The engineered, not the inevitable, affordable housing crisis

By Norman Franklin

Norman Franklin

The metastatic exclusionary housing policies of America have reached a crisis state. There is a 7.1-million-unit shortfall for low-income renters.

It’s a crisis engineered through decades of negligence, exclusionary lending policies, and segregationist influenced government decisions on national housing policies.

The 1968 Report of the National Advisory Com mission on Civil Disorders, more commonly known as the Kerner Commission Report, made substantive recommendations for addressing systemic inequalities in housing.

But before giving attention to the Kerner Com mission Report, we must first give light to the racist attitudes that laid the foundation for the housing crisis discover of the Kerner commission.

In his book, “The Color of Law,” Richard Rothstien reveals the complicity of federal and local governments, the housing industry, and private lenders to deny the African Americans access to decent, wealth building housing.

NIMBYism was, and to a great degree, remains the influencing factor that sets the course of housing development.

This crisis isn’t new.

During the three decades of the thirties to the six ties, 98% of FHA loans went to white families. Black families excluded from suburban homeownership were confined to declining urban centers.

This state sponsored segregation led to urban decade and the urban discontent that erupted in the late sixties. The section of the Kerner Commission Report on housing made strong recommendations to correct the housing disparities.

Build 600,000 afford able units annually for five years, the Commis sion recommended. If the recommendations had been fully implemented, and extended beyond the five-year period, more than 34 million new affordable homes would be available for low-income renters and potential homeowners.

White political back lash and framing of the housing shortage as a “Black urban issue” led the government to abandon the recommended fix.

Black homeownership was at 45.3% in 2022, contrasted with 74.6% for White Americans. Systemic inequality stripped generation al wealth building for African Americans. In 2023, the median household wealth for whites was $188,200, for Blacks, $24,000.

In 2023, 49.7% of rent er households were cost burdened, compared to 27 % of homeowners. Cost burden is a factor when 30% of income is spent on housing. More than 80% of low-income renters are severely cost burdened. Fifty percent of their income is spent on housing.

They are trapped in a vicious cycle of survival.

Average increased 31 percent in the five years from 2019 to 2024. Higher construction costs have contributed to the national housing shortfall. Federal budget cuts to housing programs exacerbate the crisis. Resources for ten ant assistance have been cut.

This is not a new crisis. It’s not a twenty-first century problem. It’s a systemic problem, introduced, and sustained by government, private industry, and communities gripped by fears of integration; a penchant for denying the long term effect of the exclusionary policies of their fore parent’s generation adds weight to the problem.

Poverty is not the inevitable result of poor choices. Their housing inadequacies are not because of their poor stewardship. This crisis was engineered through the conflating of racial exclusion policies, negligence, and deliberate dis investment.

The housing short age is a pervasive issue affecting diverse demo graphics, and geographical locations across America. Comprehensive policy reforms, increased funding for housing pro grams, and commitment to equable development practices would signal hope for the low-income, low wealth populace stuck in survival mode.

We didn’t get here by mistake. Truth telling, reparative policies, and a national commitment to correct conditions result ing from injustice are needed.