2. Why Housing Policy?
“Residential segregation is the institutional
apparatus that supports other racially
discriminatory processes and binds them
together into a coherent and uniquely
effective system of racial subordination.”
-Massey & Denton, American Apartheid
3. Segregation & Stratification
“Residential segregation, once condoned by law and still
upheld by custom, remains at the heart of racial inequality in
the United States. This intense separation of living spaces
produces...major consequences for [African Americans’] life
chances by denying them access to employment, personal
financing, home equity, a better educational system, and
the social networks that make upward mobility possible.”
-Amy Stuart Wells & Robert Crain, Stepping Over the Color Line
4. Old Public School Funding Model
Local tax on homes & businesses
+ State-aid to lift poorer districts to a foundation for
“providing sufficient education”
+ Local non-official contributions (PTA fundraisers, etc.)
Public school budget
“[this] guarantees that every child has ‘an equal minimum’ but not that every child has the same...
this, in turn, leads to the all-important question: ‘sufficient’ for what purpose? If the necessary
outcome of the education of [low income kids] is...to enter into equal competition with [rich kids],
then the foundation level has to be extremely high.”
-Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities
5. New Public School Funding Model
1900-2005 2005 - SB287: Student Needs-based Funding Formula
Revised Missouri formula:
Weighted Average Daily Attendance
x State Adequacy Target Funding Per Student
x Dollar Value Modification (local cost of living)
- Local Effort (property & business tax revenue)
= State Aid
6. Funding Breakdown
● 41% → state aid formula
● 53% → tax revenue
● 6% → equity-related effort
2%
2%
4%
Source: Baker, B & Corcoran, S. (2012). Center for American Progress
7. Funding Implications
● State budget deficit
○ Districts underfunded avg. ~$500 per pupil (FY2010)
○ Local non-official contributions = real impact of deficit
● Entire 20th century = property tax funding base
○ High property value = big budget for schools
○ Property value, manipulated along racial lines
○ Direct effects on school quality
8. Segregative Housing Policies
● Racial zoning
○ 1916 - STL city votes to enforce mandatory racial segregation
○ 1917 - SCOTUS rules to invalidate such laws
○ 1919 - STL ordinance: Residential zones → Industrial
■ Lowers property value
■ Restricted access to FHA mortgage insurance
■ Increased cost of home insurance → increased rent
9. Segregative Housing Policies
● Black public housing projects
○ 1934 National Industrial Recovery Act
■ Mandates new public housing can’t alter existing racial
composition of an area
○ 1940 STL city tears down integrated low-income areas
■ Replaces with separate racial housing, “reallocated the
geographic density of like family units.”
○ 1955 Federal judge orders STL Housing Authority to
change racist practices
10. Segregative Housing Policies
● Govn’t subsidized white suburbs
○ 1944: GI Bill, FHA & VA gave subsidized mortgages & guaranteed
mortgage insurance to vets
○ Black veterans denied supports
○ “White flight” → blacks isolated in city center
● 1956: Pruitt-Igoe opens, 1972: is demolished
○ Poor building management by white owners
○ Hyper-isolation from amenities
○ Surrounded by industrial zones
11. Segregative Housing Policies
● Restrictive covenants
○ Private contracts not to sell or lease to blacks
■ 1930s, some extending up to 75 years
○ 1948 SCOTUS rules:
■ Equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment “erects no shield against
merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful”
○ 1968: SCOTUS case + Fair Housing Act legally bans
racial discrimination in housing policies & practices
12. Segregative Housing Policies
● Gatekeeping Real Estate Agents
○ 1920s: “Unrestricted colored districts”
○ 1930s: Racist ‘codes of ethics’
○ Post-1968: Blockbusting
■ Intentional manipulation of property value in racial borderline areas to
encourage white homeowners to fear black residents, sell & move out
○ Persistent today: Racial Steering
17. It’s not legal anymore, but...
“...most of the houses built in the days of legal
segregation are still standing, which means that the
unwritten rules of the housing market created during
that era (concerning the value of property in a given
neighborhood, [and thus the perceived value of
those who inhabit it]...) continue to shape peoples’
most important economic decision: where to
purchase a home.” -Crain & Wells, Stepping Over the Color Line
20. Source: MO Department of Secondary and Elementary School Education (DESE) Annual School Report Cards Source: MO Department of Secondary and Elementary School Education (DESE) Annual School Report Cards
$17, 721
$14,353
$34
$512
22. Circular Phenomenon
Wealthy white district,
High property value
Low tax rates & high tax revenue,
Big school budgets
High performing students,
Strong teacher retention, etc.
Great school reputation,
Increased property value
23. MHP on Baltimore: http://on.msnbc.com/1H5iK67
Not just a St. Louis Story
24. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
“To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked
before the elements of the world… The nakedness is not
an error, nor pathology. The nakedness is the
correct and intended result of policy. The law did not
protect us...a society that protects some through a safety net
of schools, government-backed home loans, and ancestral
wealth but can only protect you with the club of criminal
justice has either failed at enforcing its good intentions or
has succeeded at something much darker.”
25. Housing Legislation = Politically Murky
“...fair housing [legislation is] wrong because the
‘right of an individual to ownership and
disposition of property is inseparable from the
right of freedom itself.’”
-Ronald Reagan, 1976
Quoted from Gary Orfield,
Race and the Liberal Agenda: The Loss of the Integrationist Dream
26. Kozol, Savage Inequalities
“The chemical plants do not pay taxes [in East
St. Louis]. They have created small
incorporated towns which are self-governed
and exempt therefore from… supervision [by
governments that are also directly accountable
to local students & families].”
27. ● 136 Acres
● 22 city blocks
● ~3,000 jobs
● Property
tax-exempt
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
Proposed Development: 2016
28. Policy Recommendation
● Establish restrictions on size of tax-exempt
entities within city limits
○ Don’t tear down affordable housing to build it
● More tax revenue = more money for schools
