Housing Discrimination: Racialized, Persistent, and Hard for Victims to Detect

This week, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its research partner the Urban Institute released a new report documenting the ongoing presence of housing discrimination against people of color in the U.S. rental and home buying markets. The lengthy report and its more digestible executive summary are available here for download while a press release from HUD is available here.

In short, the report finds that violations of the U.S. fair housing laws remain all too common and contribute to broader race-based inequalities. As HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said at the report release event, documenting the prevalence and dynamics of housing discrimination is an important part of ensuring that our country is living up to the ideals of equality of opportunity that we aspire to uphold. Donovan points out that while housing discrimination has become more “subtle,” this does not diminish its severity as a driver of inequity. The numbers in the report may seem abstract, but they represent, he said, families “denied a fair shot at the American dream.”

The over 8000 pair tests conducted in 28 metropolitan areas across the U.S. clearly documented discrimination against black, Asian and Hispanic renters and aspiring homebuyers. For example, while testers of color and white testers were equally likely to receive an appointment to meet with a rental housing provider, the testers of color were then told about fewer available units and shown fewer units than their equally qualified white counterparts. (Check out these charts from Urban on how the precise breakdown by race.) Margery Turner of the Urban Institute and one of the primary authors of the study used an example to explain how this works in practice. In one representative test, an Asian tester went first to a rental property and was shown an available unit. A few hours later that same day, the white tester was also shown the available unit and then shown an additional four available units.

As Turner notes, pair testing is a uniquely valuable research tool because it allows researchers to identify instances of discrimination that are otherwise nearly impossible for a “real-world” victim to detect. She was also careful to note that while this study is able to capture the dimensions of how discrimination is happening, it very likely understates the level of discrimination present in reality. There are two major reasons why this is the case.

First, the testers used in this study were all “unambiguously qualified” on paper for the homes they were seeking out. The researchers’ aim was to control for other factors so that racial identity was the sole unit of analysis. Thus, the average income assigned to the testers was actually higher than the actual average income of black, Hispanic and Asian people in that metropolitan area. As the report explains, "whites and minorities differ systematically in employment, income, assets, and debts" which makes it challenging to determine exactly how disparities emerge and play out in reality. Regardless, housing access profoundly affects job opportunities, educational outcomes for children, exposure to health risks, proximity to amenities, and a host of other things that in turn affect income, wealth, and movement up the economic ladder.

Second, the report is not able to document other forms of housing discrimination that emerge in other parts of the housing search process, such as the way racially segregated social or professional networks lead to disparate awareness of housing opportunities, during the mortgage loan or lease negotiation process, or during the application process when documents may mysteriously “disappear.” Turner noted that the report shows a decline in more “blatant” forms of discrimination (such as “door-slamming”) but that more subtle forms persist. Victims of these types of housing discrimination would generally not be able to detect the methods the researchers documented.

The report also attempts to clarify the way perception of racial identity affects a person’s experience in the housing search process. A team of researchers independently assessed the race of the testers by evaluating their name, speech patterns, and physical appearance. This process of categorization allowed the research team to be able to document that “minorities whose ethnicity is more readily identifiable experience more discrimination than those who may be mistaken for whites.” This finding raises many questions, including about the politics and history of racial identification, the race of the researchers conducting the assessments, the potential inclusion of biracial testers and so forth. Nevertheless, the study serves as an important reminder that while perception of racial identity indeed has profound effects on housing opportunity, perceived identity is subjective, relational, and contextually variant.

While representatives of HUD clearly take the issue of housing discrimination very seriously, it is not evident how this research will translate into improved enforcement of fair housing laws. Nikole Hannah-Jones’ work for the ProPublic series “Living Apart: Fair Housing in America” documents HUD’s unwillingness to engage in more active enforcement measures out of concern it would compromise its perceived “neutrality.” At the report’s release, Secretary Donovan did point to the need for vigorous enforcement of fair housing laws, but did not get specific on how HUD would achieve this. He did, however, draw attention to HUD’s recent development of a mobile app through which people can submit complaints about suspected housing law violations.   

While technological innovation and creativity from HUD is certainly an important step, relying on a mobile app to document housing discrimination is an inadequate approach in light of this report’s findings. The report overwhelmingly suggest that the experience of housing discrimination today is such that victims of housing violations are often not aware they’ve faced discrimination. It is neither possible nor desirable for victims of housing violations to serve as the primary alarm system that racial discrimination persists in the housing market. The burden of proof is simply too high for individuals, which is precisely why we need ongoing large-scale studies like this one. The findings from this report certainly play a critical role in illustrating how discrimination is playing out in our communities and affecting equality of access to housing. However, without adequate attention from policymakers and federal agencies to meaningful and effective enforcement mechanisms, the U.S. will continue to struggle to combat housing discrimination, particularly as it continues to occur in obscure, highly individualized ways.