THE HISTORY AND IMPACT OF RESIDENTIAL SEGR EGA TION IN NEW HA VEN COUNTY
April 30, 2020 Erin Boggs, Esq. Executive Director
OPEN COMMUNITIES ALLIANCE Embracing Diversity to Strengthen Connecticut
Open Communities Alliance is a Connecticut-based civil rights non-profit working with an urban-suburban interracial coalition to advocate for access to opportunity, particularly through promoting balanced affordable housing development, including in thriving communities. 2
REDLINING 1930S-60S
New Haven region map – 1937
Redlining 1937: Federal officials and local lenders rated mortgage risk on neighborhood race, ethnicity & social class to assess lending risk. D5
Source: Mapping Inequality, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5 /39.1/-94.58
REDLINING: AREA D5 NEW HAVEN
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High Ledge Homes in West Hartford (1940). See On the Line: How Schooling, Housing, and Civil Rights Shaped Hartford and its Suburbs. 5
THE ROLE OF ZONING Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. In 1926 the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed local zoning power to design zoning schemes that designated zones for certain types of buildings and dictated restrictions on lot and building sizes. The court upheld a municipality’s right to use zoning to block multifamily development. 6
ZONING AND RACE
Source: Hall, Eliza, Divide and Sprawl, Decline and Fall: A Comparative Critique of Euclidian Zoning, pg. 923, University of Pittsburg Law Review (2007). Available at http://lawreview.law.pitt.edu/issues/68/68.4/Hall.pdf.
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DISCRIMINATION Consistent findings of unequal treatment of potential renters based on race. Housing discrimination has gotten more subtle and difficult to identify. Seen more as discrimination based on: Use of a government housing subsidy Having children Disability
How to Interpret: 30% of the time, White applicant received more favorable treatment e.g. the advertised unite was available. Source: Cityscape, 2015, Sun Jung Oh and John Yinge, What Have We Learned From Paired Testing in Housing Markets?
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INCOME & WEALTH DISPARITIES Blacks and Latinos earn, on average, half or less of what whites earn and, prior to the housing crisis, had a 10% or less of the wealth. This wealth disparity is projected to widen to POC having only 1% of the wealth that whites have. Forbes, September 2017, available at https://www.forbes.com/sites/niall mccarthy/2017/09/14/racial-wealthinequality-in-the-u-s-is-rampant-i nfographic/#1baff41734e8 .
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LINK TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING Great income disparities by race, and government policies influencing where affordable units go, mean that CT’s affordable housing crisis is also a segregation crisis. CT has the 9th highest housing wage in the nation – A family would have to work 99 hours a week at minimum wage to afford a two-bedroom apartment.
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CT IS ONE OF THE MOST SEGREGATED STATES IN THE NATION Shaped by multiple factors: -
Zoning
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Subsidized housing locations
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Limits on housing authority jurisdiction
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Disinvestment
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History of intentional segregating policies 11
IMPACT ON OPPORTUNITY
Education Opportunity Score
Economic Opportunity Score
Housing/Neig hborhood Score
Final Opportunity Score (Map)
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WHERE DO WE LIVE? OPPORTUNITY BY RACE AND ETHNICITY IN CT
% of People by Race & Ethnicity Living in Lower Opportunity Areas Blacks: Latinos: Whites: Asians:
73% 73% 26% 36%
OPPORTUNITY DETAIL AND RACE
Very Low
Low
Moderate
High
Very High
White
9%
17%
22%
23%
29%
Black
52%
21%
13%
9%
5%
Asian
14%
2% of the land area of the 21% 19% 20% state.
Latino Hispanic
50%
22%
12%
9%
25% 7%
NEW HAVEN REGION
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IMPACT Largest educational achievement gap by race and income in the nation. Some of the greatest disparities in incarceration rates by race. Deep health disparities by race and ethnicity. Among the highest divides by race and ethnicity in unemployment rates. (The highest in the nation for Latinos.) 18
PRESENT DAY FACTORS
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CHOICES ARE LIMITED BY THE LOCATION OF PHYSICAL UNITS OF SUBSIDIZED HOUSING
The Preservation List is the most comprehensive list of subsidized housing supported with federal and state funding that OCA is aware of. Unfortunately, even thought it includes over 83,000 units of housing, it is incomplete and, to the best of our knowledge, not regularly updated. 20
SUBSIDIZED HOUSING NEW HAVEN REGION
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PRESERVATION LIST BY OPPORTUNITY Higher opportunity areas make up 58% of the land area of the state.
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IS CHOICE A FACTOR? WHAT DO FAMILIES WANT? Survey of 300 tenant-based voucher holders revealed:
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BUSTING MYTHS: CASE STUDY – MT. LAUREL, NJ Mt. Laurel’s median income is lower than a sample New Haven County towns. Median income Mt. Laurel = $93,000 Median income Bethany = $119,000; Woodbridge = $142,188 (New Haven = $41,142)
Ethel Lawrence Homes – 140 units of 100% affordable units completed in 2001. Assessed by Professor Douglas Massey of Princeton who found: “87 percent of…residents reported access to a car and no greater difficulty accessing goods, services, or work sites.” “Welfare use was reduced by 67 percent, employment rose by 22 percent, and income increased by 25 percent.” “We compared trends in home values, crime rates, and tax assessments in Mount Laurel before and after 2001 with a matched set of nearby townships and found no statistical differences. Even neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the development experienced no apparent effects on property values.” The most common source of income for residents in affordable housing is employment, particularly: food service/cook, retail/sales, administrative/clerical, healthcare (nurses, healthcare aides, dental assistants), housekeeping, construction, customer service, and education/teacher. 24
RESULTS REGIONWIDE
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POVERTY/OPPORTUNITY/HOUSING/SCHOOL Town
New Haven
Opportunity Level Poverty Rate
% Subsidized Units (out of all housing units in town)
Great Schools Rating (high school)
Low (Very Low – High)
25.6%
16.3%
1-5
Moderate
5.5%
2.0%
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East Haven
Low
8.7%
3.0%
2
Hamden
High
8.0%
4.3%
4
North Haven
Very High
3.6%
3.5%
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Orange
Very High
3.3%
0.9%
8* (regional)
West Haven
High
13.2%
4.7%
2
Woodbridge
Very High
4.9%
0.9%
8* (regional)
Branford
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SOLUTIONS: PREVIEW
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LONG TERM ANALYSIS OF MOBILITY: CHETTY ET AL. Outcomes for children who moved before age 13: Greater chance of going to college, and a higher quality college 30% higher income Girls were 26% less likely to become single parents
We estimate that [a move] out of public housing to a low-poverty area when young (at age 8 on average) … will increase the child’s total lifetime earnings by about $302,000.
Second Chetty et al. study showed that the longer a child can be in a lower poverty area the greater the positive outcomes. 28
DOES THIS MEAN EVERYONE MUST MOVE? NO! It means we must work to make every neighborhood an area of opportunity and every school high performing.
BUT… Some low income families want to stay to revitalize struggling communities - and they can do that currently – but must be provided strategically targeted resources. Other low income families want to move to higher-resourced communities and they currently cannot.
ALSO… In poverty-concentrated areas, voluntary decreased poverty concentration = better neighborhood and educational outcomes.
The goal is to ensure low income families have choices. 29
TWO WAY STREET SOLUTION: (1) ENSURE CHOICES IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING LOCATION AND (2) INVEST IN STRUGGLING COMMUNITIES 30
SOLUTIONS PREVIEW S U P P O R T E FF O R T S T O C R E A T E WELCOMING ENVIRONMENTS SUPPORTIVE OF DIVERSITY E N S U R E G O V E R N M E N T H OU S I N G PROGRAMS GENERATE GEOGRAPHIC CHOICES BALANCE: Bringing balance to the location of hard units of governmentsupported housing. CHOICE: Ensure that families using portable government housing vouchers can use them in your town.
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SOLUTIONS PREVIEW PLAN FOR DIVERSITY – AND SUSTAINABILITY - WITH ZONING & DEVELOPMENTS ZONING FOR EQUITY: Zoning strategies to create sustainable and diverse communities. FAIR SHARE: Envisioning a plan for every town in the state to take on its fair share of affordable housing. HOUSING MIX: Policies like allowing some multifamily housing in single family zones or making it easier to add accessory dwelling units (aka In-law apartments). OPEN COMMUNITIES TRUST: Partner with us to do a project! CITY LIFT: Promoting policies and investments that work to equitably revitalize struggling areas.
Much more to talk about on May 7th!
Mixed income communities in Rhode Island
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Erin Boggs, Esq. Executive Director Open Communities Alliance 75 Charter Oak Avenue Suite 1-210 Hartford, CT 06106 Tel. 860.610-6040 eboggs@ctoca.org Check us out and join the coalition at: http://www.ctoca.org
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