Moving to Opportunity or Moving to Oppression?
Housing segregation is officially defined as the practice of denying African American or other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of reality and financing services, and racial steering [1]. From its origin to its modern-day adaptation, the practice is rooted in racism and actualized in laws and city planning. The most notable example is the passage of National Housing Act of 1934 where the Federal Housing Administration was created to “redline” certain neighborhoods so that the people who live within those neighborhoods are denied an opportunity to purchase a home elsewhere by denying their mortgage applications. The government’s efforts were primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families and create homogeneously white neighborhoods. This leaves African Americans and other people of color were left out of the new suburban communities and pushed instead into urban housing projects, effectively creating separate and nonequal living spaces. The downstream effects of this racist law allow the creation of other racist laws like allowing the construction of highways in these neighborhoods not only to further separate whites and nonwhites but to disproportionately have the negative health effects of car emissions affect the latter group [4]. Despite efforts to criminalize this practice, housing inequity has metastasized into other inequities like health, wealth, education and employment.
In 2017, the Seattle Housing Authority, the city’s public housing agency, jumpstarted a pilot program called “Creating Moves to Opportunity”. The program allows low-income families in their housing system to move to predominantly white, affluent “opportunity neighborhoods” in Seattle by subsidizing their rent and increasing family support via coaching. The program is based on a recent study [2] provides compelling evidence that children who moved to higher opportunity areas had significantly better outcomes than their counterparts. Some conclusions were that these children are 32% more likely to attend college, have a $302,000 increase in total lifetime earnings and are 26% less likely to become single parents [2]. Although this is a promising program, the timing reeks of interest convergence.
Growing up in Yesler Terrace, the first racially integrated housing projects in Seattle, it was very evident to me that my classmates who are living in Magnolia and Queen Anne are much more college ready, less likely to engage in violent and risky behaviors than my classmates who were my neighbors. A common observation at my high school, Garfield High School is that some kids go to Harvard and some go to prison. Kids who live in wealthy, affluent neighborhoods have greater access to youth-serving services, support and less exposed to drugs, violence, and crime. So to me, the “neighborhood quality matters” concept is really an obvious idea that was never meant for people like me to benefit from. Looking at the literature, the earliest study that I could find that strongly hinted at the idea that neighborhood quality has a strong influence on children’s development was done 23 years ago, where they saw better health outcomes for African American infants living in areas with greater maternal support [3]. Since then there are countless studies pointing to environmental and social factors that alter the epigenetics of children that can predict anything from their lifespan to their resiliency to life events, all pointing to high-quality neighborhoods with access to services are essential to healthy development.
So why the complete 180 change from the history of segregation? My speculation is that with the current and more recent positive views on diversity, there are some clear incentives for traditionally white, higher income earning neighborhoods to diversify their image. One personal example is that Garfield High School, being historically a black school, in a historically black neighborhood has a large population of white students from wealthy neighborhoods of Seattle, who benefits on their college applications by having an association with the school’s diversity and achievements. Similarly, I believe that the move to now allowing low-income, nonwhite families to live in white neighborhoods exploit the greatness and benefits of diversity by claiming this diverse image though, in reality, the neighborhood is still majority white without the heterogeneity of culture, ideas and beliefs.
Conversely, the attempt to integrate families into “opportunity neighborhoods” could have negative effects. Although the data is pointing to the increase in access to educational and employment opportunities, what was not measured however is the effects of disconnection from culture, practices, people and even possible institutional ism (i.e. racism and classism) from being the outsider. This could lead to a level of suppression that could far outweigh the financial opportunities promised. In an ethnographic study of a mixed-income housing consisting of 75% low-income and 25% market rate housing, they found that social practices like socializing on the front stoop were outlawed and deemed a public disturbance [5]. Lower-income residents reported feeling constrained by, and resentful of, these policies, whereas market-rate residents did not [5]. This otherization is an example that power lies in the hands of the wealthy, even if they are in the minority. This is concerning for families who choose to participate in this program. Not only could they experience oppressive neighborhood laws but being the few families living in subsidized housing in a wealthy neighborhood, they are vulnerable to being further otherized as an outsider. Levels of oppression and racism are things programs like Moving to Opportunity must measure and carefully examine when studying the outcomes of these families.
In conclusion, I believe that the Seattle Housing Authority’s Creating Moves to Opportunity program could lead to promising data that shows a decrease in the opportunity gap between classes. However, with a critical race theory lens, one should be critical of the timing of the plan, the real incentives of those in power and investigate the negative effects of displacing low-income families.
Citation:
1. Huttman, Elizabeth D.; Blauw, Wim; Saltman, Juliet (1991). Urban Housing Segregation of Minorities in Western Europe and the United States. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
2. Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren, and Lawrence Katz. 2016. “The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Project.” American Economic Review 106 (4)
3. Burchinal M, Follmer A, Bryant D. The relations of maternal social support and family structure with maternal responsive and child outcomes among African-American families. Developmental Psychology. 1996;32:1073–1083
4. People in Poor Neighborhoods Breathe More Hazardous Particles Cheryl Katz — https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-poor-neighborhoods-breate-more-hazardous-particles/?redirect=1
5. Andrew Deener. 2012. Venice: A Contested Bohemia in Los Angeles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Lance Freeman. 2006. There Goes the ‘Hood’: Views of Gentrification From the Ground Up. Philadelphia: Temple University Press; Pattillo; Deirdre Pfeiffer. 2004. “Before the Barbecue: Community Building and the Arts in a Mixed-Income Chicago Neighborhood,” Perspectives on Civic Activism and City Life 3, 14–24; Sylvie Tissot. 2011. “Of Dogs and Men: The Making of Spatial Boundaries in a Gentrifying Neighborhood,” City & Community 10:3, 265–84.
