Introduction

In 1959 the Commission found that "housing . . . seems to be theone commodity in the American market that is not freely available onequal terms to everyone who can afford to pay." 1 Today, 2 yearslater, the situation is not noticeably better.

Throughout the country large groups of American citizens2014mainlyNegroes, but other minorities too2014are denied an equal opportunity tochoose where they will live. Much of the housing market is closed tothem for reasons unrelated to their personal worth or ability to pay.New housing, by and large, is available only to whites. And in therestricted market that is open to them, Negroes generally must paymore for equivalent housing than do the favored majority. "The dollarin a dark hand" does not "have the same purchasing power as a dollarin a white hand." a

As a consequence there is an ever-increasing concentration of nonwhites in racial ghettos, largely in the decaying centers of our cities2014while a "white noose" 3 of new suburban housing grows up aroundthem. This racial pattern intensifies the critical problems of our cities:slums whose growth is abetted by the racial ghetto; loss of tax revenueand community leadership through flight to the suburbs of those financially (and racially) able to leave2014all this in the face of growing cityneeds for transportation, welfare, and municipal services. 4

These problems are not limited to any one region of the country.

They are nationwide and their implications are manifold. AttorneyGeneral Mosk of California told this Commission: "It is most appropriate in our concern with these [civil rights] problems to concentrate onhousing, for here we have . . . what in most instances outside of theSouth is the root of the evil." 5 Commissioner Hesburgh outlined thedifficulty in these terms: 6

I think this is the condition that we face . . . 2014the central city

throughout the United States in all of our large metropolitan areasis a rundown, dismal, most depressed and antiquated part of our

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city . . . completely backward in all its facilities, and these include the homes, the schools, the recreational facilities. .. . It isnot just a question of houses and bricks and mortar and businessesand loans and all the rest. It is a problem of people, and unless wecan find some answers to this problem on all levels we are in realtrouble as a Nation. .. .

Just as the problem of housing inequalities must be considered indeeper terms than blueprints and mortgages, so its effects cannot beunderstood merely in terms of statistical tables. It is a problem of peopleand its effects on the human spirit cannot so readily be calculated.

As the Commission noted in 1959: "Some of the effects of the housinginequalities of minorities can be seen with the eye, some can be shownby statistics, some can only be measured in the mind and heart." 7

THE NATURE OF HOUSING DISCRIMINATION

A number of forces combine to prevent equality of opportunity in housing. They begin with the prejudice of private persons, but they involvelarge segments of the organized business world. In addition, Government on all levels bears a measure of responsibility2014for it supports andindeed to a great extent it created the machinery through which housingdiscrimination operates.

The most obvious aspect of the problem involves the owner of ahouse who, from his own prejudice or by reason of...