1. HOUSING, OPPORTUNITY & RACE:
THE CASE OF THOMPSON V. HUD
IN BALTIMORE, MD
Jason Reece, AICP
1
Senior Researcher
The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity
Reece.35@osu.edu and www.kirwaninstitute.org
Guest Lecture May 7th 2009
City and Regional Planning 815: Urban Planning Case Studies in Housing
Case Studies in Housing

2. TODAY’S CLASS & DISCUSSION
 Thinking about our History: Planning, Housing,
Opportunity & Race
 Access to Opportunity Matters
 Baltimore, MD at the time of Thompson v. HUD
 The Litigation & Judicial Decision
 Moving Past Litigation - Crafting a response
 New Housing Challenges in the Region
 Discussion: How would you respond?
 Discussion: Supporting regional housing solutions
 What are the factors driving and impeding regional
housing challenges?
 What role should planners play? 2

3. THINKING ABOUT OUR HISTORY
3 Planning, Housing, Opportunity & Race

4. PLANNING’S EVOLUTION OF
CONFRONTING URBAN PROBLEMS
4
• Euclidean
Zoning • Birth of
• “City Urban Advocacy
Efficient” Renewal Planning Smart Opportunity
City and (Davidoff) Growth Based
• First Late
Late/Ea Beautiful 1920’s Suburbs Modernism • The CDC New Planning and
and Emerge 1950- 60’s movement Urbanism The Community
rly 19th (Burnham Birth of emerges 1990’s
1960’s and Future? Dev.
Century and 1930’s • Garden Super • Regional Sustain-
Others) Cities Block 1970’s Fair Share ability
Planning for
the Green
• First Public Strategies Economy
public Housing • Model
housing Cities

5. URBAN PROBLEMS: VIEW FROM 1968
 This finding from the 1968 Kerner Commission
(“Report of the National Advisory Commission on
Civil Disorders”) is still compelling and applicable to
the current challenges facing marginalized urban
communities of color.
 “…the single overriding cause of rioting in the cities was
not any one thing commonly adduced –
unemployment, lack of education, poverty, exploitation –
but that it was all of those things and more…”
 Source: The Kerner Report. The 1968 Report of the
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.
Introduction by Tom Wicker. Page xvii. 5

6. URBAN PROBLEMS: VIEW FROM 2008
 This description is repeated nearly 40 years later in a
recent study of concentrated poverty released by the U.S.
Federal Reserve and The Brookings Institution:
 “Each of the headline issues examined in this chapter – schools
and skills, housing, lack of mainstream investment, and limited
community capacity – plays a role in perpetuating the
disadvantage confronting these high-poverty urban and rural
areas today. Together, these issues entangle many high poverty
communities in a Gordian knot….
 The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. “The Enduring Challenge of
Concentrated Poverty In America.” Produced by the U.S. Federal
Reserve and The Brookings Institution. page 191. Accessible online
at: http://www.frbsf.org/cpreport/#
 History matters
 We are still struggling with many of the same challenges facing
urban communities and housing
6

7. THE 1960’S AND TODAY:
URBAN UNREST AND URBAN DISTRESS IN DETROIT
7

8. 8

9. WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?
HISTORICAL POLICIES CONTRIBUTING TO RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION
9 AND ISOLATION
 Segregation as policy
 Jim Crow in the south
 The Great Migration North
 FHA policies upholding segregation
 Redlining, discouraging mixed race neighborhoods
 Blockbusting, racially restrictive covenants and other forms of
discrimination in the housing industry
 Urban renewal, highway construction and public housing policy
 Suburban sprawl and white flight

10. POLICIES ENFORCING INEQUITY:
HISTORICAL GOVERNMENT ROLE
“If a neighborhood is to retain
stability, it is necessary that
properties shall continue to be
occupied by the same social and
racial classes. A change in social
or racial occupancy generally
contributes to instability and a
decline in values.”
–Excerpt from the 1947 FHA
underwriting manual
10

11. REDLINING MAP OF PHILADELPHIA
11

12. http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/sugrue.html
THE “WAILING WALL” IN DETROIT
12

13. THE RISE OF SUBURBIA:
BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE
13
In the suburb-shaping years (1930-1960),
less than one-percent of all African Americans were able to
obtain a mortgage.

14. FHA HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION IN CINCINNATI –
DEMOLISHING MUCH OF THE AFRICAN
AMERICAN WEST SIDE
14

15. URBAN RENEWAL IN BOSTON
15

16. URBAN RENEWAL & NEW ATTEMPTS AT PUBLIC HOUSING
 Superblock Public Housing
 Stateway Gardens in Chicago being completed in the late 1950’s
 33 Acres of Public Housing
 Eight High Rise Buildings
 More than 1,600 Public Housing Units
16

17. UNPRECEDENTED
CONCENTRATED POVERTY:
THE RISE OF CONCENTRATED
17
PUBLIC HOUSING

18. FROM MARVEL TO DISASTER: PRUITT-IGOE IN ST. LOUIS
18

19. WHY DOES THIS CONTINUE?
CONTEMPORARY FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO RESIDENTIAL
SEGREGATION AND ISOLATION
 De facto segregation and opportunity isolation
 Exclusionary zoning
 Subtle forms of housing discrimination
 Racial steering, editorializing
 Fragmented school districts and court decisions
 Economic development policy, infrastructure policy and
subsidized housing policy
 Continued exurban sprawl and white flight
 Reverse redlining
 Buy here pay here, rent to own, payday lending, subprime mortgage
loans
19

20. WHY DO WE STILL PUSH FOR FAIR
HOUSING?
20 The Dynamics of Race, Place and Opportunity

21. Section 2
OPPORTUNITY MATTERS:
SPACE, PLACE, AND LIFE OUTCOMES
 “Opportunity” is a situation or condition that places individuals
in a position to be more likely to succeed or excel.
 Opportunity structures are critical to opening pathways to
success:
 High-quality education
 Healthy and safe environment
 Stable housing
 Sustainable employment
 Political empowerment
 Outlets for wealth-building
 Positive social networks
21

22. OPPORTUNITY MATTERS:
NEIGHBORHOODS & ACCESS TO OPPORTUNITY
 Five decades of research indicate
that your environment has a
profound impact on your access
to opportunity and likelihood of
success
 High poverty areas with poor
employment, underperforming
schools, distressed housing and
public health/safety risks depress
life outcomes
 A system of disadvantage
 Many manifestations
 Urban, rural, suburban
 People of color are far more likely
to live in opportunity deprived
neighborhoods and communities 22
22

23. PLACE HAS A PROFOUND IMPACT ON CHILD
DEVELOPMENT, HEALTH AND WELL BEING
23

24. Which community would you choose?
To be safe and have positive health outcomes? For your kids to receive a quality
education? Which community would be better for employment and have a more
sustainable tax base?
24

25. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF OPPORTUNITY
ISOLATION?
 Individual
 Poor economic outcomes, lower educational
outcomes, degraded asset development
 Poor health conditions, higher exposure and risk from crime
 Psychological distress, weak social and professional
networks
 Community/Economy
 High social costs, distressed and stressed communities, fiscal
challenges
 Weakened civic engagement and democratic participation
 Underdeveloped human capital, poor labor outlook, poor
economic development prospects
25

26. MORE ON THOMPSON V. HUD
26 Fair Housing in the Baltimore Region Today

27. WHAT IS THOMPSON V. HUD?
 Litigation brought on behalf of class of 14,000
African-American residents of public housing in
response to history of racial segregation of public
housing and concentration in poor, distressed
neighborhoods in Baltimore
 Plaintiffs include Maryland ACLU and NAACP Legal
Defense Fund
 Originally defendants included the local public housing
authority and the US Department of Housing & Urban
Development
 Began in 1995…judge issued liability ruling in 2005
 Remedial trial held in 2006
 Still waiting for final remedial decision
27

28. FAIR HOUSING IN BALTIMORE
 Some facts and figures….
 Baltimore is the 14th most segregated metropolitan region in the
USA (as of 2000)
 Approximately 67% of Baltimore’s African American or White
population would need to relocate to integrate the region (based on
the regional dissimilarity rate of .67
 More than 53% of African Americans are physically segregated from
jobs in the region
 African American neighborhoods on average had poverty rates
nearly 3 times the rate found in the average White neighborhood
and vacancy rates more than double rates found in White
neighborhoods
 Nearly 3 out 4 African American kids would need to change schools
to integrate the region’s schools
 The average African American student attended a school with a
42% poverty rate in 2000, double the average for White students
 In 2003, in the Baltimore City Schools:
 3 out of 4 students were poor, more than 1/3 of classes were taught by non
highly qualified teachers, less than a 1/3 of students passed proficiency exams 28

29. SEGREGATION, SUBSIDIZED
HOUSING IN THE
BALTIMORE REGION
 Subsidized housing
opportunities in
Baltimore are generally
clustered in the
region’s predominately
African American
neighborhoods
29

30. 30

31. MORE ON THOMPSON V. HUD
 In January 2005, US District Court Judge Garbis found HUD
liable for violating the federal Fair Housing Act, for not
providing fair housing opportunities to Baltimore’s African
American public housing residents
 "Baltimore City should not be viewed ... as a container for all of the poor
of a contiguous region“
 HUD failed to affirmatively promote fair housing by failing to consider a
regional approach to desegregating public housing
 “[T]he failure adequately to take a regional approach to the desegregation of
public housing in the region that included Baltimore City violated the Fair
Housing Act and requires consideration of appropriate remedial action by the
Court.”
 [Hon. Marvin J. Garbis, Memorandum of Decision. Carmen Thompson et. al. vs. US
Department of Housing and Urban Development et. al. January 6, 2005: 104]
31

32. PLAINTIFF’S RESPONSE
 “We intend to secure a remedy that will help African American
public housing residents undo the harms they have suffered for
more than sixty years because of HUD’s discriminatory policies.
We believe that this case, in Thurgood Marshall’s hometown, is
the most important housing desegregation lawsuit in a
generation.”
-Theodore M. Shaw, NAACP LDF Director-Counsel
and President
32

33. DIRECTOR POWELL’S REMEDIAL PROPOSAL
 The remedy must provide desegregative housing units in
areas of opportunity
 The proposal conducted an “opportunity mapping” analysis in the
region to locate high opportunity census tracts
 The remedy must be regional in scope
 The remedy must be race conscious
 The remedial program should be a structured choice model
and voluntary for P.H. residents
 The remedy must be goal driven, not process driven
 HUD must consider both vouchers and housing production to
meet the remedy’s goals
33

34. OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS
 Use of 14 indicators of
neighborhood opportunity to
designate high and low
opportunity neighborhoods in
the Baltimore region
 Indicators of Opportunity
(General)
 Neighborhood Quality/Health
 Poverty, Crime, Vacancy, Property
Values, Population Trends
 Economic Opportunity
 Proximity to Jobs and Job
Changes, Public Transit
 Educational Opportunity
 School Poverty, School Test
Scores, Teacher Qualifications
34

35.  AfricanAmerican’s
are generally
clustered in the
Baltimore region’s
lowest opportunity
neighborhoods
35

36.  Subsidized housing
opportunities in
Baltimore are
generally clustered in
the region’s lowest
opportunity
neighborhoods
36

37. FINAL PLAINTIFF’S PROPOSED REMEDY
 Plaintiffspropose providing desegregative housing
opportunities in the region’s high opportunity
neighborhoods to remedy HUD’s fair housing
violations
 With the goal of providing nearly 7,000 affordable housing
opportunities in high opportunity communities to public
housing residents who volunteer to relocate in ten years
 Flexibility in implementation (new construction and
vouchers)
 Aligned with proposals to provide support services
for residents who volunteer for the program 37

38. HUD’S RESPONSE
 The judge has not legal authority to impose a remedy, only the
ability to recommend a remedy
 The remedial proposal is infeasible
 A regional remedial program is impractical and new housing
production will be too costly
 The selection of opportunity areas is arbitrary
 HUD’s experts arguments
 Segregation is natural and the result of only income and personal
preference, the government can do nothing about this
 More African Americans are living in the suburbs therefore segregation
is not a concern in our current society
 The harms of living in concentrated poverty and the benefits of living
near opportunity structures, are overstated and not provable
 Too few public housing residents will wish to relocate
 Mobility based housing programs are not sustainable and “in-place”
strategies are preferable (enterprise zones in urban areas etc.)
38

39. THE CLASS AND SEGREGATION
ARGUMENT:
WHAT ABOUT LOW INCOME
WHITES?
39

40. OPPORTUNITY, RACE AND CLASS
40

41. STATUS OF THE CASE
 Remedial phase trial ended in early May of 2006
 Awaiting Judge Garbis’s final decision later this year
 The HUD/DOJ very likely to appeal
 Consortium of advocates in the Baltimore region are
starting a campaign to build support for the program
and aligning support services for movers
 Partial consent decree program is continuing and is
very popular
41

42. THE PARTIAL CONSENT DECREE PROGRAM
 Approximately 14,000 have applied, smaller scale
housing mobility program (which has moved over
1,300 families as of 2008)
 It places priority on placements in non segregated and
non poor communities
 Includes rental and homeownership programs, includes
counseling services
 Also analyzing the number of movers locating to
“opportunity areas”
 Other changes impacting the Baltimore market
 The Foreclosure crisis
 Widespread foreclosures in Baltimore 42
 Creating an additional housing burden

43. Initial Moves and Secondary Moves by Thompson Consent
Decree Program Participants
43

44. 44

45. WHAT IF THE BALTIMORE REGION HAD DEVELOPED
DIFFERENTLY?
 According to David Rusk, inclusionary zoning (e.g. the
Montgomery County, MD model of IZ) could have
transformed the housing landscape in the Baltimore
region (he modeled the impact the ordinance would have
had on the Baltimore region)
 David Rusk’s analysis projected that had Baltimore adopted
inclusionary zoning by 1980, in two decades the region would
have produced 15,800 “workforce” moderate income housing
units and 7,900 units for very low income households
 The majority of these units 90% would have been constructed in
the suburban jurisdiction’s in the metropolitan region
 The policies could of resulted in the movement of at least 18,500
impoverished residents in Baltimore to non-high poverty
suburban areas
 It would have resulted in student poverty rates in the City of
45
Baltimore school district to drop from 83% to 53% (as of 2002)

46. SUPPORTING REGIONAL HOUSING SOLUTIONS
46 Discussion

47. DISCUSSION: SUPPORTING REGIONAL HOUSING
SOLUTIONS
 What challenges do you anticipate confronting in
implementing regional fair housing programs?
 How can we address these challenges?
 How do we deal with the dynamic and fluid nature of housing
markets (how do we address this in program design and housing
decisions)
 What role should planners play?
 What is the “public good” and what takes priority?
 What’s good for the region? What good for your community? What’s
good for marginalized communities? What’s good for the housing
industry?
 How do you balance these things?
 How do planners support change in face of confronting
institutional power?
 Especially in the context of regional decision making or 47
upholding civil rights concerns?

48. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS CASE OR THE INSTITUTE, PLEASE VISIT US
ON-LINE AT: WWW.KIRWANINSTITUTE.ORG
48