The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s cast light on the various sites of racism and discrimination imposed on Black Americans. Housing was no exception. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was a turning point in the battle to ensure equal provision of housing benefits for all. From a legal standpoint, The Fair Housing Act prohibited housing discrimination in sales and rentals, outlawed Blockbusting, and enlisted the newly-created Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, in the task of enforcing these rules. The United States’ sprawling Federalist system of local, state-level, and federal government—along with poor design—meant that the Fair Housing Act had relatively weak enforcement mechanisms, but it played an important role in elevating housing to a level of moral and legal concern, which opened the door for more federal intervention in the future.
The Fair Housing Act bloomed out of the Committee to Rebuild America’s Slums which was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967 and aimed to eliminate substandard housing. It set a high production goal—the production or rehabilitation of 26 million over the next ten years—but fell into conflict over whether the housing would be provided through public or private means. The compromise that followed created Section 235 of the National Housing Act, which enabled HUD to pay private lenders of the FHA-insured loans the difference between 20% of the home buyer’s monthly income and the monthly mortgage payment.
The Fair Housing Act also lowered underwriting standards to combat redlining. This policy led to some improvements in African American’s ability to attain mortgages outside of the inner city, but this left further concentrated poverty in its wake. In addition, Section 236 enlisted the facilities of the private market in constructing low-income rental housing, mostly of the multi-family variety. HUD lowered the interest rates for the involved private companies to 1% on construction loans, and in exchange, the owner of the buildings agreed only to rent to households with incomes at or below 80% of the area median income and to subject the rent charged to HUD approval.
The Fair Housing Act also created legal standards to combat exclusionary housing policies. Most notably, in the court-ordered Gautreaux program (1981-1996) in Chicago, federal judges determined that the location of public housing projects constituted intentional segregation. In more than ten other cities across the country, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Memphis, Minneapolis and Omaha, lawsuits levied by the local NAACP organizations resulted in changes to single-family zoning ordinances. None, though, were as successful or prominent as the Gautreaux program.
The legacy of the 1968 Fair Housing Act lies mostly in policies that it spawned, and in the broadened effort to address racial discrimination in housing. Politicians have repeatedly affirmed and strengthened the law, such as President Obama’s 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which commits to “meaningful actions to overcome historic patterns of segregation, promote fair housing choice, and foster inclusive communities that are free from discrimination.” However, federal judicial regimes have thus far refrained from using the law to consistently address local segregation.
