Gross: County must hold up its end of HUD deal
Published: May 15, 2012. 9:42AM

(Photo credit: Photo by Angela Gaul | Cottage Landings is under construction at 15 Edgar Place in Rye, March 2012.)

BY V. ELAINE GROSS

It’s been almost three years since Westchester County settled a court case charging that it had fraudulently received tens of millions of Community Development Block Grant and other federal dollars by falsely claiming that it was “affirmatively furthering fair housing.” But the issue itself is far from settled. The county and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are still fighting in court, HUD has withheld recent block grants, and politicians turned up the political rhetoric about the settlement last week.

Westchester County is diverse — 68 percent white, 14.6 percent black, 21.8 percent Hispanic and 5 percent other — but, according to U.S. Census data, residential segregation is severe, and Westchester’s African-American and Latino populations are concentrated in a very small number of communities.

The settlement’s aim is to ensure nondiscriminatory housing. Segregation limits access to communities that blacks and Hispanics may prefer, creating a Westchester that isn’t diverse where it really matters: in communities where people live.

We know from U.S. Census data that, in Westchester, the average black household with an income of more than $75,000 lives in a poorer neighborhood than a white household whose income is lower than $40,000. In this area and many other regions of the country, blacks and Latinos more often live in communities containing concentrations of poverty that negatively affect the whole region, leading to poorly performing schools and missed opportunities for students who, given the chance to obtain a good education, could be productive members of the economy.

A recent study by the civil rights organization ERASE Racism and Stony Brook University Survey Research Center surveyed African-Americans on Long Island about the ideal racial mix of the kind of neighborhood where they’d most like to live. Nearly all respondents chose a racially mixed neighborhood: 69 percent chose an even mix of 50 percent black and 50 percent white; only 1 percent said that they’d like to live in an all-black neighborhood. These findings mirror many other studies across the country that show that African-Americans and Latinos prefer racially mixed neighborhoods. There’s no reason to believe blacks in Westchester have different housing preferences. The fact that even affluent blacks in Westchester tend to live in segregated, poorer communities indicates an impediment to fair housing.

The court settlement offers two remedies: 1) that Westchester use all available means to bring about the building of affordable housing in census blocks with the lowest percentages of black and Latino residents, and 2) that impediments to fair housing be removed, including identifying municipal zoning practices that impede affordable housing development, and passing legislation that prohibits discrimination based on lawful source of income.

Exclusionary zoning which, for example, blocks multifamily housing, is the key impediment to affordable housing in general, and in particular, to housing that can help end patterns of residential segregation. The use of geographic preferences is another — it limits applicants for affordable housing to people who already work or live in a community, unfairly denying access to blacks and Latinos, even if they meet income requirements, if few or no minorities already reside in that community.

If the settlement is implemented as ordered, it will bring greater fairness for blacks and Latinos, and Westchester will be on its way to creating communities that reflect more racial diversity and integration and less racial isolation and segregation.

But the county isn’t holding up its end of the deal. County Executive Rob Astorino vetoed the source-of-income legislation that was passed by the Board of Legislators — a veto that was at first upheld and then deemed unlawful by the courts. The affordable units proposed to meet the settlement are either in or close to areas of high minority concentration, in areas isolated from existing residential development, or in areas very close to such undesirable features as superhighways and railroad tracks. So far, the process and most of the proposed units do not reflect the spirit of the settlement, even if the units are built with the approval of the HUD monitor.

The opportunity to have a real option of living where one wants is a right that must be cherished. Westchester’s failure is not unique — governments throughout the country haven’t treated fair housing enforcement as seriously as other law enforcement. What’s needed now in Westchester is less posturing, less fear mongering and more problem solving. Westchester needs more honest deliberations, and more deliberate actions.

Elaine Gross is president of the regional civil rights organization ERASE Racism.

http://newyork.newsday.com/opinion/gross-county-must-hold-up-its-end-of-hud-deal-1.3718723