African Americans Face Housing Discrimination in the Bay Area

A new study shows that African Americans in Alameda County face housing discrimination in the rental market. In 2005 the fair housing advocacy group ECHO Housing (Eden Council for Hope and Opportunity) sent 2 white and 2 black men with identical tenant profiles, to view the same 53 rental units in Alameda, Union City, Livermore, Pleasanton and Hayward. The 53 properties were chosen at random and the study showed housing discrimination occurred 26% of the time.

The fair housing advocacy group conducts annual studies on housing discrimination in Alameda County. In 2005 the study focused on African Americans. The 7-month study compared the treatment of two white “majority” and two black “minority” testers by property managers. According to Angie Watson-Hajem a fair housing specialist at ECHO Housing, who worked on the study, the African American testers were discriminated against 26% of the time. Watson-Hajem said African American testers were not told of move in specials and vacancies, “In this situation they both went out to the complex and talked with the manager and the manager told the majority tester, the white tester about the 500 dollar move in special and the black tester was not told of this special at all. There was one situation where the testers both went out to the complex and saw the same manager. The minority tester was told there were no vacancies, and the majority tester showed up and was told about three vacancies.”

Hayward property managers scored well on the test but Livermore and Union City property managers scored poorly. In Livermore while a white tester was allowed to view an apartment, the black tester waited two hours before he was denied access to the same rental unit. Fair housing advocates say that because it is illegal, housing discrimination is usually covert. Most people are unaware they’ve been discriminated against and some property owners and managers are unaware of anti-discrimination laws. Watson-Hajem said the annual discrimination study ECHO Housing conducts is to educate owners and managers about housing discrimination. “Part of our mission is to undercover these kind of discriminatory acts. The other part of it is that I hope the people who were part of this audit, the managers and landlords, will come forward and get trained. A lot of times managers will say something or do something they think is perfectly legal and it’s not.”

The proprietors, who received low scores in test, will be served with notices of their alleged discrimination. The notices will include an invitation to attend a housing discrimination seminar.