April is Fair Housing Month: Talking about the right to spend your money on the shelter of your choice

I see unfair housing and its impacts everyday.

I see the generational wealth gap combined with the racial wealth gap when some of my clients use large gifts from their parents to make a down payment on a house so even though wage stagnation has put them behind where their parents were at their age, they still benefit from their parents’ ability to accumulate wealth through generations without the hindrance of red-lining or scam land contracts or slumlords. I’m happy for them, but I have other clients with similar income and credit but without generational wealth that are still on the sidelines.

I see rental housing no human should have to occupy with children’s clothes and toys present marketed as having “great cash flow.”

I see it with rent-to-own real estate companies that don’t list any homes in majority-minority neighborhoods. They want to help you, but not your community.

I hear it when people tell me they don’t want to live “south of Park.” Park is a street, not a magic door to a second-dimension where bad things happen. It also happens to be where some of my favorite houses, neighborhoods, and people are. Those houses consistently appraise for less than they would a mile north. Even with price appreciation, if you start behind, you stay behind. That is until people let go of the idea that a whole area with the same amenities and housing stock quality is some how worth less because of who lives or has lived there.

Here’s a story. I listed a house bought by a family in the 70s. They bought it from another family moving out to the county to avoid the integration of their children’s schools. I took a lot of pleasure in selling that house for way more than that house in the county had recently sold for. I like to see people doing the right thing remunerated for it.

All this is just to say that housing discrimination is real, has been real, continues to be real, and has deep roots and a broad reach. It isn’t always based on race—once upon a time, I would not have been able to secure a mortgage in my own name and national origin, familial status, who you love, what you believe have all been used to deny people THE RIGHT TO SPEND THEIR MONEY ON THE SHELTER OF THEIR CHOICE.

I encourage you to check yourself, questions yourself and our history, and always choose to be part of the solution.