Featured: Housing (In)Justice in The Bay Area
This is a featured article written by Andrés Martinez
The PROBLEM is RACIAL CAPITALISM!
Let it be known. From the beginning of the colonial states' conception, indentured servitude and enslaved people were in high demand globally. Those enslaved were mainly kidnapped indigenous people from different regions in continental America and Africa. They were not white. So, race shaped the national economic ventures by wealthy white men that were essential to the founding economic stability and longevity of what would soon become the United States. That market grew out of the extraction of labor from black and brown people and was defended by its perpetrators by all means. “Slave Codes” governing the mobility of Black people were in every state’s law codes and soon they’d be renamed to “Black Codes” doing quite exactly the same: establishing institutional governing of black people to easily silence when they see fit. Racialized capitalism in the U.S. requires this kind of policing so that Black Americans are unable to infringe on the assured power of majority white elites. Initially, when it came to housing, racial capitalism was bound up in white supremacy through redlining and other forms of exclusionary zoning and displacement. Even as these practices become somewhat socially unacceptable and somewhat legally prohibited, our society continues to exist in racial capitalism. As contemporary narratives of the Bay Area portray it as progressively inclined, the structures in it have not transcended racialized forms of housing discrimination. The legacies of exclusionary zoning laws continue to shape current housing policy. Urbanization disproportionally displaces low-income to no-income people of color. The institutions within RACIAL CAPITALISM continue to refuse public affordable housing to be considered a
HUMAN RIGHT.
The issues. Not at all an exhaustive list of the intersections of economic/social class, race, gender, and sexuality that make it so housing in the Bay Area is either more or less accessible to an individual.
Gentrification. Capitalist urbanization historically disproportionally displaces communities of color.
It is often regarded as urbanization under a single motivator, money. This is only part of a fuller truth. In opposition to NIMBY politics, an ideology that established itself as political action based on the needs of predominantly white neighborhoods, YIMBY took shape. Opposite to “Not In My Back Yard” politics, “Yes, In My Backyard” politics promotes up-zoning and development to combat urban segregation. A fault in this is that this thinking forgets the history of displacement from urbanization and these changes in communities of color result in evictions due to increased housing prices. Likewise, transportation development is another form of gentrification that has put low-income renters at risk for eviction. Often well-funded transportation developments may connect neighbors to a larger economy with more opportunities for class mobility. What if a person is already employed in their neighborhood? Then, these kinds of developments might drive them out as housing demand increases, hence rent prices as well. Under a false notion of equity, policymakers fund public transportation developments in low-income neighborhoods to attract higher-earning people into an area already settled in. Neighborhoods are entirely disrupted, and people are evicted and unhoused.
Devaluation of Black-owned assets.
Land and home ownership is inextricably linked with power and generational wealth in the United States. The wealthy are able to afford to own more than one home to build their wealth and predominantly low-income people of color can not. Even as laws that had kept black homeownership, especially in white neighborhoods, at a low, the value of their assets today is still linked with perceptions of Black people. ALL over the United States, Black-owned property is disproportionally devalued. In San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, there is a -27.1% average devaluation of homes in majority Black neighborhoods. In the United States, this racial bias amounts to $156 billion in cumulative losses for mainly Black individuals and families.
Criminalization of homelessness.
Criminalizing homeless people will never solve homelessness. Homeless people often reside in neighborhoods that are already disproportionately policed and are then likelier to receive violations for committing “uncivil” behavior otherwise allowed if done on private property. They have no other choice but to do so. These are anti-homeless policies that ban sleeping, panhandling, and camping which is all necessary if someone is unhoused and with little to no income in the Bay Area. Those who receive citations for this are more likely to be incarcerated because of a prior conviction and given high bail amounts. Even when interactions with the police are non-violent and non-confrontational, there is rarely information on affordable housing and other resources shared. Criminalizing and policing homeless people will never solve homelessness.
Solutions in the NOW. Again, not an exhaustive list. Changing and dismantling the institutions of the present require not one solution to make housing equitably accessible to everyone in the Bay Area. The following solutions are mostly working within the systems of oppression in consideration of the issue at present, but ultimate housing equality will be achieved outside of any capitalistic society. True housing equality will be only found in a large dismantling of how the U.S. functions in reckoning with its legacies of racialized violence and exclusion.
Anti-displacement solutions to homeless people and prevent further homelessness.
Increase the required number of affordable housing in all new housing developments in all counties.
Formalize a more standard practice in how the value of homes is assessed. No possibility of racial bias.
New public housing programs that are healthy, energy efficient, and affordable housing. Energy-efficient housing is less likely to have mold and other toxins which leads to healthier lives.
Place new public housing in “high-opportunity” locations because it is so rarely done so. Also, housing programs must offer high-quality free career services.
Adopt Fair Chance Ordinances into local legislation. In Richmond, City Council voted “Fair Chance Access to Affordable Housing Ordinance” into local legislation. It makes it possible for people with prior arrest and conviction records to be considered for housing that they would not have been considered for otherwise. Housing providers are able to acquire an applicant's criminal record but are only allowed to review it after offering housing.
Overturn anti-homeless laws now. Legislative policing of the movements and actions of homeless people who are predominately people of color in the Bay Area can be changed and ruled out altogether. This change can be made on all levels of government.
Bibliography
Herring, Chris, et al. “Criminalization Fails to End Homelessness in San Francisco.” Housing Matters, 29 July 2020, housingmatters.urban.org/research-summary/criminalization-fails-end-homelessness-san-francisco.
McElroy, Erin, and Andrew Szeto. “The Racial Contours of YIMBY/NIMBY Bay Area Gentrification.” Berkeley Planning Journal, vol. 29, no. 1, Mar. 2018, https://doi.org/10.5070/bp329138432.
Menendian, Stephen. “Transportation Policy Is Housing Policy.” The Berkeley Blog, 6 Sept. 2013, blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/09/06/transportation-policy-is-housing-policy/.
National Housing Law Project. Fair Chance Ordinances: An Advocates Toolkit. www.nhlp.org/wp-content/uploads/021320_NHLP_FairChance_Final.pdf. Accessed 9 Nov. 2022.
Palm, Matthew, and Deb Niemeier. “Achieving Regional Housing Planning Objectives: Directing Affordable Housing to Jobs-Rich Neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area.” Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 83, no. 4, Oct. 2017, pp. 377–88. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2017.1368410.
Perry, Andre M., et al. “The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods.” Brookings, Brookings, 27 Nov. 2018, www.brookings.edu/research/devaluation-of-assets-in-black-neighborhoods/.
“Plan, Issues, Housing.” Racial Equity Tools, www.racialequitytools.org/resources/Plan/Issues/Housing. Accessed 9 Nov. 2022.
Schten, Rachel, et al. California’s Low-Income Weatherization Multi- Family Program Successes, Challenges, and Implications for Housing Justice. www.urbandisplacement.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/LIWP.pdf. Accessed 14 Nov. 2022.
UC Berkely Social Science Matrix. “Homelessness and the Bay Area Housing Crisis.” Social Science Matrix, 28 Sept. 2020, matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/video-homelessness-and-bay-area-housing-crisis/.
