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Thursday, July 9, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

No place like home: American 
housing insecurity

A significant part of the tradi-
tional American Dream includes 
buying your first house as a cumu-
lative result of hard work and 
steady income. For many people, a 
home is where you lay down roots, 
establish a family and a community. 
However, as a result of redlining — 
real estate discrimination and lim-
ited access to mortgages — there 
has been a large gap in homeown-
ership when comparing white fam-
ilies to Black, Hispanic and Asian 
family units. The rate of homeown-
ership among white communities 
in the first quarter of 2020 was 73.7 
percent — almost 10 percent higher 
than the whole country’s average of 
65.3 percent. Meanwhile, the rates 
for Black, Hispanic and Asian com-
munities were much lower: Black 
communities had 44 percent; His-
panic communities had 48.9 per-
cent; and Asian, Native, Hawaiian 
and Pacific Islander had 59.1 per-
cent. The effects of these dispari-
ties go far beyond home owning, as 
this ownership is often a gateway 
to wealth building through better 
public education, — for which the 
level of funding is determined by 
property taxes — tax benefits, etc. 
The homeownership gap has exist-
ed since the end of slavery but was 
only exacerbated by events such as 
the Great Depression and the 2008 
Housing Crisis. While homeown-
ership rates, in general, have risen, 
the gap among white people and 
Black and other POC has remained 
drastic. There are several reasons 
for this gap:

Real Estate Discrimination
Real estate discrimination can 
arise for many reasons and in many 
forms. Some of the major reasons 
include race, sexuality, disabilities, 
language barriers, gender or mari-
tal status. It is illegal to discrimi-
nate against a potential homebuyer 
for these reasons. Some common 
forms of discrimination include 
refusing to return phone calls, 
providing false information about 
the cost or availability of a unit or 
falsifying eligibility requirements. 
In numbers, 26 percent of Black 
people report having been treated 
differently due to their race dur-
ing the homebuying process, while 
Asian and Hispanic people report 
19 percent and 16 percent respec-
tively. Another extension of this is 
realtors are more likely to assume 
a higher income status for potential 
white homebuyers, whereas they 
are more likely to assume a lower 
income status for non-white poten-
tial homebuyers. A study conduct-
ed by a professor at Northwestern 

University produced data — which 
supported data from the Depart-
ment of Housing and Urban Devel-
opment — that stated in “about 
10% audits in which a white and 
an African-American auditor were 
sent to apply for the same unit after 
2005, the white auditor was recom-
mended more units than the Afri-
can-American auditor.” Similarly, 
“about 16% of Latinxs say they’ve 
been treated differently in their 
search for housing because of their 
race.” There are several other stud-
ies asserting similar claims: People 
of color are notably discriminated 
against when it comes to potential 
home ownership. Other studies 
include a Housing Discrimination 
Study in 2000 by the Office of 
Policy Development and Research, 
the Complexities and Process of 
Racial Housing Discrimination and 
Breaking Down the Black-White 
Homeownership Gap. 

Check out this article 
about a man advocating 
for feminism

Last week, College Republicans 
at the University of Michigan, a 
student organization on campus 
dedicated to promoting the princi-
ples of the Republican Party, post-
ed a tweet making light of various 
majors and minors offered through 
LSA. Included on this list were 
not only areas of study promoting 
equality, intercultural leadership 
and interdisciplinary studies but 
also one dedicated to challenging 
injustices faced by women for gen-
erations — the University’s Depart-
ment of Women’s Studies.
In doing so, the organiza-
tion effectively dehumanized all 
women and reminded many that 
the University is not exempt from 
misogyny and sexism on its cam-
pus. As a Voluntary Student Orga-
nization, College Republicans at 
the University is a recognized stu-

AAKASH RAY 
MiC Staff Writer

Read more at michigandaily.com

PRISHA GROVER
MiC Staff Writer

Read more at michigandaily.com

Legislative Vendetta

Read more at michigandaily.com

 Design by Hibah Chughtai

dent organization that is directly 
affiliated with the University yet 
consistently ignores its mission to 
foster a community built on “civil-
ity, dignity, diversity [and] inclusiv-
ity.” What the organization fails to 
recognize is the same department 
they are mocking is one of many 
advancing research, teaching and 
activism for countless of their own 
members, friends and family — 
those who identify as women.
The Department of Women’s 
Studies, founded in 1973, is built on 
the bedrock principles of coalition 
building, social change and femi-
nist theory. Utilizing these prin-
ciples, many graduates strive to 
replace outdated information about 
women, gender and race with new 
knowledge and challenge unequal 
distributions of power perpetuated 
by American systems. 

As millions of Americans were 
celebrating 
Independence 
Day 
within the various physical capaci-
ties embedded across the nation, I 
could not help but feel choked in 
a muzzle of falsified liberation we 
citizens of this country not only 
surrender to, but praise. I recite 
the annual literary antic, “Happy 
Fourth of July” to my peers, friends 
and family. This being a muttered 
dig at the naive walk of shame 
proud citizens acclaim, oblivious 
that it is they, we, him, her, all of us 

IZZA AHMED-GHANI
MiC Staff Writer

who lay fugitive as the blunt of the 
joke. 
Human nature, as it goes, would 
have many individuals bask in bit-
ter contentment. Stoically-bodied 
in reaction to the times, there is 
an inherent discomfort when one 
knows we, as a society, accept and 
hold ourselves captive to an old 
dictorator: ignorance. I’m no physi-
cian, but I’d assess the state of this 
nation’s well-being with the diag-
nosis of “Stockholm Syndrome.”
Often I come across comments 
reading:
“Our laws aren’t racist… [and to 
gesture so] will do nothing to help 

people RIGHT NOW.” 
And then some more... 
“How can you say one of the 
most diverse countries in the world 
is racist?”
The legislation we uphold from 
our founding fathers is outdated. 
Metastasizing 
discriminatory 
roots into local, state and federal 
legislation. These policies have 
systemically rendered differences 
in the opportunities marginalized 
populations have to achieve opti-
mal health that leads to unequita-
ble but avoidable health outcomes.

 Design by Hibah Chughtai

 Design by Maggie Wiebe

