The Negro population is three times more overcrowded than is the city as a whole. RHODE ISLAND "The decision to concentrate our efforts on a study of the housing situation did not require any brain searching, for the problems minority groups have in obtaining decent housing have embarrassed our community for ages. "Ninety percent of the nonwhite minority live in substandard housing. "Other minority groups do have problems in procuring decent housing but nothing approaching the situation for Negroes." Barrington, Cranstan, Pawtucket, Warwick, Woonsocket "There has been quite a bit of building [in these cities]. None of these new housing units is available to the nonwhite for either sale or rental." Providence "More than two-thirds of all Negroes in Rhode Island live in the Greater Providence area. This... minority is the most poorly housed . . . [and] live in well defined areas under conditions ranging from slum to blight and deterioration." 44 TEXAS the quality and quantity of [minority] housing in Texas does not differ radically from that prevailing in other States of our country. Ordinarily, the quality of housing for minority groups is not as good as that for the majority." UTAH The Negro citizen experiences the most generally widespread inequality. The Negro pays "substantially more than his white brother for equally inadequate facilities." Ogden, Salt Lake City The Negro is confined to substandard dwellings in the least desirable areas. WASHINGTON "From a relatively good status enjoyed in Seattle, King County, to conditions of near-servitude in the 'tri-cities' area of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Benton, and Franklin Counties, Negroes emerge from our study as the group most in need of . . . decent housing conditions." East Pasco Fifty percent of the Negroes live in substandard housing, such as "cabins, trailers, unrepaired shacks, all with poor or nonexistent lighting, heat and plumbing." Seattle Housing is the number one problem for minority groups, especially nonwhites. "Both from the viewpoint of quantity and quality housing with minimal standards is scarce, and substandard living conditions in overcrowded areas is growing." Minority group members have shared only to an extremely limited extent in new housing construction opportunities. 517016-59- -24 Tacoma The housing picture as far as nonwhites are concerned is a grim one: "large numbers of Negroes herded together in a lower taxed, blighted area which serves as an effective ghetto in which they are penned." WEST VIRGINIA "Housing represents the area in which most discrimination exists. . . . Little progress has been made in terms of new housing being made available to groups, except that which is being provided by Governmental agencies." In the entire county of Kanawa less than 100 houses were built for the Negro since 1940. At the National Conference of State Advisory Committees, former Governor Charles A. Sprague, of Oregon, presented a synopsis of the findings and conclusions of the six housing roundtables. The following is an excerpt from that presentation: "In all of the sections on housing, there was general agreement that minority groups in virtually all the States do fail to enjoy full civil rights in obtaining housing. Usually, these groups are confined to the old and run-down sections of the cities, where living conditions are definitely substandard." 2. RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS OF MINORITIES 14 Statistics showing the inferior quantity and quality of housing occupied by or available to nonwhites tell only part of the story. A substandard house in a generally decent neighborhood is one thing. An inferior, overcrowded house in slums or blighted areas is another. What makes the bad housing of a large proportion of nonwhites so much worse than that of most whites is its heavy concentration within limited, deteriorating areas. As the Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, Mr. Norman Mason, testified: "In practically all communities, Negro and other minority group families are concentrated largely in the very areas most in need of renewal.” “ Maps introduced in the Commission hearings show the high degree of concentration of nonwhite housing in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Birmingham, and New Orleans.15 These maps, reprinted here (Charts XXII to XXXI), are based on 1950 Census tracts. In fact, the racial concentration is generally greater than indicated by the legend on the maps, which states that the areas in black are 75 percent nonwhite. Often it is 95 or practically 100 percent nonwhite. This same picture of racial concentration exists, more or less, in every city studied. State Advisory Committees, particularly from northern and western States, report this same kind of racial concentration in their major cities. 24 Washington Hearing, p. 14. |