Discrimination in Assisted Housing: Subsidized Housing and Race: Fid-Bau Portal

Discrimination in Assisted Housing: Subsidized Housing and Race

Racial discrimination has been a significant and deplorable part of our history, and the effects of generations of discriminatory practices still shape many aspects of our life, including our housing patterns. But many other forces have also been at work in determining racial occupancy patterns in subsidized housing, including demographic changes in neighborhoods where projects were built years ago, the selection by private developers of the types of projects or the areas in which they will undertake the market risks that are associated even with subsidized housing, decisions made by local communities as to whether or where they will cooperate in the development of low-income housing, and the choices made by low-income families as to whether they will seek or accept subsidized housing in the places where it is located. Discriminatory actions by public officials or by private persons have played a role in some of these forces, but discrimination is not the only cause of racial residential patterns.