Photo by Bill Adler
In a recent study, housing agents in the D.C. region discriminated against African American women who they believed had criminal records at a much higher rate than their white counterparts.
Over the summer, the Equal Rights Center, a civil rights organization based in D.C., had 120 “testers” reach out to 60 housing units to inquire about renting. Forty-five of the properties were distributed throughout D.C.’s four quadrants, and 15 were in Northern Virginia.
The organization paired 60 white women with 60 black women of similar ages, all of whom told agents fabricated information that they were previously arrested for a “youthful indiscretion” or convicted in a case related to domestic violence. Neither of these types of acts would “have reasonably implicated the safety of other tenants or of the property itself,” according to the report titled Unlocking Discrimination. The women were also given similar professional backgrounds and other characteristics so that their races were the only differentiating factor.
Twenty of the pairs of women conducted tests over the phone, while 40 of them visited the sites in person.
The results included 13 cases that were inconclusive, and 47 cases where agents showed some type of differential treatment. Out of those 47 cases, 22 of them—or approximately 47 percent—showed that housing agents acted in a way that favored the white renters. That’s compared to five cases, or about 11 percent, where agents favored the black renters.
Most frequently, agents gave different information about criminal records screening policies. For instance, an agent at one apartment complex in the District told the African American woman “that anyone with a felony on her or his record would be declined.” Meanwhile, that same agent told her white counterpart that a third party conducted background checks and made a decision on behalf of the property “and that it really depended on the type of crime and how long ago it had occurred.”
The study also found that nine residential developments (which total 4,646 individual units in D.C. and Virginia) may violate the federal law due to written policies that ban applicants with felony convictions. The Department of Housing and Urban Development advised landlords and home sellers earlier this year that turning down offers based on criminal history could be in violation of the the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie has introduced legislation in D.C. that would explicitly prohibit the practice, effectively mirroring so-called “ban the box” legislation for housing.
Nationally, African Americans and Hispanics are arrested, convicted and put in jail “at rates disproportionate to their share of the general population,” according to the report. Across the country, the number of women in prison has grown “at a significantly quicker rate” than the overall number of incarcerated men in the last three decades, and African American women are imprisoned at more than twice the rate of white women.
The report provides nearly a dozen recommendations that housing providers as well as District and federal agencies can make to stop this type of housing discrimination.
It should be used as a tool to help ensure equal opportunities for women and girls of color, said Melvina Ford, the non-profit’s executive director, in a release. “African American women deserve protection from discrimination, and we hope this report will help shine a light on our experiences so that efforts to provide such protection are as effective as possible.”
Unlocking Discrimination by Christina Sturdivant on Scribd
