EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1970 U.S. SENATE, SELECT COMMITTEE ON EQUAL The select committee met at 10:30 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 1318, New Senate Office Building, Senator Walter F. Mondale (chairman of the select committee) presiding. Present: Senator Mondale. Staff members present: William C. Smith, staff director and general counsel; and A. Sidney Johnson, deputy staff director. Senator MONDALE. The committee will come to order. We have a fairly heavy schedule this morning and I think we are going to be interrupted from time to time with votes. Mr. James H. Harvey, executive director, Housing Opportunities Council, Washington, D.C., and John Pride, who is accompanying him, will testify at this time. In light of our tight schedule, I would ask the witnesses to try to keep their statements to 15 minutes. Would Mr. Harvey and Mr. Pride come to the witness table. We are very glad to have you this morning. Proceed. STATEMENT OF JAMES H. HARVEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, D.C., ACCOMPANIED BY JOHN PRIDE, WASHINGTON, D.C. Mr. HARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I would like to do is submit my testimony in its entirety for the record and hope that I can do a summary of it in the 15 minutes alloted. Senator MONDALE. Very well. I am sorry too have to limit testimony in this manner. I will include the full statement as though read in the record. (The prepared statement of James H. Harvey follows:) PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES H. HARVEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES COUNCIL OF METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON I. INTRODUCTION It is a privilege to present this testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Educational Opportunity and I want to thank you for the invitation. I am James H. Harvey, Executive Director of the Housing Opportunities Council of Metropolitan Washington. For your information, this testimony is based on my 15 years of working in the field of housing and urban affairs at local, metropolitan and national levels. It is because of that experience and current involvement in the National Capital Area that I would like to share some thoughts with you. The Housing Opportunities Council-a non-profit organization—has as its basic goal the elimination of those racial and economic barriers which prevent equal access to housing. In addition, the Council encourages the construction of new dwellings which would present housing opportunities for, in particular, Black families and those persons of low- and moderate-income. Our focus of activity is at the institutional level within broad geographical areas. Basically, we seek to make current real estate operations serve persons of all races and income levels. In previous testimony, this distinguished Committee has heard presentations which have dealt with the history of residential segregation, including the major role the real estate industry has played and the ways in which the Federal Government encouraged and even required discriminatory practices. One of the basic points I will stress this morning is that even though the Government may have purged its laws, regulations and guidelines of blatant discriminatory requirements, it still is basically responsible for creating, sanctioning and perpetuating racial and economic segregation in the National Capital Area. If this happens here, at the seat of the Federal Government, then surely it must be occurring throughout the rest of the country. Because of time limitations and my desire to deal mainly with specific examples within the National Capital Area which illustrate the subject of these hearings, the following introductory material is presented in simplified form. A. The "Opportunity Triangle": Jobs, Schools and Housing For purposes of this discussion, let us imagine an equilateral triangle which is labeled “opportunity." Its bottom plane represents “housing." Its two side planes are "jobs" and "schools." It is currently resting on a foundation which we are calling "inequality." Adjacent to it is a foundation which is labeled "equality." Obviously, the objective is to get the housing-jobs-schools triangle off the inequality base and onto the foundation of equality. Questions arise about the forces which man make possible this necessary, basic move, and who sets and enforces standards to protect the public and assure that these forces are used properly? The question of schools and the accompanyig relationship of parents and teachers, school boards, taxes and leadership is not an easy one to analyze. but someone ultimately decides how much money will be spent on schools and which schools will benefit most. I will leave further exploration of this problem to others. In the area of jobs, it is the employer who decides how many employees there shall be, how much they will be paid, what product or service will be rendered, and where the business, factory or agency will be located. Here, again, I will not further explore this area, but will focus on housing. Residential patterns of housing are largely determined by real estate industry leaders. They buy large parcels of land, influence-if not directly determine-zoning, establish cost rangés, control access to information about available housing at any given time, kindle or dampen code enforcement activity, spur or hinder abnormal turnover, and channel homebuyers along economic and racial lines. Since schools are neither needed nor desired in undeveloped areas and new job locations must be reasonably close to housing facilities, these two elements of our "opportunity triangle" are quite dependent on housing. In the end, the availability and type of housing determine the kind and location of jobs and schools. In general, the basic rights of people of the United States should be protected by the Government of the United States. This is especially true where state and local governments fall short in this responsibility. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development should perform these functions where housing is concerned. It would seem then, within this general framework, that the forces which operate throughout the country, with relationship to schools, jobs and housing, and the agencies who should protect the general interest by establishing standards and then enforcing them would be the same. But what may be true for other sections of the country is not true for the National Capital Area. B. The National Capital Area-An Exception The metropolitan area of Washington, D.C., is a major exception. Here, the two major businesses are the real estate industry and the Federal Government. The Federal Government is the largest employer. Federal employees create the largest demand for housing, and, in turn, for schools. Since housing is at the base of the opportunity triangle, the one Federal agency in the National Capital Area which has basic responsibility for establishing standards and enforcing them is the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD's duties go beyond housing, however; it is this unique position and basic responsibility which we will now examine. C. HUD-Key Federal Department for Equal Opportunity HUD is the key force which can move the "opportunity triangle" from the "inequality" to the "equality" foundation. If this change does not take place— i.e., if current inequality of opportunity for Black and low-income persons regarding schools, jobs and housing remains as it is-then HUD must bear the major responsbility. The Federal Government, whose location is in this metropolitan area, creates the greatest demand for schools, controls the most jobs, and requires the greatest number of housing units; thus it has the leverage to achieve equal opportunity. The major effort to use it must come from HUD. So far we have witnessed only a few half-hearted pushes and shoves. Members of the Committee have heard previous testimony which either dragged out the Federal Government's skeleton of recently sanctioned segregation policies and dangled it once again before our eyes or offered an apologia which recognized it as past, unfortunate history, and then sought to say that things are much improved. I see no indications of improvement; there appears to be only evidence to the contrary. In effect, metropolitan Washington is a "company town" and the Federal Government-the "company"-has made a mess of it. That agency which is most responsible for the Federal Government's perpetuation of economic and racial segregation is doing the least to carry out the laws which Congress has passed. HUD has failed and continues to fail to exert the necessary leverage and to establish and enforce those standards which are essential to protect the rights of Black and low-income persons. The result is poor schools, jobs that are relatively inaccessible, and a no-choice housing market. Let us examine additional problems. II. CURRENT PROBLEMS AND CONDITIONS A. General Observations 1. Racial and Economic Discrimination in Housing Still Exists.-Even though a major Supreme Court decision and the passing of a comprehensive civil rights bill have occurred within the past two years, racial and economic discrimination still is woven through the fabric of the housing industry. Equal opportunity in housing laws and court decisions have tended to cause discriminators to become more sophisticated and subtle in employing evasive tactics. Evasions are easy to successfully accomplish in the National Capital Area due to the low vacancy and high turnover rates and the escalating cost of housing. Examples a. Some apartments will no longer rent to persons whose wages are based on an hourly scale; salaried employees only are able to rent. b. Credit and qualification criteria are arbitrarily applied. c. Benign racial quotas are in effect. d. Private-exclusive house listings are used to a considerable extent. e. Sales and rental agents are non-aggressive in following up on Black prospects. f. Blacks and whites are still channeled into separate neighborhoods located in specific areas of metropolitan Washington. g. False waiting lists are maintained. These practices will continue and segregated housing patterns will be formed as long as the housing industry knows that the Federal Government, and HUD in particular, does not care and will permit the real estate establishment to continue with its discriminatory actions. Most middle class and affluent families see schools as channels of upward mobility. Certain schools do, of course, serve this function, but they are located in very specific areas which have either zoned out the type of housing which low- and moderate-income families can afford, or have built in procedures which act as impediments. An example of this latter form of economic discrimination follows. Examples The Fairfax County Planning Commission guideline entitled "Policy and/or Procedure for Public Hearings and Advertising Low-Rent Public Housing Requests . . ." states the following, which I have summarized: a. All requests for the six types of low-rent public housing must be put in writing and sent to the proper officials. b. The planning Division will adhere to certain policies. c. Notices will be mailed to each property owner near the proposed low-rent site, including date, time and place of public hearing. d. Proper notification shall be made in newspapers. e. "In addition, the property will be posted (proposal, date, time, place of hearing, and place where additional information may be obtained): however, this is not a requirement but is planning staff policy." I will not take time to describe the obvious reaction of class-conscious neighbors when they receive a notice in the mail, read the newspaper announcement, and see a placard go up announcing that low-rent public housing units will be established nearby. 2. The Real Estate Industry Still Controls Residential Patterns.-The real estate industry still maintains control over residential patterns along racial and economic lines. We have only to look at the metropolitan Washington area to see evidence of this. Within a period of five years or less, the housing industry has managed to change a number of predominately white communities to predominately Black housing developments. Despite this obvious pattern of operation which is destroying old communities and creating artificial new ones, HUD has done nothing to attempt to stop it. HUD continues to make FHA services available to builders, developers and sales agents who are entrenched in discriminatory housing practices, some of whom have created new all-Black communities-with HUD assistance during the past few years. Examples The following are examples of either older communities which have been stampeded into nearly total racial change or new communities which were destined, as a result of advertising and marketing practices, to become predominately Black subdivisions: a. Palmer Park-an older development in Prince George's County, consisting of detached, semi-detached and triplex houses; despite local citizens' efforts which began in the mid-sixties to attempt to stop an artificial turnover in the community, the real estate industry successfully resold practically every house in the development. Based on a low estimate of 2,000 housing units, at an average cost of $15,000, a profit of $1,680,000 was realized (based on a six percent commission). This does not even include the profits made from the "Black tax" and the "panic penalty"-i.e., the differential Blacks are required to pay above the fair market price (with so many Black families standing in line to buy the house, the selling cost can be escalated considerably and a sale can still be made) and the differential panicky whites lose by dumping their properties on the market at the same time, selling for "all-cash" (for less than market value), etc. b. Peppermill Village-many citizens resisted real estate agents who attempted to entice them to sell "while there is still time." "This-house-is-not-forsale" signs went up on many properties. It was a losing struggle. Whites have been channeled away from the village. c. Timora Woods, Wilburn Woods, Whitfield Woods, and Fairfield Knollsall are new, predominately Black communities in Prince George's Countycreated right next door to HUD, and most of them developed with HUD's direct assistance. d. Quebec Terrace an apartment complex in Montgomery County which was rapidly changed from white to black. e. Del Ray, Alexandria, Virginia-a similar situation as Palmer Park. 3. Newspaper Real Estate Advertising is Biased.—Real estate advertising in newspapers is biased. This applies to many individual advertisements as well as the total pattern which is used by the real estate industry to advertise. (We have a limited supply of a recent study produced by our research and development component which is based at the Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies. It is entitled "Bias in Newspaper Real Estate Advertising.") Examples a. One development used nearly 20 advertisements in which human models were utilized to market new housing for what is now a predominantly Black community. These advertisements appeared from the time the development opened until recently, when the final sales were made. In all cases either Black models appeared with non-Blacks, or Black-only models were used in the photographs. b. Illegal expressions such as "white only" and "in a white home" still appear in real estate advertisements-especially the latter version. As late as this past week, despite widespread publicity about the Department of Justice's suit against a metropolitan newspaper for its publishing an ad which contained the expression "in a white home," a television reporter for WRC-TV placed an identical ad in the Evening Star, Washington Post and the Daily News-Washington's three largest daily newspapers. The ad contained the phrase "in private white home." The reporter also included his name in the ad and used it to document his presentation. All three newspapers published it. c. The selective use of certain newspapers to get a special message to particular groups is not covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1968, yet this practice is on the increase. For example, the News has a large Black readership-nearly half of its total. It is obvious that only properties located in certain areas of Prince George's County and all areas east of Rock Creek Park in the District of Columbia are advertised in the News. Rarely does Virginia property appear in the advertising columns of the News. d. In another study which our organization has nearly completed, in which we analyzed real estate display ads for a period of 18 months to determine the percentage of advertisements which used models, what was the racial representation of the models, and other relevant factors, we learned that approximately 20 percent of all display advertisements used models. Of this total, less than one percent used Black models, and these were for developments which became predominately all-Black. These few examples illustrate the need for strong, affirmative national regulations and guidelines for the advertising of real estate. We have filed three real estate advertising complaints with HUD over ten months ago. These still have not been resolved. As each day passes without regulations and guidelines for advertising, as defined by Title VIII's Section 804 (c), HUD must assume more and more responsibility for aiding and abetting the real estate industry's desire to keep the housing market segregated. 4. No Black Members or Equal Opportunity Programs Are Part of Suburban Real Estate Boards.—Within the Washington metropolitan area, there are five real estate boards. One of these is the predominately Black National Association of Real Estate Brokers (Realtists). The other four are the National Association of Real Estate Boards (Realtors). |