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Journal of Human Relations Desegregation and Open Occupancy Trends in Housing, Fall 1954

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09640.096 Author/Creator: Journal of Human Relations Place Written: Wilberforce, Ohio Type: Pamphlet Date: 1954 Pagination: 10 p. ; 24 x 15.3 cm. Order a Copy

One pamphlet entitled "Desegregation and Open Occupancy Trends in Housing," by B.T. McGraw printed in 1954 by Journal of Human Relations. Topics included: equal opportunity in urban planning; housing; finance; statistics of state and local legislation proposed to forbid segregation in housing; action taken by federal agencies; local agencies; private housing agencies; public interest groups; and developing literature around the issue.

[Draft Created by Crowdsourcing]
Desegregation and Open
Occupancy Trends
In Housing

By
B. T. McGRAW

Reprinted from
JOURNAL OF HUMAN RELATIONS
Central State College, (Wilberforce, Ohio) Quarterly
Fall Issue, 1954

(Reproduced by the Housing and Home Finance Agency
with permission of the Editorial Board of
Journal of Human Relations)

[2]
Desegregation and Open Occupancy
Trends in Housing*
B. T. McGRAW

More and more, citizens in every walk of life are increasingly concerned today with advancement of sound policy and action in urban planning, housing and home finance which will ensure equal treatment and opportunity for all, and which will free nonwhites to compete in an open market for housing, without restriction upon race. The decisions by the United States Supreme Court on May 3, 1948, which prohibited judicial enforcement of racial restrictive covenants on real property, have served to accelerate these trends, with the result that freer and wider dispersion of Negro and other racial minority families is proceeding progressively throughout the existing housing supplies in most urban centers. Despite revisions in federal mortgage insurance policies to out-law racial covenants and bring FHA operations into conformity with pertinent court decisions, racial minorities are still being generally exclude from the expanding new private housing supplies, developed mainly in suburban areas ringing out older central cities, many of which are financed with federal aids.
We propose in this brief discussion, first to define the nature of the added problem faced by nonwhites in acquiring decent housing, and second, to point out some significant desegregation and open occupancy trends recently in housing as evidenced by public and private organization and leadership activity.

The Problem. In Acquiring decent housing, Negro and other racial minorities experience especial difficulties beyond those which confront others. Census data of 1950, while indicating significant improvement in the housing conditions of nonwhites since 1940, reveal that 26.6 per cent of nonfarm homes of nonwhites were dilapidated as compared to 5.4 per cent for whites. Not only was the proportion of overcrowding in dwellings occupied by nonwhites four times that as high as that for whites in 1950, but the extent of overcrowding among nonwhites had actually

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*The views expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of the Housing and Home Finance Agency in which he is employed as Deputy Assistant to the Administrator. The author gratefully acknowledges helpful advice and suggestions from two of his associates in the Agency: Frank S. Horne, Assistant to the Admin- istrator, and George B. Nesbitt, Assistant to the Director of the Division of Slum Clearance and Urban Redevelopment.
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increased in 1950 over 1940. Meanwhile, annual incomes among non-whites trebled, according to Census data, and their economic and cultural status improved substantially. Although their improved economic status was reflected,in part,by a sharper rise in nonfarm home ownership among nonwhites-93 per cent compared to 70 per cent among whites-the majority of nonwhite families were still renters in 1950. Census data also attest that nonwhites have usually received less housing value and less home financing service per dollar spent by them for shelter than do whites and also less favorable home financing terms. In other words, a dollar in a nonwhite hand will buy less housing value than will a dollar in a white hand. These are the inevitable results of practices-all too prevalent in the working of our free private enterprise economy and democratic society which have differentiated and segmented local housing markets and supplies on the basis of race or color, and have tended generally to restrict or exclude nonwhites from the better housing and newly developed neighborhoods and thus constrict them generally into the poorer housing and largely within the more crowded, blighted, and slum areas.
Concerted effort to expand and improve the housing and home financing available to racial minorities has increasingly become recognized as a major area of housing stress during the past decade, as well as one of the most complicated problem areas. A prime objective of this effort is more nearly to equalize housing opportunities to all groups-"to assure equal opportunity for all of our citizens to acquire within their means, good and well-located homes," without regard to any such factors as race or religion. Of the significant steps and progress so far made pursuant to this effort, we would point out now only those relevant to the subject of this paper.
Policy of Federal Housing Agencies-The Housing and Home Finance Agency issued, on November 15, 1951, a statement of policy with respect to defense housing and community facilities assisted or provided by the housing and Home Finance Agency under the Defense Housing and Community Facilities and Services Act of 1951. With respect to privately financed defense housing, this policy provided that: "In processing applications for such FHA field office in such manner as will assure, prior to the issuance of approvals for the total program, that the amount of housing required to meet the needs of the estimated number
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DESEGREGATION AND OPEN OCCUPANCY TRENDS IN HOUSING

of in-migrant defense workers of minority groups will be provided and will be available to such workers as needed." This requirement was later supplemented to provide that: "During comparative analysis of applications, prior to the beginning of normal mortgage insurance processing, as among those applications which propose the construction of open occupancy development."
With respect to publicly financed defense housing, the policy provided that: "Defense housing provided directly by the Housing and home Finance Administrator pursuant to the Title III of the Defense Housing and Community Facilities and Services Act shall be developed so that it can be readily made available for occupancy by any eligible defense worker Occupancy of any such defense housing shall not be denied to any eligible defense worker on the basis of race, color, creed, or national origin."
The policies and procedures of the Division of Slum Clearance and Urban Redevelopment include this requirement: "Every contract for financial assistance under Title I will require that the local public agency (a) shall cause to be removed or abrogated any covenant or other provision in any agreement, lease, conveyance or other instru-ment restricting, upon the basis of race, creed or color, the sale, lease or occupancy of any land which it acquires as part of a project; and (b) shall adopt effective measures to assure that no covenant, agree-ment, lease, conveyance, or other instrument may be validly executed by the local public agency, the redeveloper or his successors in in-terest, restricting the sale, lease or occupancy of any real estate in the project areas upon the basis of race, creed or color. This requirement does not apply to any other covenants or restrictions within the purview of the redevelopment plan pertaining to the types of improve-ments which may be built in the project area or the uses to which such real estate may be put."
The Federal Housing Administration revised its instructions on "Eligibility of Properties for Mortgage Insurance" when, on February 18, 1949, it issued instruction to Directors of All Field Offices to the following effect:

No application of mortgage insurance shall be rejected solely on the grounds that the subject property or types of occupancy might affect market attitudes towards other properties in the same neighborhood…
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Therefore, in the processing of further applications, no consideration of the probable effects of the subject property I know and other properties shall be reflected.
In the future, mortgage insurance shall not be precluded (1) because of a different type of
occupancy, regardless of whether or not it is in violation of a restrictive covenant; (2) nor shall such insurance be precluded on the ground that the introduction of a different occupancy type may affect values of other properties in the area.
As a result of definitive study of the public policy underlying the United States Supreme Court's decision in the racial covenant cases in 1948, the FHA and Veterans Administration issued specific amendments to render the federal aids they administer unavailable for assistance in the financing of a property for which any instrument or agreement of record is executed after February 15, 1950, whereby the occupancy or sale thereof is restricted on the basis of race, color or creed. Further on February 1, 1950, the FHA issued amendments to its Underwriting Manual which contained two noteworthy statements as follows

1242. Underwriting considerations shall recognize the right to equality of opportunity to receive the benefits of the mortgage insurance system and obtaining adequate housing accommodations irrespective of race, color, creed or national origin. Underwriting considerations and conclusions are never based on discriminatory attitudes or prejudice. Determinations which adversely affect the eligibility of mortgage insurance, the degree of mortgage risk, or the evaluation of the property to be insured shall be supported by observable conditions, precedent or experience directly applicable to the subject case.
1303. Requirements and standards applying to real estate pertain to characteristics of the property and neighborhood in which the real estate is located, and are technical in character. They do not pertain to the user groups, because homogeneity or heterogeneity of neighborhoods as to race, creed, color or nationality is not a consideration in establishing eligibility.

In each of the instances cited, it is to be observed that the federal agencies prohibit only the use of instruments and agreements of record imposing racial restrictions upon others, and they do not attempt to control any owner in determining what tenants he shall have or to whom he shall sell his property.
Under present policy, the Sha does encourage and assist any eligible, sound Housing Development weather is occupancy is to be segregated by race or open to all Races without restrictions. In fact, just in the last three or four years, the Sha has issued mortgage insurance commitments for a score of open occupancy development, located in
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DESEGREGATION AND OPEN OCCUPANCY TRENDS IN HOUSING

such cities as Los Angeles, California; Washington, D. C.; Chicago, Illinois; Montclair, New Jersey; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington. Especially noteworthy among these are Washington's Holly House, a 65-unit rental project, occupied 55 per cent white and 45 per cent non-white; Philadelphia's Flamingo Apartments, a 300-unit rental project, occupied 50 per cent white and 50 per cent non-white; Philadelphia's (American Friends) Eighth and Brown Mutual Housing Corporation, a 100-unit rehabilitation project, occupied 65 per cent white and 35 per cent non-white. Further, the FHA practice is to accept eligible applicants, without regard to race, for occupancy or purchase of any property acquired after foreclosure and payment of the mortgage insurance.
The Public Housing Administration's official policy states "The following general statement of racial policy shall be applicable to all low-rent housing projects developed and operated under the United States Housing Act of 1937, as amended
1. Programs for the development of low-rent housing, in order to be eligible for PHA assistance, must reflect equitable provision for eligible families of all races determined on the approximate volume and urgency of their respective needs for such housing.
2. While the selection of tenants and the assigning of dwelling units are primarily matters for local determination, urgency of need and the preferences prescribed in the Housing Act of 1949 are the basic statutory standards for the selection of tenants."
The PHA has readily accommodated its policy and procedures to facilitate and assist interracial occupancy where the local public housing authorities voluntarily, or under state or local mandate, decide upon open occupancy policy and also has published a bulletin on Open Occupancy in Public Housing (January 1953) for guidance of interested local authorities.
State and Local Legislation-Many states and cities have enacted prohibitions against racial discrimination and segregation in public housing, and a lesser number of such prohibitions cover urban redevelopment housing also. Since the racial covenant decisions by the Supreme Court in 1948, this trend has picked up; for example, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey have outlawed segregation in public housing; and Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York have forbidden it in urban redevelopment housing. Likewise, local legislation prohibiting segregation in public housing has been enacted
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in Boston, Cleveland, Hartford, Philadelphia, Pontiac, Newark, Buffalo, Providence, St. Paul, and toledo. The State of Connecticut and the City of New York have enacted provisions prohibiting racial discrimination or segregation in publicly assisted private housing developments, including FHA and VA-aided developments. This recent list plus the old list of such legislation enacted before the 1948 racial covenant decisions add up to a respectable total body of state and local laws and practice prohibiting enforced racial segregation and discrimination in housing.
Action by Local Public Agencies-Local public authorities in a number of cities, such as New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles had adopted a policy of open occupancy in public housing even before the 1948 racial covenant decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, local housing authorities, under state or local mandate or court decisions, have decided to change their existing public housing programs from racially segregated to open occupancy in Buffalo, Denver, Minneapolis, Omaha, Phoenix, Portland (Oregon), Youngstown, Las Vegas, Washington (D.C.) , Wilmington (Delaware), Detroit, Evansville, Toledo, Sacramento, San Francisco, and nine smaller localities in California. Several new local housing authorities pursuant to the authorization of the Housing Act of 1949, have planned or already initiated new low-rent public housing programs under open occupancy policy, such as Pontiac, Vancouver, Van Buren (Maine), Manchester (New Hampshire), Anaconda (Montana), Clovis (New Mexico), and about a dozen smaller California localities. It is a significant trend that, whereas only some 25 per cent of the projects in the whole prewar public housing program were interracially occupied, a preliminary review, in the spring of 1952, of development plans of some 230 new projects in the new low-rent public program, authorized under the Housing Act of 1949, revealed that 97 projects or 42 per cent of these 230 projects planned unrestricted occupancy open to all Races.
Action by Private Housing Agencies-Subsequent to the 1948 Supreme Court decisions on racial covenants, some of the progessive leadership among private housing industry and finance have also begun to indicate a growing measure of concern and take some responsible action toward improving housing opportunity of minorities but mainly through segregated housing. In June 1949, for example the
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DESEGREGATION AND OPEN OCCUPANCY TRENDS IN HOUSING
National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) issued a news release on Recommendations to Local Boards which urged that "they undertake to provide better housing for Negro families" and emphasized that "reluctance of financial institutions to purchase mortgages on Negro property must be gradually overcome." In December 1949, the Mortgage Banker announced: "It is the policy of the Mortgage Bankers' Association to make loans available to all people without distinction as to race, color orcCreed within the limitation of sound lending practices." In the fourth quarter, 1949, FHA's Portfolio quoted The Mortgage Banker on satisfactory experiences with loans on properties occupied by Negroes. In March 1950, a Memorandum to Members of the National Association of Home Builders from the Executive Vice-President appeared in the Correlator and emphasized that "housing for minority groups in low-income families comprise a vast new market for home builders." In January 1951, NAREB released its revised Code of Ethics eliminating the reference to "race or nationality" from Article 34 which had formerly stated: "A realtor should not be instrumental in introducing into any neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individual whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in the neighborhood." The April 1953 issue of House and Home carried an interesting article on "Non White Housing" delineating the deficits and potentials of private enterprise. This year, the National Association of Home Builders, at its annual convention in January, held the second of its regular round-table panels on Housing Minority Groups which was well attended, incisive and revealing; devoted the March issue of its official monthly publication, the Correlator, mainly to this subject; and has established a National NAHB Committee on Housing Minority Groups under the chairmanship of Wallace E. Johnson, a Memphis builder, who has won national repute for his successes in producing and supplying new standard housing available to Negroes within their means. The Mortgage Bankers' Association has established a similar committee, headed by James W. Rouse, a Baltimore mortgage banker, to work within its structure in opening up the necessary flow of mortgage financing for housing available to minorities.
Since 1948, more than a score of new privately financed housing projects have been developed, with and without FHA mortgage insur-
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ance, which are open to all races without distinction, and the experience so far reported has all been good. A prominent official of New York City's largest savings bank has expressed the feeling that, on the basis of his bank's salutary experience with financing developments of inter-racial housing, such developments may well be the answer to the complicated relocation problem for redevelopment projects.
Action by Public Interest Groups-Racial and religious minorities have been joined by organized veteran, church, labor and women's groups in support of antisegregation [sic] action involving the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government at all levels, as well as private industry and finance. A notable new example, in addition to old line organizations such as the National Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of colored People, and others, is the New York State Committee on Discrimination in Housing established in 1948 and its striking success in influencing open occupancy housing. The enactment of the Wicks-Austin Act prohibiting discrimination or segregation in housng built by the State or assisted by the state through tax exemption or eminent domain, and also the Brown-Isaacs-Sharkey Ordinance by the City of New York prohibiting discrimination or segregation in any publicly assisted housing, including FHA-insured or VA-guaranteed housing, reflects the broadening democratic concern and action by public interest groups and citizen leadership.
In 1950, this group (New York State Committee) spearheaded formation of a National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing designed to duplicate the New York State effort on the national front in behalf of a freely open and democratic market for housing. Similar community action at the existing neighborhood levels is being directed toward such ends as opening up local housing supplies fully directed toward such ends as opening up local housing supplies fully to minority groups, improving intergroup understanding and adjustment, establishing and maintaining proper housing standards and neighborhood conservation, preventing violence and hostility against nonwhites, and restraining whites from panic-flights as nonwhites move in.
Developing Literature-There is developing a growing body of literature embracing more factual information and objective appraisal of condition, factors and results which are involved in freeing the markets for housing and home finance of restrictions based on race and color. The need is urgent to expand the careful documentation and the wide dissemination and understanding of such literature. For
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example, there is need to multiply additions to and dissemination of the discerning body of developing literature such as the following:

1. The Negro Ghetto, by Robert C. Weaver
2. Interracial Housing, by Deutsch and Collins
3. Housing of the Nonwhite Population, 1940-1950, HHFA-OA, July 1952
4. Open Occupancy in Public Housing, HHFA-PHA, 1953
5. Equality of Opportunity in Housing, National Community Relations Advisory Council
6. "New 'Gresham's Law of Neighborhoods'-Fact or Fiction," by Charles Abrams, in The Appraisal Journal, July 1951
7. "Values in Transition Areas. Some New Concepts," by Belden Morgan in The Review of the Society of Residential Appraisers, March 1952
8. "Effects of Nonwhite Purchases on Market Prices of Residences," by Luigi M. Laurenti in The Appraisal Journal, July 1952
9. "Aftermath of Shelley v. Kraemer on Residential Restriction by Race," by McGraw and Nesbitt in Land Economics, August, 1953
10. " 'Restricted' Area Does It Pay?-Values Usually Not Affected by Lifting Bars," U S. News & World Report, October 23, 1953
Contemporaneous Federal Action-Currently, as indicated by President Eisenhower in his Housing Message to the Congress, the administrative policies governing the operations of the various housing agencies of the Federal Government are being revised and studied pursuant to strengthening and augmenting their operating effectiveness in order to assume the same housing opportunities the nonwhites and white alike, solely on the basis of competitive qualifications and eligibility requirements.
It is noteworthy that the final report of the President's Advisory Committee on Housing Policies and Programs, which was predominantly composed of private businessmen, made this trenchant observation: "Too often, the opportunities of the minority group families to obtain adequate housing are extremely limited or nonexistent. Too often, the workings of our free economy do not provide solutions that benefit minorities. . ." The Committee calls for "changes in the attitudes of private investors" and that the changes be "bolstered by vigorous administrative practice" as an essential basis for substantial improvement in the housing conditions of minority groups.
In his special Housing Message to the Congress on January 25, 1954, the President stated: "It must be frankly and honestly acknowledged that many members of minority groups, regardless of their in-
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come or economic status, have had the least opportunity of all our citizens to acquire good homes. Some progress, although far too little, has been made by the Housing Agency in encouraging the production and financing of adequate housing available to members of minority
groups. However, the administrative policies governing the operations of the several housing agencies must be, and they will be, materially strengthened and augmented in order to assure equal opportunity for all of our citizens to acquire, within their means, good and well-located
homes. We shall take steps to insure that families of minority groups displaced by urban redevelopment operations have a fair opportunity to acquire adequate housing; we shall prevent the dislocation of such families through the misuse of slum clearance programs; and we shall
encourage adequate mortgage financing for the construction of new housing for such families on good, well-located sites."
Albert M. Cole, Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, in his speech before the Economic Club in Detroit, on February 8, stated:

I want to say frankly, however, that regardless of what measures are provided or developed to clear slums and meet low-income housing needs the critical factor in the situation which must be met is the factor of racial exclusion from the greater and better part of our housing supply. I must tell you that no program of housing or urban improvement, however well conceived, well financed, or comprehensive can hope to make more than indifferent progress
until we open up adequate opportunities to minority families for decent housing.
----
It is very poor business to ignore one-tenth of our population as a housing market. It is worse than bad business. We are simply not living up to the standards of a free economy and democratic society. For the housing economy has not been a free economy for the Negro.
----
This is not primarily a federal problem...federal help cannot do the job by itself and it should not. It can only assist the communities to do their job....
The President has made it clear that to the extent that federal policies can be so used, we will do all in our authority to make housing and home finance available to minority families and we certainly will not approve federal assistance to any community unless the affected minority families are adequately rehoused and are fairly treated. We are also concentrating the efforts of our Racial Relations Service on the task of working with private builders and lenders to
work out means of increasing the production of housing available to our nunority [sic] citizens. We are also in the process of tightening the Agency's procedures to make doubly sure that all citizens, regardless of race, are given an even break.
But the real problem lies with the citizens, the business men-the builders,
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the lenders, the realtors-and the civic leaders and officials who will have to face this problem and, working together, correct it. The blockade of custom and code, of unjustified economic fears, must be breached, and the Negro family must be given access to good homes and good neighborhoods. No citizen can afford to let this minority housing pressure continue to build up to the explosion point, as it already has in some instances.
Concerted effort to extend the sphere in influence in the open occupancy phase of FHA activity was recently stressed by the present FHA Commissioner in these words

May I call attention to the now existing open-occupancy policy on recaptured and repossessed housing. We intend to implement this policy more specifically and extend its influence. In this connection, I will direct my energies to ensure that the FHA will take active steps to encourage the development of demonstration open-occupancy projects in suitable key areas. We will extend to builders and lenders the full resources at our command and the same type of specific assistance and co-operation which we have consistently provided in the devel-
opment of other types of urgently needed housing. To further this important phase of FHA activity, we have adopted a specific program on the orientation and education of FHA personnel so that they may give every assistance to those trying to make open occupancy housing available. I am now asking the home building industry for your specific and active co-operation in the promotion of this program. Together we can do an effective and pioneering job in the housing of American families in accord with the best wishes of the President of the
United States. (See Message from FHA Commissioner to be Read by Insuring
Office Directions at NHAB Local Meetings Relating to Providing Homes Avail-
able to Minorities, July 16, 1954.)

Naturally, the Housing Act, of 1954, liberating existing federal aids and authorizing new federal aids to provide the most comprehensive program of federal assistance for housing and urban renewal yet devised, offers unlimited potentialities for equalizing housing opportunities for minorities to acquire suitable housing within their means and choice. In his address to the Annual Meeting of the Ohio Association of Real Estate Boards in Cincinnati, September 15, 1954, Housing Administrator Cole put the issue this way:

Wrapped in this new housing and urban program is an American future of well organized, efficient cities, capable of making full use of modern technological and industrial progress...able to provide good homes in well planned neighborhoods, for a growing population, neighborhoods open to all families and assured of a sound and stable future. The Housing Act of 1954 lays the
foundation for that chance.
----
What we've got to do-what we are going to do under this new approach, is to get rid of the hole in the bottom of our urban economy, to see that the housing we add to our supply is a net gain for the use of our cities and our people-not just an endless effort to hold our own against constant and unnecessary losses.
There's another important principle reflected in this new housing act. It
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has to do with the housing consumer-the general public. It treats the consumer as an equal in this partnership program.
----
Now there is one other aspect of this housing act that I think is crucial to the successful accomplishment of its great purposes. As I pointed out, the Act treats the housing supply as a whole, in order to produce a greater and more varied sources of good homes for the people who seek them.
By the same token, it also considers the housing market as a whole. This is not a program merely for meeting a large part of our market requirements, leaving some of the more difficult or complex ones to be sidetracked or ignored. The whole concept of this program is based on the conviction that we must push rapidly outward into the unserved areas of housing need, that we must come to grips with the necessities of providing better housing to those who have not participated effectively in the free private market.
----
And the Act also contemplates that the great mass of our minority families, a large proportion of whom are able and willing to buy good homes with their own earnings, must rapidly be brought into the free market place.
The question is not whether this will occur, but how it will be accomplished. Racial discrimination and prejudice are rapidly running out as acceptable practices in this country, and the stubborn bastion of discrimination in our housing economy cannot much longer survive.

The administration of governmental housing aids and programs in accordance with policy consonant with these pronouncements quoted can serve to add impetus to the inclusion of nonwhite families into the free play of the open housing market. The degree of achievement in any locality will depend upon the extent to which the builders, leaders,
realtors-the local and civic leaders-all do their part.
The implication of the recent federal and United States Supreme Court decisions are certain to have profound impact upon the future housing policy and practice, although it has not been possible to arrive at definitive determinations, as to what specific measures and concrete
actions should or will be taken by federal or local agencies to bring their policies and practices into line with the public policy underlying pertinent Court decisions recently issued.

Summary and Conclusions-These trends we have been discussing are significant and encouraging, but nonwhites still encounter resistance and obstructions of many sorts in acquiring suitable homes. However, the removal in 1948 of the force and effect of judicial sanction to
racial covenants has enabled the nonwhites increasingly to hurdle the oppositions in their search to satisfy their hunger for decent housing; indeed, they have progressively dispersed themselves into better neighborhoods throughout existing local housing supplies without the panic-
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flight of whites or other dire consequences coming true as generally predicted. Federal agencies have generally adjusted their policies in a manner not to obstruct, but rather to accommodate and facilitate such movement. More and more, current readjustments of notions about racial minorities at all levels of community life seem to be manifest, with resultant growing adjustment and accommodation to insistence by nonwhites upon being accorded the same privileges and opportunities as are accorded to any other first-class citizen.
In spite of these encouraging trends and progress, most of the new private housing developments still generally restrict or exclude nonwhites, and the market demand among racial minorities for decent housing is still less adequately served by the private housing and home
finance industry than is the comparable demand among other groups. The fact is that the private home building and lending industry represents the one area under our free competitive private economy in which private business has not served all elements of the effective market demand equally. It is, indeed, ironic to observe that only in the market for housing will a dollar buy less value in a nonwhite hand than in a white hand. This results from the traditional practice of racial exclusion or differentiation in the housing market, which is in sharp contrast to the free play of the open markets for other consumer goods.
Finally, it is all-important to observe that the evidence of experience
would seem to indicate that the promise "to assure equal opportunity for all our citizen to acquire, within their means, new and well located homes" is likely to be realized only as we succeed in bringing about the practice of an open and unrestricted housing market, free of racial facilities wherever their production or marketing is made possible or assisted by federal aids.

B. T McGraw is Deputy Assistant to the Administrator of the
Housing and Home Finance Agency. He is connected directly
in his work with the Race Relations Department of the Agency.
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Abrams, Charles, 1901-1970
Cole, Albert M., 1901-1994
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969
Horne, Frank Smith, 1899-1974
Johnson, Wallace E., 1902-1988
Laurenti, Luigi M., fl. 1952-1954
McGraw, B.T., fl. 1954
Morgan, Belden, fl. 1954
Nesbitt, George B., 1912-2002
Weaver, Robert C., 1907-1997

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