The Seattle Context
• Not a weak market or rust-belt city like
  Cleveland, Milwaukee or Detroitor like Baltimore
  
• What are the issues relevant to hot market
  cities?
• What is a hot market region?
• Equity threats in hot market regions
• Building and maintaining equity
• How is opportunity distributed differently in a
  hot market region?

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What is a Hot Market Region?

• A region that is experiencing rapid investment
  and growth, where the private market requires
  very little incentive to invest
• Characteristics of a hot market region
• Very strong housing and job market
• Likely to experience a rapid inflation of
  property values
• Influx of new residents and high rate of
  investment
• Redevelopment will occur regardless of public
  sector incentives for developers

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Seattles Hot Market Characteristics

• Research by the Lewis Mumford Center found the
  Seattle region to be the 17th most economically
  healthy region in the nation in 2000
• Since 2000 the Seattle region has recorded an
  influx of a quarter million new residents
• Median home values increased by 49 in the
  Seattle region between 2000 and 2005
• The rate of job growth in the Seattle region was
  twice the national average in 2006

Source Puget Sound Regional Council, Lewis
Mumford Center, U.S. Census Bureau
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Equity Challenges in Hot Market Regions

• Threats
• Although hot market regions contain less
  disparity than weak market regions (Detroit,
  Newark, Milwaukee), equity remains a challenge
• Why?
• The market will not equally distribute the
  benefits and burdens associated with this new
  growth
• Resulting in potential displacement of
  marginalized populations and businesses

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Building and Maintaining Equity

• Countering gentrification
• Addressing the housing affordability dilemma
• Connection to opportunity
• Inclusionary economic development
• Education
• Community benefits agreements
• Strengthening minority and small businesses
• Developing and maintaining political voice

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Countering Gentrification

• How can we avoid gentrification?
• Develop an early warning system assess, map, and
  analyze the potential for displacement
• Stabilize current residents by opening access to
  homeownership and targeted use of income and
  asset strategies
• Advocate mixed-income development at every turn
  and across jurisdictions
• Expand the range of housing not susceptible to
  the commercial market through permanent
  affordability mechanisms
• Utilize equity criteria to guide new investment
• Anchor culturally-rooted commercial, nonprofit
  and arts organizations
• Tie housing production to commercial growth

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Opportunity Based Housing

• Just like a weak market city, hot markets can
  result in segregation from communities of
  opportunity for marginalized groups
• In weak market regions (Detroit) people are
  disconnected from high opportunity neighborhoods
  in the suburbs
• In hot market regions (Seattle) people may be
  disconnected from high opportunity neighborhoods
  in the city

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How is Opportunity Distributed in a Hot Market
City? (Example Austin, TX) Opportunity in the
Austin region is more centralized (not a hollow
region like Cleveland or Milwaukee). Although,
opportunity is more centralized it is still
spatially segregated.
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Opportunity Segregation in Seattle

• Although opportunity is not as spatially
  segregated in Seattle as regions in the Northeast
  or Midwest, significant disparities still exist
• Housing affordability
• Subsidized housing and poverty, race, jobs,
  growth
• Need to look at opportunity comprehensively
  (opportunity mapping) to better understand these
  dynamics

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Housing Affordability

• Significant racial disparities exist in who is
  most directly impacted by housing cost
• In King County during the year 2000
• 31 of Whites were burdened by housing cost
• Paying more than 30 of their income for housing
• For other races this figure was
• African Americans (49 cost burdened)
• Latinos (55 burdened)
• Asians (44 burdened)

Source HUD, US Census Bureau
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Subsidized Housing and Poverty
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Subsidized Housing and Race
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Subsidized Housing and Job Growth
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Subsidized Housing and Growth
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Economic Inclusion

• Who has been left behind in Seattles economic
  boom?
• Are minority owned businesses and other small
  businesses benefiting from economic growth?
• Are marginalized communities benefiting from the
  pacific regions extraordinary business growth,
  neighborhood redevelopment, housing development,
  commercial development?
• Experience from other hot market regions suggest
  that these groups are not benefiting as much as
  the majority community

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Inclusion for Marginalized Communities

• How can marginalized communities benefit more
  from the economic growth and investment found in
  hot market regions?
• Three strategies
• Assure business investments provide benefits to
  disadvantaged groups (Community Benefits
  Agreements)
• Assess the racial impacts of new developments
  (Racial Impact Statements)
• Assure people are educated and trained for
  inclusion into Seattles thriving 21st century
  technology economy

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Developing Political Voice

• How can we develop and expand the political voice
  of marginalized groups in regions where
  displacement/gentrification is occurring?
• Need diverse coalitions
• Diverse with respect to race, geography and faith
• Diverse with respect to organization community
  based organizations, social justice groups, local
  governments, business community, CDCs,
  philanthropic institutions and large urban
  institutions (e.g. universities)

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Coalitions Centered on Opportunity

• A diverse coalition has formed in the Baltimore
  region to further opportunity based housing in
  the region
• The Baltimore Regional Fair Housing Campaign
• The coalition is successfully utilizing its
  diverse membership to capitalize on its members
  assets

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Coalitions Centered on Opportunity

• The coalition is working both to enable
  successful implementation of the remedy and is
  working independently to assist in connecting
  more low income families to opportunity
• Establishing social support and counseling for
  Thompson movers
• Educating the public about the case and goals of
  the remedy
• Assessing and securing affordable housing in high
  opportunity areas

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Other Communities of Opportunity Projects

• Vacant Property in Detroit Bringing Opportunity
  Back to Detroits Inner City
• Erase Racism Communities of Opportunity in
  Battle Creek, MI
• Opportunity Mapping and Housing Advocacy
  Columbus, OH Chicago, IL and Austin, TX
• Regional Equity Creating Greater Opportunity for
  All (Cleveland, OH)

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Linked fatestransformative change

• Our fates are linked, yet our fates have been
  socially constructed as disconnected (especially
  through the categories of class, race, gender,
  nationality, region)
• We need socially constructed bridges to
  transform our society
• Conceive of an individuality as connected
  toinstead of isolated fromthy neighbor
• Be advocates for Communities of Opportunity as
  transformative change
• Transformative An intervention that works to
  permanently transform structural arrangements
  which produce inequity and disparity

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Agents of transformative change

• Recognize that housing advocacy is a leverage
  point for connecting clients to other critical
  opportunity structures
• Education
• Jobs
• Child care
• Health care
• Transportation
• All of these are related and affect each other
  all show effects of cumulative disparity all are
  ripe for transformative change!

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