Even after 35 years since the United States Fair Housing Act was passed to protect homeowners and tenants from discrimination and unfair treatment, efforts still need to be made to combat continued adverse treatment of minority groups, including Asian Pacific Americans according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Assistant HUD Secretary for Far Housing and Equal Opportunity Carolyn Peoples said although her office has seen a slight decline in discrimination in the past decade, there is still a wide disparity nationwide among the percentage of white homebuyers and renters compared to those who are APA, black or Hispanic. Peoples was in San Francisco on Jan. 21 briefing local and regional HUD officers on federal efforts to end discrimination in housing.
“The message is, if you’re a minority and you’re looking for housing, you’re going to have obstacles,” Peoples said. “The Fair Housing Act looks to remove the greatest barrier there is to acquiring residency — discrimination.”
Although Asian Pacific Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area have the highest homeownership rates compared with any other racial and ethnic group, 46 percent; followed by whites, 33 percent; blacks, 30 percent; and Hispanics 27 percent, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, a recent HUD study shows APAs still faced discrimination when wanting to buy or rent a residence.
The study, released in July of 2003, provided the first ever estimate of the level of discrimination experienced by APAs based on 889-paired tests conducted in 11 metropolitan neighborhoods nationwide in 2000 and 2001. The findings show that APA prospective renters experienced consistent adverse treatment compared to whites in 21.5 percent of the tests, about the same level for blacks and Hispanic renters. APA prospective homebuyers faced adverse treatment compared to whites 20.4 percent of the time, with systematic discrimination occurring in housing availability, inspections, financing assistance and agent encouragement, according to the HUD study, “Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets: Phase 2 — Asian-Pacific Islanders.”
Tara Lai Quinlan, of the Washington, D.C.-based Relman and Associates, a law firm specializing in fair housing, fair lending, worked on the HUD housing discrimination study and supervised the entire housing sales portion of the study that covered all of Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
She said in doing the sales portion of the study, although the APA testers were equally qualified or more qualified to purchase homes than their white counterparts, there were multiple agents or agencies who wouldn’t offer them the same selection of homes that were offered to the white testers. For example, an APA tester might meet with an agent to see three homes, while a white tester might see six homes. Another problem, Quinlan said, was several agents refused to see the APA testers unless they were pre-qualified, but white testers with identical or less qualifications were allowed to see multiple homes without being pre-qualified first.
“Although these differences in treatment are not really obvious to the testers, these patterns still reflect the differential treatment of [APAs], and amounts to systemic violations of the Fair Housing Act by agents at multiple agencies throughout the Bay Area,” said Quinlan, who was a former test coordinator at Sentinel Fair Housing in Oakland, Calif. “This study was a significant milestone, as it’s the first time that [APAs] have been included as a minority group in a housing study of such a large scale.”
Last fall, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, an East Bay organization that educates low-income APAs about environmental and social justice, conducted a housing analysis of two East Bay APA communities, the Laotian American community in Richmond and the Chinese American community in the lower San Antonio/Eastlake district of Oakland. The report found that contrary to what some policymakers might say about “housing success,” housing conditions in Oakland and Richmond are still at crisis levels, especially for low income APAs.
“If we let current housing problems continue, the strength and preservation of our communities are at stake,” said Ada Chan, a researcher and organizer at APEN.
Housing costs increased 32 percent in Richmond and 21 percent in Oakland over the past three years, and 62 percent of households in Richmond and 50 percent in Oakland pay more than they can afford on housing, according to the APEN study. Chan said the report also found unhealthy housing conditions and lack of tenant protections, including high rates of evictions of APA tenants; 21 percent of tenants in Richmond and 29 percent of tenants in Oakland have been evicted in the past three years.
“It is encouraging to see HUD doing systematic research and paired testing regarding discrimination and APAs in the housing market since many APAs are reluctant to report their own experiences with housing discrimination,” Chan said. “If reporting on poor housing conditions are any indication, over half of the low-income [APA] families that we surveyed in the East Bay said they felt uncomfortable reporting unhealthy living conditions or repairs to their landlord for fear of retaliation.
“In Oakland, 72 percent were uncomfortable reporting poor housing conditions to a city inspector. And in Richmond, many of the refugee Laotian families we surveyed were not even aware that they could report such unsafe conditions to the city government,” Chan said.
Chan said many low-income APA families, immigrants and refugees with limited English proficiency and resources may not have access to information about their rights as tenants and renters, or may not feel comfortable exercising those rights.
“Low income [APAs] do share a lot of the same problems as other low income communities of color, such as discrimination, high-rent burden, overcrowding and higher rates of eviction,” Chan said. “However, because of specific dynamics in the Asian community — like fear of government and language barriers — the impacts on the low income immigrant portions of our community are much greater, making the community more vulnerable to being uprooted by housing problems. Affordable housing is a huge part of stabilizing the community — particularly for those working at below living wage or seniors on fixed incomes.”
Peoples said her office is continuing to enforce the Fair Housing Act, and also to educate minority and immigrant groups about this law. She added that the office is seeking to expand its multi-language services, which currently serves the Hispanic, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Hmong populations.
Gen Fujioka, staff attorney at Asian Law Caucus, said race still plays a huge role and that APAs are being discriminated against in ways that are often invisible to individuals in the community. He added that HUD still has to address and tackle the problems brought forth in the study, as well as find a way to tackle language discrimination, since HUD is one of the last federal agencies to adopt guidelines on language barriers.
“It is important to note that this study clearly understates the extent of real life discrimination against [APAs] nationally,” Fujioka said. “APAs in outlying areas are more likely to experience higher levels of discrimination, and these areas were not tested in the study. Also, the study does not account for language and accent discrimination, and given the number of immigrants in our community, this is an additional area of concern.”
Quinlan said there needs to be much more education and outreach about fair housing issues in the APA community, for both renters, buyers and landlords. She said she’s seen cases where APA landlords have violated the Fair Housing Act, believing that owning property, they’re entitled to rent only to APAs, or to subject their tenants to unfair or illegal terms and conditions or subject non-APAs tenants to different terms and conditions than APA tenants.
“The reality is that being a property owner is not a license to discriminate, and the [APA] community, too, must be educated about fair housing rights and responsibilities,” Quinlan said. “The results of the study yielded some results that were probably surprising to many in the American mainstream, since it shows the obstacles that [APAs], too, encounter in their quest to achieve the American dream. The study shows that [APAs] still have a long way to go before we are actually treated equally in society, which is the important realization of desire for equal treatment under the law.
“I think it’s an important recognition of the growing force in American society that [APAs] represent, as well as recognition that Asian Americans, too, are a minority group subjected to discrimination, despite the model minority stereotype that we don’t face discrimination.”
at the fuccery. I need to put this damn phone down and hit this gym before I fukk around and lose my motivation 
