Investing in Housing,
and Racism
Affecting people of African descent
Joseph Schechla, Coordinator
Habitat International Coalition - Housing and Land Rights Network
Human Right to Adequate
Housing (elements)
• Legal security of tenure
• Services, materials, facilities & infrastructure
– Public goods and services
– Environmental goods and services (land & water)
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Affordability
Habitability
Accessibility
Location
Cultural adequacy
HRAH: congruent rights
• Information, education & ca3pacity
building
• Participation
• Resettlement, return, restitution,
rehabilitation
• Security and privacy (VAW)
HRAH: over-riding principles
• Self-determination
• Nondiscrimination
• Gender equality
• Rule of law
• International cooperation
• Nonregressivity/nonretrogression
Private sector factors
• Sellers’ and buyers’ preferences (over
profit)
• Agents “steering” market
• Lending institutions as gatekeepers
• Social pressure
Public sector factors
• Planners’ preferences
• Legislation
• Executive branch policies
• Bias/capacity of judiciary
• Bias in implementation (institutions
or personnel)
United States of America
public investment benefiting PAD
• Tax Reform Act (1986) dollar-fordollar low-income tax credit for
investors
• Hope VI program of urban renewal
• Section 8 voucher system
• “American Dream” 1st-time grants
United States of America
public investment benefiting PAD
Declining assistance, burgeoning homelessness
Policy factors: regressive budgets
• Proposed cancellation of Hope VI
program
• Reduction of Section 8
• Tax cuts for the wealthy
USA: Landlessness for PAD
• Reconstruction promises broken
• Institutional racism @ implementation
• Inadequate capacity-building
assistance
• Violent dispossessions
• Discrimination in lending
• Intestacy
• Court-ordered partition sales
• Foreclosure, adverse possession,
eminent domain
The trend in African-American land ownership:
• In 1920, 1 / 7 farmers was African American; in 1982, 1 / 7
farmers was African American;
• In 1910, A-A farmers owned 15.6 million acres of farm land
nationally; by 1982, A-A farmers owned 3.1 million acres of
farm land;
• In 1950, A-A farmers in North Carolina owned 1/2 million
acres; in 1982, they owned 40,000 acres;
• In 1920, A-A operated 926,000 farms; in 1982, the total had
dropped to 33,000 and is steadily declining;
• In 1984–85, the USDA lent $1.3 billion to almost 16,000
farmers nationwide to buy land; only 209 A-A;
• Almost half of all A-A-operated farms are smaller than 50
acres;
• Late 1980s, less than 200 A-A were under the age of 25; in
1997, only 745 (4% of total) was under 35, and the largest
age group was those over 70 (24%);
• In 1910, A-A owned at least 15 million acres of farmland,
nearly all in southern States. Today, A-A own only 1.1 million
acres of farmland and are part owners of another 1.07
million acres;
• From 1920 to 1992, the number of A-A farmers declined
from 925,710 to 18,816 or by 98%;
• In 1982, A-As received only 1% of all farm ownership loans,
only 2.5% of all farm operating loans, and only 1% of all soiland-water conservation loans. Despite some new
regulations by the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) to
offset historically discriminatory lending, A-A still not
adequately funded;
• In 1996, 0.5 percent of 1.31 million farmers were A-A.
During the same period the percentages of females and
Hispanic farmers increased;
• To implement the 92 recommendations in the Pigford
judgment, including diversifying the USDA's staff and setting
up a commission, will cost $1.2 billion over five years.
However for 1999, only $250 million was budgeted to cover
also increased funding for loans and the transfer of new
technology to small farmers.
Pigford, Brewington v Glickman and the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (1999).
Consent Decree recognized the plaintiffs’
claim of systematic discrimination in loans
and other entitlements;
Did not provide sufficient material relief for
the injured, restored no lost land, and had
no impact on the mechanism of USDA
loan distribution. (The authority rests with
problematic local commissioners.)
Recommendations
• Restore and commensurate increase of Section 8 housing
voucher programs;
• Reversal of tax cuts for the wealthiest U.S. tax payers;
• Preserve Hope VI program with necessary correctives to
ensure an annual net increase in low-cost housing;
• Expand LIHTC program and preserve tax incentives to
investors;
• Support alternative tenure arrangements, such as “limited
equity cooperatives”;
• Immediate, diligent and effective increase in advice-andlending services, on an affirmative-action basis, within the
Farmers Home Administration and other public lending
institutions;
• Reform State laws of intestacy;
• Public -interest lawyers and community services to provide
capacity-building assistance, esp. in cases of unstable “incommon” tenancy;
Recommendations (cont’d.)
• Cease land confiscation through foreclosure, adverse
possession and eminent domain;
• Establish land consolidation courts to restore and preserve
land titles, on an affirmative-action basis;
• Establish and maintain an effective African-American Land
Trust to support and expand land ownership by people of
African descent on an affirmative-action basis;
• Cease court-ordered partition sales of African-Americans’
land in cases of dispute over land held in common;
• Reverse and prosecute discriminatory practices by both
public and private lending institutions toward AfricanAmerican land owners;
• U.S. Department of Agriculture and/or other public agencies
to provide adequate technical, marketing and research
assistance on an affirmative-action basis.
Brazil
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Policy Priorities
1988 Constitution raising racism to felony;
Unified Healthcare System
Social Welfare Act
Statute of the Cities (2001)
National Human Rights Plan of Action
Interministerial Group for Promotion of Black Population
(1995)
Program for Urbanization, Regularization and Integration of
Slum Settlements
Papel Passando to ensure secure tenure
National Affirmative Action Program (2002)
“Zero Hunger” program
National fund for Housing in the National Interest
Brazil
Problem areas
• Quilombos
• Displacements
– From quilombo to agrovila
– Land and livelihood
Recommendations
• Address the compensation and restitution claims of
the communities already relocated;
• Cease all new relocations of quilombo communities
until adequate and consensual solutions are found
that ensure the fulfillment of all elements of the
human right to adequate housing;
• Immediate, diligent and effective delivery of
essential services to individuals and communities
affected by the quilombo relocations;
• Accelerate the process of regularizing land and
housing tenure for quilombo inhabitants;
Recommendations (cont’d.)
• Reform intestacy laws to narrow the class of heirs
and prevent fractionation;
• Capacity-building assistance for quilombos to
defend their housing and land rights;
• Legislate safeguards for Afro-Brazilian tenure
holders and landowners without;
• Prohibit in law and policy the confiscation of AfroBrazilians’ land and housing by foreclosure,
adverse possession and public purposes without a
proper hearing and consultation, due process,
compensation and rehabilitation;
• Reverse and prosecute discriminatory practices by
both public and private lending institutions toward
Afro-Brazilians.
State obligations
Government Culpability, Public Solutions
Reform
Affirmative action
Meaningful restitution, compensation