Apartment study notes discrimination
Black residents encountered discrimination nearly six times out of 10 when apartment hunting in the New Orleans area post-Katrina, according to a new study released Tuesday by a local civil rights group.
The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center sent white and black testers to check out advertised rentals in four parishes between September 2006 and April 2007. The study found disparities in how landlords treat prospective tenants based on skin color.
In nearly 58 percent of searches throughout a four-parish area, black prospective renters were stonewalled while white applicants were welcomed, said James Perry, executive director of the housing group.
The testers attempted to rent properties in Jefferson, Orleans, St. Tammany and St. Bernard parishes, with the number of tests conducted in each parish based on post-hurricane population estimates reported in January by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Twenty of the tests were in Jefferson Parish, 10 in St. Tammany, nine in Orleans and one in St. Bernard. The study, called "For Rent, Unless You’re Black," named no landlords or street addresses of the rentals in question.
"People had the same income qualifications, the same income, same credit and comparable jobs," Perry said Tuesday after releasing the study at his downtown New Orleans office. "We isolated for race. That was the only difference."
The instances of discrimination not only violate federal civil rights law but also are hurting the region’s recovery, the study said.
"The lack of affordable rental housing is acute on the Gulf Coast and prevents many displaced residents from returning home," the study said. "Businesses cannot be successful in the post-hurricane environment if their employees don’t have a place to live."
"Post-Katrina, we face entirely new challenges," said Tony Keck, board president of the fair housing action center. "Decisions and actions by those in power have the potential to cement in place for the next 100 years entirely new patterns of discrimination on a grand scale — not just in housing, but in health care, education, and most other social institutions."
In test after test, the discrimination was subtle yet clear, the study found. Property owners made no racial slurs or direct statements.
"Instead, strategies were covert," the 25-page study said.
Black testers generally were given a more rigid application process than their white counterparts, and in 40 percent of the tests they were not told about all available units. In 20 percent of the tests, landlords simply didn’t return phone calls from black testers but found the time to call back white testers, apparently judging skin color by the sound of the voices in what Perry said is called "linguistic profiling."
In one test on March 9 in Jefferson Parish, a white tester reported that a landlord said, "We don’t want any loud rap music," and that she wanted "people that are more settled." Two black testers who called about the same rental were not called back.
In another test, a black tester was told the unit rented for $1,000 a month, although it was advertised for $850: the amount the white tester was quoted.
The testers were instructed to report — not interpret — the results of each test.
The study provides some evidence that more rentals are becoming available 20 months after Katrina, Perry said. But the number of available rentals doesn’t help if landlords are screening on the basis of race while black apartment-hunters find themselves turned away, he said.
"They may think they’re having bad luck," said Perry, a New Orleans lawyer. "But it’s because they have the wrong color skin."
In the lone St. Bernard test, done March 20, a black tester was shooed away by a landlord who said only one of two advertised units was still available — and not for another six weeks. The white tester was told on the same day that two units were available within three weeks, and the landlord said he had received a lot of interest in his rentals but didn’t want "certain types of people" moving in.
"You’re our kind of people," the landlord told the white tester.
Landlords who discriminate on the basis of race are in violation of the nation’s Fair Housing Act and might be subject to civil lawsuits.
The study is available online at www.gnofairhousing.org.
Students came from San Diego State University, Point Loma High School, San Diego FIST (Fight Imperialism - Stand Together) as well as some teachers from some of the local schools. Tchaiko Kwayana from Point Loma High School spoke of some of the work students at that school are doing to get books, art supplies and computers to the schools in New Orleans. Some students from SDSU had gone to New Orleans during spring break to see it for themselves as well as to find out what they could do to help.
