Farm worker families struggle for decent housing
Farmers, chefs and workers share a locally grown meal to support the cause
By Chloe Vieira 07/12/2012 Ventura County Reporter
In one year, a farm worker who harvests and packs produce makes less than $10,000, according to the National Agricultural Workers Survey by the United States Department of Labor. That’s not enough money to rent an apartment in this county. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, “A renter household needs an annual income of $37,960 in order for a two-bedroom rental unit … to be affordable.”
That equation just doesn’t work. It didn’t work for 21-year-old Mayra Amezcua, who lived in one room with her parents, two sisters and one brother in an apartment in Fillmore. They shared the apartment with two other families.
Mayra’s father picks lemons and oranges for various ranches. Her mother is a crossing guard who also does ironing and cleans houses. Mayra and her siblings had trouble doing their schoolwork in the crowded Fillmore apartment. Sometimes one family member would want to sleep, and the others would have to go outside to find light to study by.
“It was very chaotic and stressful,” she said. Her parents tried to move the family to a bigger place.
“We were one of the families in line waiting. It took about seven years of attending meetings and asking, practically begging for low-income housing,” she said.
In 2009, Mayra’s family moved into the Central Station Farmworker Family Apartments on Main Street in Fillmore. Central Station is a community of 21 rental homes provided by the Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation (CEDC), which builds affordable housing for low-income families.
“I felt like I was in a dream and I was scared of waking up one day and being back in that one room,” said Susie Amezcua, Mayra’s 19-year-old sister. The family’s new apartment had a living room and a kitchen.
Both sisters currently attend Calfornia State University, Northridge. Mayra is a liberal studies major and Susie is double majoring in Chicano studies and sociology.
Her parents have inspired Susie to continue with her schooling. They taught her that if she has an education, she will be treated better in life.
“Ideally I want to be one of those people who kept pushing for those [housing] projects to be approved,” said Susie.
House Farm Workers! is an advocacy group in California working to rid people of the mentality that having low-income housing in your community devalues your home.
“Which is totally false,” said Gail Weller Brown, committee chair person for House Farm Workers! “These people are screened. They have to document that they are farm workers, that they meet the minimum salary requirements. It’s quite extensive; they have a lot of work to do to prove that they are worthy of being in those homes.”
Brown said the area around the Meta Street Farm Worker Family Apartments, another CEDC project, this one in Oxnard actually became safer, cleaner and better-lit as a result of the low-income housing there.
“They’re wonderful people who work very hard, and all they want is to have some privacy for their children to study and a safe place for them to grow up,” she said.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Sonoma County Fails Fair Housing Test
By STEPHEN HARPER and DAVID GRABILL
SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT - March 4, 2012
Housing discrimination takes many forms. It can be blatant, as when an ad for an apartment rental states “no children.” Or it can be subtle, as when a lender offers to lend at a slightly higher mortgage interest rate to a Latino homebuyer than the normal rate offered to similarly qualified Caucasians.
A recent report prepared for the cities of Santa Rosa and Petaluma and the county of Sonoma finds that these and other forms of housing discrimination may be a bigger problem in Sonoma County than other areas.
The report, titled “Analysis of impediments to fair housing choice,” is posted on the city of Santa Rosa's website. Its findings are based on surveys conducted by a Denver-based consulting firm that specializes in housing issues and information provided by various stakeholders. About 25 percent of the residents surveyed believed they had been subjected to housing discrimination in renting or purchasing homes in this area. This is significantly higher than the 15 percent who report personal experiences with housing discrimination.
The report also makes some other disturbing findings:
Areas of Sonoma County are racially segregated. Some areas are more than 90 percent white. Other areas are mostly non-white. The predominately white areas have very little affordable housing, and the non-white areas have high concentrations of low-income housing. Almost three-fourths of the survey participants reported that the lack of affordable housing is a critical issue in Sonoma County.
The county lacks adequate transit opportunities and services, which makes it harder for lower-income families and people with disabilities to access housing, employment, schools and stores.
Latino applicants for home mortgage loans in the county are rejected at a significantly higher rate than non-Latino applicants.
This newspaper also recently reported that the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the city of Santa Rosa and a homeowners association for housing discrimination. The lawsuit asserts that city officials violated laws prohibiting housing discrimination against families with children when they allegedly tried to force some families to move from their homes in a development on Colgan Avenue.
The site of the development was zoned for “seniors only” by the city when it was built in 2005, but when many units went unsold, the “seniors only” restriction was relaxed. Families with children moved in and the lawsuit alleges that city officials made no effort to enforce the zoning restrictions.
In 2009, after some senior residents complained about noise and other problems with the younger families, the city moved to enforce the restriction and force the non-senior families to move.
If the Justice Department proves the lawsuit's allegations, Santa Rosa could find itself under an injunction to stop discrimination against families with children and have to pay damages to the families who were told to move. The city may also have to send some city staff to training sessions about housing discrimination laws.
We don't know of any other city in California that's been sued by the federal government for housing discrimination.
The lawsuit and the fair housing analysis need to be taken seriously by city and county officials. The report recommends that the county and its cities acknowledge that housing discrimination is an ongoing problem and undertake a concerted effort to combat housing discrimination in all its forms.
Marin and Napa counties have long supported and funded fair housing enforcement. Their fair housing agencies investigate complaints of housing discrimination, do workshops for landlords, real estate agents, homebuyers and tenants and help inform the public about the requirements of state and federal discrimination laws.
Fortuitously, the Santa Rosa Housing Authority and the county Community Development Commission are considering a proposal to expand the small fair housing agency operated by Petaluma Peoples Services Center to serve the whole county. But will there be enough funding to run an effective countywide program?
Realtors, landlords and developers will benefit from stronger enforcement of fair housing laws and from strengthening the county's reputation as welcoming to all persons regardless of race, color, family status, sexual orientation, age or religion.
Who wants to live in a county where 25 percent of its residents report being subjected to housing discrimination? Let's make fair housing education and enforcement a priority.
Steve Harper and David Grabill are members of the Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group. They are both Santa Rosa residents.
SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT - March 4, 2012
Housing discrimination takes many forms. It can be blatant, as when an ad for an apartment rental states “no children.” Or it can be subtle, as when a lender offers to lend at a slightly higher mortgage interest rate to a Latino homebuyer than the normal rate offered to similarly qualified Caucasians.
A recent report prepared for the cities of Santa Rosa and Petaluma and the county of Sonoma finds that these and other forms of housing discrimination may be a bigger problem in Sonoma County than other areas.
The report, titled “Analysis of impediments to fair housing choice,” is posted on the city of Santa Rosa's website. Its findings are based on surveys conducted by a Denver-based consulting firm that specializes in housing issues and information provided by various stakeholders. About 25 percent of the residents surveyed believed they had been subjected to housing discrimination in renting or purchasing homes in this area. This is significantly higher than the 15 percent who report personal experiences with housing discrimination.
The report also makes some other disturbing findings:
Areas of Sonoma County are racially segregated. Some areas are more than 90 percent white. Other areas are mostly non-white. The predominately white areas have very little affordable housing, and the non-white areas have high concentrations of low-income housing. Almost three-fourths of the survey participants reported that the lack of affordable housing is a critical issue in Sonoma County.
The county lacks adequate transit opportunities and services, which makes it harder for lower-income families and people with disabilities to access housing, employment, schools and stores.
Latino applicants for home mortgage loans in the county are rejected at a significantly higher rate than non-Latino applicants.
This newspaper also recently reported that the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the city of Santa Rosa and a homeowners association for housing discrimination. The lawsuit asserts that city officials violated laws prohibiting housing discrimination against families with children when they allegedly tried to force some families to move from their homes in a development on Colgan Avenue.
The site of the development was zoned for “seniors only” by the city when it was built in 2005, but when many units went unsold, the “seniors only” restriction was relaxed. Families with children moved in and the lawsuit alleges that city officials made no effort to enforce the zoning restrictions.
In 2009, after some senior residents complained about noise and other problems with the younger families, the city moved to enforce the restriction and force the non-senior families to move.
If the Justice Department proves the lawsuit's allegations, Santa Rosa could find itself under an injunction to stop discrimination against families with children and have to pay damages to the families who were told to move. The city may also have to send some city staff to training sessions about housing discrimination laws.
We don't know of any other city in California that's been sued by the federal government for housing discrimination.
The lawsuit and the fair housing analysis need to be taken seriously by city and county officials. The report recommends that the county and its cities acknowledge that housing discrimination is an ongoing problem and undertake a concerted effort to combat housing discrimination in all its forms.
Marin and Napa counties have long supported and funded fair housing enforcement. Their fair housing agencies investigate complaints of housing discrimination, do workshops for landlords, real estate agents, homebuyers and tenants and help inform the public about the requirements of state and federal discrimination laws.
Fortuitously, the Santa Rosa Housing Authority and the county Community Development Commission are considering a proposal to expand the small fair housing agency operated by Petaluma Peoples Services Center to serve the whole county. But will there be enough funding to run an effective countywide program?
Realtors, landlords and developers will benefit from stronger enforcement of fair housing laws and from strengthening the county's reputation as welcoming to all persons regardless of race, color, family status, sexual orientation, age or religion.
Who wants to live in a county where 25 percent of its residents report being subjected to housing discrimination? Let's make fair housing education and enforcement a priority.
Steve Harper and David Grabill are members of the Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group. They are both Santa Rosa residents.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Designing a Fix for Housing (NYT Op Ed)
By JEANNE GANG and GREG LINDSAY
Published: February 9, 2012
RECENT efforts to fix the housing market — including Thursday’s $26 billion settlement with five of the nation’s biggest banks — have focused purely on the financial aspects of the slump. A permanent solution, however, must go further than money to address issues that have been at the core of the crisis but have been wholly ignored: design and urban planning.
Mortgage Plan Gives Billions to Homeowners, but With Exceptions (February 10, 2012)
Too often during the bubble, banks and builders shunned thoughtful architecture and urban design in favor of cookie-cutter houses that could be easily repackaged as derivatives to be flipped, while architects snubbed housing to pursue more prestigious projects.
But better design is precisely what suburban America needs, particularly when it comes to rethinking the basic residential categories that define it, but can no longer accommodate the realities of domestic life. Designers and policy makers need to see the single-family house as a design dilemma whose elements — architecture, finance and residents’ desires — are inextricably linked.
Take Cicero, Ill., a Chicago suburb that we studied as part of a new exhibition on the housing crisis at the Museum of Modern Art. The town may be infamous as the base of Al Capone or the site of anti-integration protests in the 1950s and ’60s, but today 80 percent of its residents are Latino, half of them foreign born.
Cicero is representative of a suburban transformation that went little noticed during the housing bubble and bust: suburbs have replaced inner cities as the destination of choice for new immigrants.
Indeed, nearly half of all Hispanics now live in suburbs, and new arrivals favor them over cities by two to one. Immigrants are one reason the number of suburban poor climbed 25 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2008. They’re also why Cicero was hit so hard by the housing crisis, with 2,049 foreclosures in 2009 alone — the second highest in Illinois, after Chicago.
Here’s where design comes in. Most of Cicero’s housing is detached, single-family homes. But these are too expensive for many immigrants, so five or six families often squeeze into one of Cicero’s brick bungalows. This creates unstable financial situations, neighborhood tensions and falling real estate values.
Too often, we see such mismatches as a purely financial issue. But instead of forcing families to fit into a house, what if we rearranged the house to fit them?
This doesn’t mean bulldozing Cicero’s housing stock. Instead, it means using existing, underused properties that might be renovated to provide a better fit. In Cicero’s case, that might mean turning to the scores of abandoned factories around it.
Such buildings are often no man’s lands thanks to fears of industrial contamination, which have left older suburbs pockmarked by blight while jobs and homes sprawl outward. But new techniques like “phytoremediation” — using plants like poplar and willow trees to absorb toxins — open the door to safer, less-expensive rehabilitation.
What remains is a wealth of steel, masonry and concrete that could be recycled into flexible live/work units. Rather than force Cicero’s residents to contort themselves to fit the bungalows, their homes can expand or shrink to fit them.
There’s one problem with such a plan: it’s illegal under Cicero’s zoning code. The town’s rules are typical of most suburbs, including the segregation of residential, commercial and industrial facilities; prohibitions on expanding and reusing buildings for new homes and businesses; and tight restrictions on mixed-use properties. Cicero’s code also defines “family” in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings now common across the country.
This has been an issue for urban planners for years, but many of the proposed alternatives to suburban zoning merely swap one restrictive code for another. Only by loosening zoning to allow new combinations of home and work will we be able to bring innovative design to bear on the single-family house.
But new housing forms also demand new types of financing. Starting in the 1990s, subprime lenders targeted low-income and minority suburbs like Cicero, even when many residents would have qualified for prime loans. Latino homeowners tend to disproportionately invest savings in their homes, and as a result they lost two-thirds of their wealth between 2005 and 2009.
One long-term solution would be a type of co-op in which residents buy and sell shares according to their changing needs and circumstances. Unlike traditional co-ops, residents could purchase shares corresponding only to the units they occupy, not the land beneath, which remains in the hands of a “community land trust.” Such a structure would keep housing costs down while limiting residents’ exposure to the market. It would also provide a backstop for struggling homeowners, since the trust would have the legal right to step in and assist residents in the event of foreclosure.
Land trusts have thrived on a small scale in New York City and Chicago, among other places. The federal government should now scale up the efforts by transferring some of the nearly 250,000 foreclosed homes acquired by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration into a national trust or a series of local trusts.
Even after the housing crisis is over, we will need to build connections among local government officials, policy makers, financial institutions, residents and architects. Solving the slump requires a multidisciplinary approach combining new design, new paths to homeownership and new zoning to support both — in Cicero and beyond.
Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay are, respectively, an architect and a visiting scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University.
Published: February 9, 2012
RECENT efforts to fix the housing market — including Thursday’s $26 billion settlement with five of the nation’s biggest banks — have focused purely on the financial aspects of the slump. A permanent solution, however, must go further than money to address issues that have been at the core of the crisis but have been wholly ignored: design and urban planning.
Mortgage Plan Gives Billions to Homeowners, but With Exceptions (February 10, 2012)
Too often during the bubble, banks and builders shunned thoughtful architecture and urban design in favor of cookie-cutter houses that could be easily repackaged as derivatives to be flipped, while architects snubbed housing to pursue more prestigious projects.
But better design is precisely what suburban America needs, particularly when it comes to rethinking the basic residential categories that define it, but can no longer accommodate the realities of domestic life. Designers and policy makers need to see the single-family house as a design dilemma whose elements — architecture, finance and residents’ desires — are inextricably linked.
Take Cicero, Ill., a Chicago suburb that we studied as part of a new exhibition on the housing crisis at the Museum of Modern Art. The town may be infamous as the base of Al Capone or the site of anti-integration protests in the 1950s and ’60s, but today 80 percent of its residents are Latino, half of them foreign born.
Cicero is representative of a suburban transformation that went little noticed during the housing bubble and bust: suburbs have replaced inner cities as the destination of choice for new immigrants.
Indeed, nearly half of all Hispanics now live in suburbs, and new arrivals favor them over cities by two to one. Immigrants are one reason the number of suburban poor climbed 25 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2008. They’re also why Cicero was hit so hard by the housing crisis, with 2,049 foreclosures in 2009 alone — the second highest in Illinois, after Chicago.
Here’s where design comes in. Most of Cicero’s housing is detached, single-family homes. But these are too expensive for many immigrants, so five or six families often squeeze into one of Cicero’s brick bungalows. This creates unstable financial situations, neighborhood tensions and falling real estate values.
Too often, we see such mismatches as a purely financial issue. But instead of forcing families to fit into a house, what if we rearranged the house to fit them?
This doesn’t mean bulldozing Cicero’s housing stock. Instead, it means using existing, underused properties that might be renovated to provide a better fit. In Cicero’s case, that might mean turning to the scores of abandoned factories around it.
Such buildings are often no man’s lands thanks to fears of industrial contamination, which have left older suburbs pockmarked by blight while jobs and homes sprawl outward. But new techniques like “phytoremediation” — using plants like poplar and willow trees to absorb toxins — open the door to safer, less-expensive rehabilitation.
What remains is a wealth of steel, masonry and concrete that could be recycled into flexible live/work units. Rather than force Cicero’s residents to contort themselves to fit the bungalows, their homes can expand or shrink to fit them.
There’s one problem with such a plan: it’s illegal under Cicero’s zoning code. The town’s rules are typical of most suburbs, including the segregation of residential, commercial and industrial facilities; prohibitions on expanding and reusing buildings for new homes and businesses; and tight restrictions on mixed-use properties. Cicero’s code also defines “family” in a way that excludes the large, multigenerational groupings now common across the country.
This has been an issue for urban planners for years, but many of the proposed alternatives to suburban zoning merely swap one restrictive code for another. Only by loosening zoning to allow new combinations of home and work will we be able to bring innovative design to bear on the single-family house.
But new housing forms also demand new types of financing. Starting in the 1990s, subprime lenders targeted low-income and minority suburbs like Cicero, even when many residents would have qualified for prime loans. Latino homeowners tend to disproportionately invest savings in their homes, and as a result they lost two-thirds of their wealth between 2005 and 2009.
One long-term solution would be a type of co-op in which residents buy and sell shares according to their changing needs and circumstances. Unlike traditional co-ops, residents could purchase shares corresponding only to the units they occupy, not the land beneath, which remains in the hands of a “community land trust.” Such a structure would keep housing costs down while limiting residents’ exposure to the market. It would also provide a backstop for struggling homeowners, since the trust would have the legal right to step in and assist residents in the event of foreclosure.
Land trusts have thrived on a small scale in New York City and Chicago, among other places. The federal government should now scale up the efforts by transferring some of the nearly 250,000 foreclosed homes acquired by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration into a national trust or a series of local trusts.
Even after the housing crisis is over, we will need to build connections among local government officials, policy makers, financial institutions, residents and architects. Solving the slump requires a multidisciplinary approach combining new design, new paths to homeownership and new zoning to support both — in Cicero and beyond.
Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay are, respectively, an architect and a visiting scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Feds sue St Bernard Parish for housing discrimination.
NEW ORLEANS (CN) - The United States claims St. Bernard Parish used a "blood relative ordinance" to deny African-Americans housing and keep them out of the parish after Hurricane Katrina.
St. Bernard Parish is just east of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, which was devastated by Katrina.
A Louisiana parish is the equivalent of other states' counties.
In its federal complaint, the United States says St. Bernard Parish enacted an illegal "blood relative ordinance" after the hurricane to prevent homeowners from renting to anyone not related to them by blood.
Two other plaintiffs filed similar complaints this week: the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Advocacy Center, and Nola Capital Group, of South Dakota.
All three plaintiffs accuse the parish of violating the Fair Housing Act, and ask the court to enjoin it from its "multiyear campaign to limit rental housing opportunities for African-Americans in St. Bernard Parish under the pretext of post-Hurricane Katrina recovery planning."
In his complaint, the U.S. attorney general says that in July 2005, before Hurricane Katrina, St. Bernard Parish was approximately 86 percent white and 10 percent African-American, and just 4 percent of the African-Americans were homeowners.
Neighboring Orleans Parish was 29 percent white and 67 percent African-American.
"As a result of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, St. Bernard Parish and the surrounding communities lost, and have yet to fully replace, a significant percentage of their single and multi-family rental housing stock," the complaint states.
The average vacancy rate for rental housing in St. Bernard Parish from 2005 to 2009 was 6.3 percent.
On Nov. 25, 2005, two months after Hurricane Katrina, the parish imposed a 12-month moratorium on re-establishment or development of any multifamily dwellings without parish approval.
Uncle Sam says that in the metropolitan New Orleans housing market, including St. Bernard Parish, 52 percent of African-American households are renters, while just 25 percent of white households rent.
"The parish's moratorium was intended to and had the effect of limiting or reducing the supply of multifamily housing of more than five units and disproportionately disadvantaged African-Americans seeking to rent housing in St. Bernard Parish," the complaint states.
"On March 7, 2006, the parish passed another moratorium, this time prohibiting the rental of single-family homes in St. Bernard Parish allegedly to 'preserve the integrity of single-family neighborhoods ... until such time as the post-Katrina real estate market in the parish stabilizes.'" (Ellipsis in complaint.)
Four months later, the parish enacted an ordinance to restore single-family rentals, but required renters to obtain a permit from the parish. Not long after, the parish allowed renters who rented to persons "related by blood" to do so without a permit.
The United States says" "The parish's blood-relative exception disproportionately disadvantaged African-Americans seeking to rent housing in the predominantly white community of St. Bernard Parish."
"The parish's stated purpose in enacting the blood-relative ordinance was to reestablish 'preexisting neighborhoods,' and to maintain the 'integrity,' 'quality of life,' 'family atmosphere' and 'quiet enjoyment' of 'long established neighborhoods.'
"However, a council member who voted against the ordinance stated that it was passed 'to block the blacks from living in these areas.'
"Craig Taffaro, a member of the Parish Council at the time, drafted and sponsored the blood-relative ordinance. Taffaro admitted at the time that 'all we're doing is saying we want to maintain the demographics.'
"The parish's blood-relative exception was designed to be a proxy for race in order to artificially fix the racial composition of renters in St. Bernard Parish."
In August 2007, the parish issued a new renter permit process that included a $250 application fee, granted the parish discretion to deny permits, and allowed no more than two permits to be issued for every 500 feet in districts zoned for single-family use.
"The parish has denied homeowner-applicants, including African-Americans, permits to rent their single-family dwellings," the complaint states.
The parish rescinded its permit requirement in April 2011.
Between 2008 and 2011, 10 residents and homeowners complained to the Department of Housing and Urban Development that the parish racially discriminated through its permitting process. (g 35)
After investigation, the matter was turned over to the attorney general.
In 2009, the parish made comprehensive revisions to its zoning ordinances that eliminated multifamily housing as a permitted use in four zones. The revisions restricted new multifamily dwellings - defined as housing with three or more units - to just one zone.
"Through the comprehensive revisions, the parish reduced the land available for development of multifamily housing as of right by 99.3%, leaving only 109 acres for such developments," the complaint states.
The comprehensive revisions "severely limited or reduced the supply or availability of multi-family housing of more than three units and disproportionately disadvantaged Africa-Americans seeking to rent housing in St. Bernard Parish."
A federal judge in October 2011 ruled in a case brought in 2006 against St. Bernard Parish by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center that the sequence of events surrounding zoning requirements in St. Bernard Parish "suggests the defendants have doggedly attempted to preserve the pre-Katrina demographics of St. Bernard Parish" and "presents ample evidence of intentional discrimination" against African-Americans.
"On January 28, 2011, John Trasvina, HUD's Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, filed a housing discrimination complaint on behalf of the HUD secretary ... alleging that the parish violated the Fair Housing Act by enacting and implementing the comprehensive revisions so as to continue to exclude African Americans from residing in the parish. On January 20, 2012, HUD referred this complaint to the Department of Justice as a potential pattern or practice violation of the Fair Housing Act," the complaint states.
In 2008, the parish and the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Advocacy Center entered into a consent order settling the center's lawsuit against the parish.
Four months later, Provident Realty Advisors, a multifamily housing developer, approached Parish President Craig Taffaro with plans to develop four multifamily, affordable-housing developments in the parish at a cost of $60 million.
The parish was told that $34 million of the funding would come from low-income housing tax credits. The tax credits would expire if not used by 2010.
In response, the parish enacted a moratorium on new construction of multifamily housing.
"Between July 2009, and November 2011, the court repeatedly found the parish in contempt over its attempts to prevent or impede the construction of Provident's affordable-housing developments," the government says.
The U.S. seeks an injunction and civil penalties.
St. Bernard Parish is just east of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, which was devastated by Katrina.
A Louisiana parish is the equivalent of other states' counties.
In its federal complaint, the United States says St. Bernard Parish enacted an illegal "blood relative ordinance" after the hurricane to prevent homeowners from renting to anyone not related to them by blood.
Two other plaintiffs filed similar complaints this week: the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Advocacy Center, and Nola Capital Group, of South Dakota.
All three plaintiffs accuse the parish of violating the Fair Housing Act, and ask the court to enjoin it from its "multiyear campaign to limit rental housing opportunities for African-Americans in St. Bernard Parish under the pretext of post-Hurricane Katrina recovery planning."
In his complaint, the U.S. attorney general says that in July 2005, before Hurricane Katrina, St. Bernard Parish was approximately 86 percent white and 10 percent African-American, and just 4 percent of the African-Americans were homeowners.
Neighboring Orleans Parish was 29 percent white and 67 percent African-American.
"As a result of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, St. Bernard Parish and the surrounding communities lost, and have yet to fully replace, a significant percentage of their single and multi-family rental housing stock," the complaint states.
The average vacancy rate for rental housing in St. Bernard Parish from 2005 to 2009 was 6.3 percent.
On Nov. 25, 2005, two months after Hurricane Katrina, the parish imposed a 12-month moratorium on re-establishment or development of any multifamily dwellings without parish approval.
Uncle Sam says that in the metropolitan New Orleans housing market, including St. Bernard Parish, 52 percent of African-American households are renters, while just 25 percent of white households rent.
"The parish's moratorium was intended to and had the effect of limiting or reducing the supply of multifamily housing of more than five units and disproportionately disadvantaged African-Americans seeking to rent housing in St. Bernard Parish," the complaint states.
"On March 7, 2006, the parish passed another moratorium, this time prohibiting the rental of single-family homes in St. Bernard Parish allegedly to 'preserve the integrity of single-family neighborhoods ... until such time as the post-Katrina real estate market in the parish stabilizes.'" (Ellipsis in complaint.)
Four months later, the parish enacted an ordinance to restore single-family rentals, but required renters to obtain a permit from the parish. Not long after, the parish allowed renters who rented to persons "related by blood" to do so without a permit.
The United States says" "The parish's blood-relative exception disproportionately disadvantaged African-Americans seeking to rent housing in the predominantly white community of St. Bernard Parish."
"The parish's stated purpose in enacting the blood-relative ordinance was to reestablish 'preexisting neighborhoods,' and to maintain the 'integrity,' 'quality of life,' 'family atmosphere' and 'quiet enjoyment' of 'long established neighborhoods.'
"However, a council member who voted against the ordinance stated that it was passed 'to block the blacks from living in these areas.'
"Craig Taffaro, a member of the Parish Council at the time, drafted and sponsored the blood-relative ordinance. Taffaro admitted at the time that 'all we're doing is saying we want to maintain the demographics.'
"The parish's blood-relative exception was designed to be a proxy for race in order to artificially fix the racial composition of renters in St. Bernard Parish."
In August 2007, the parish issued a new renter permit process that included a $250 application fee, granted the parish discretion to deny permits, and allowed no more than two permits to be issued for every 500 feet in districts zoned for single-family use.
"The parish has denied homeowner-applicants, including African-Americans, permits to rent their single-family dwellings," the complaint states.
The parish rescinded its permit requirement in April 2011.
Between 2008 and 2011, 10 residents and homeowners complained to the Department of Housing and Urban Development that the parish racially discriminated through its permitting process. (g 35)
After investigation, the matter was turned over to the attorney general.
In 2009, the parish made comprehensive revisions to its zoning ordinances that eliminated multifamily housing as a permitted use in four zones. The revisions restricted new multifamily dwellings - defined as housing with three or more units - to just one zone.
"Through the comprehensive revisions, the parish reduced the land available for development of multifamily housing as of right by 99.3%, leaving only 109 acres for such developments," the complaint states.
The comprehensive revisions "severely limited or reduced the supply or availability of multi-family housing of more than three units and disproportionately disadvantaged Africa-Americans seeking to rent housing in St. Bernard Parish."
A federal judge in October 2011 ruled in a case brought in 2006 against St. Bernard Parish by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center that the sequence of events surrounding zoning requirements in St. Bernard Parish "suggests the defendants have doggedly attempted to preserve the pre-Katrina demographics of St. Bernard Parish" and "presents ample evidence of intentional discrimination" against African-Americans.
"On January 28, 2011, John Trasvina, HUD's Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, filed a housing discrimination complaint on behalf of the HUD secretary ... alleging that the parish violated the Fair Housing Act by enacting and implementing the comprehensive revisions so as to continue to exclude African Americans from residing in the parish. On January 20, 2012, HUD referred this complaint to the Department of Justice as a potential pattern or practice violation of the Fair Housing Act," the complaint states.
In 2008, the parish and the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Advocacy Center entered into a consent order settling the center's lawsuit against the parish.
Four months later, Provident Realty Advisors, a multifamily housing developer, approached Parish President Craig Taffaro with plans to develop four multifamily, affordable-housing developments in the parish at a cost of $60 million.
The parish was told that $34 million of the funding would come from low-income housing tax credits. The tax credits would expire if not used by 2010.
In response, the parish enacted a moratorium on new construction of multifamily housing.
"Between July 2009, and November 2011, the court repeatedly found the parish in contempt over its attempts to prevent or impede the construction of Provident's affordable-housing developments," the government says.
The U.S. seeks an injunction and civil penalties.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Affordable housing in the center of Copenhagen...
Free-Spirited Enclave’s Reluctant Landowners Fear Capitalism’s Harness
Residents of Christiania, a 40-year experiment in communal living near downtown Copenhagen, are trying to buy the land they have squatted on, despite the ideological dissonance.
By SALLY McGRANE
Published: January 12, 2012
COPENHAGEN — Last summer, the Danish state offered to sell a good chunk of the 80-odd-acre former military base at the edge of downtown Copenhagen to Christiania, the alternative community whose residents had been squatting there illegally for four decades. For the residents, who fundamentally reject the idea of landownership, this presented an ideological quandary.
After a Supreme Court ruling that said the squatters had no legal right to remain on the land, the residents made a pragmatic decision to buy the property.
“Christiania has offered to buy it,” said Risenga Manghezi, a spokesman for the community. “But Christiania doesn’t want to own it.”
To resolve the contradiction, Mr. Manghezi and a handful of others decided to start selling shares in Christiania. Pieces of paper, hand-printed on site, the shares can be had for amounts from $3.50 to $1,750. Shareholders are entitled to a symbolic sense of ownership in Christiania and the promise of an invitation to a planned annual shareholder party. “Christiania belongs to everyone,” Mr. Manghezi said. “We’re trying to put ownership in an abstract form.”
Since the shares were first offered in the fall, about $1.25 million worth have been sold in Denmark and abroad. The money raised will go toward the purchase of the land from the government.
Justifying the transaction still takes some artful semantic twists. “According to their system, you are not an owner of a house, you’re a user of the house,” explained Knud Foldschack, the lawyer for the community who negotiated the purchase. “You don’t own the area, you care take the area.”
But after a rocky decade under a conservative-led government, during which the carless, hashish-friendly community faced threats of expulsion and a Supreme Court ruling that said the squatters had no legal right to remain on the land, the residents made a pragmatic decision to buy the property — or, as many would have it, to “buy it free.”
“People were afraid, and we had to respect this fear,” said Allan Lausten, a handyman who took part in the negotiations despite an aversion to bureaucrats.
The Danish state made it easy, too. Not only did officials offer to sell the land for about $14.5 million, a fraction of what it would be worth if sold commercially, but they also made several provisions to accommodate the Christianites’ way of life.
One sticking point was how to negotiate with a group run by consensus democracy, where a decision is made only if everyone who shows up at a meeting agrees. “Their system of government is very difficult to deal with from the perspective of the state,” said Carsten Jarlov, director of the Danish State Building Agency, who first began working on the deal in 2004. “What do you do with all these meetings, where everyone has a say and no one is responsible?”
The solution was to create a foundation, with a board made up of five residents and six outsiders, to act as owners on behalf of the Christianites.
Because it can be difficult for people who reject basic tenets of capitalism to get a loan, the Danish state also guaranteed the bank loan. Further, Danish officials stipulated that the land must remain open to the public. Lastly, any profit from the sale of the land or buildings would immediately revert to the state. “This is a nonprofit zone,” said Mr. Foldschack, who called the deal “fantastic” and its eight-year evolution “Buddhistic.”
Mr. Jarlov said the decision had broad-based political support. “Danish public opinion is very ambivalent, when it comes to Christiania,” he added. “If you ask if there should be space for Christiania in society, they say, ‘Yes, we love it!’ But if you say, ‘Is it a good idea to take over property you don’t own?’ they are against that. Every Dane has this split within himself.”
Jacob Ludvigsen, a newspaper editor who with some friends started squatting on the land the day after a fisherman told him about the unused space in 1971, welcomed the decision. “A 40-year-long conflict has been brought to an end,” said Mr. Ludvigsen, who no longer lives in Christiania but said that he carried a piece of Christiania in his heart. “This will give Christiania a real independence.”
Still, the sale makes many here uncomfortable. “I think it would have been better to remain squatters,” said a young man on Pusher Street as he sorted through a bag labeled “Outdoor Skunk.” “Pressure from the outside forces you to evolve, to stick together.”
Others point out that now the ramshackle, do-it-yourself community will have to come up with the money to pay for the land. But for many, the problem is less tangible.
“I have a feeling of sorrow that the state forced us to buy it,” said Ida Klemann, an artist who first moved to Christiania in 1971, then left to have a baby (at the time, there was no running water on the premises), before moving back in 1972. “I thought it was wonderful the Danish state was generous enough to allow this wild little thing to go on living inside itself.”
“When you say, ‘You have to buy it,’ you’re trying to throw it into normal conditions, in a way,” added Ms. Klemann, one of the progenitors of the Christiania share idea (she calls herself a “share carer”). “What do we do now? It’s not just money, but identity.”
In November, a small group traveled to the United States to promote the Christiania shares. They visited the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York, where they were greeted with cheers.
On Wall Street itself, they had less success. On a blog documenting the adventures of an anthropomorphic Christiania share — which would go on to have both an identity crisis and a love affair with a California road map — a video shows Mr. Manghezi performing on the street. “It’s not that there’s anything wrong with investing for profit,” he calls out. “It’s just so yesterday, and a little bit primitive, too!”
As a result of these efforts, the group sold two shares for $5 each on the steps of the New York Stock Exchange. But thanks to the publicity, sales here surged. “It’s a cultural difference,” Mr. Manghezi said. “We thought it was hilarious, and the Danish press thought it was hilarious, but Americans were like: ‘$10? That’s a total failure! You shouldn’t even talk about it.’ ”
“We’d like to be a speculation-free zone, an alternative to a society based on gambling and speculation,” Mr. Manghezi said. “Of course, if we have to take a loan, we will.”
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