public housing and urban renewal depends on the enactment of State and city enabling legislation and the establishment of local housing authorities. Urban renewal also usually requires the participation of private developers. Federal loan insurance depends on mortgage applications by private parties to a private lending institution and the making of a loan by that institution. With the exception of certain Federal requirements examined later, including some relating directly to the problem of discrimination, the polices of these various housing programs are determined at the local level by local authorities. The Commission held housing hearings in three major cities-New York, Atlanta, and Chicago-each representing a different approach to racial relations in housing. After this view of what is being done on the city and State level, an appraisal follows of what is being done by the Federal Government and by the people themselves.

CHAPTER III. CITY AND STATE LAWS, POLICIES, AND HOUSING

PROGRAMS

1. CITIES AND STATES WITH LAWS, POLICIES, AND PROGRAMS AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN HOUSING

Thirteen States and some 34 cities or counties have enacted significant legislation against racial discrimination or segregation in some area of housing. In scope, these laws prohibiting discrimination vary from those limited to public housing projects, through those including all publicly-assisted housing, to those covering all multi-unit housing, public and private. In eight of these States and several of the cities there are official commissions or agencies to administer the laws. A survey and list of these laws and the State agencies administering them will be found at the end of this chapter.

Because New York State had the longest and widest experience with laws against discrimination in publicly-assisted housing and New York City had a law against discrimination in private housing, and because they were the most populous State and city, respectively, in the Union, with enormous racial problems, the Commission decided to hold its first public hearings on discrimination in housing there. It heard firsthand testimony from city and State officials and community, business, and minority leaders on the effects of these laws and enforcement programs. The Commission was impressed with the seriousness of purpose and goodwill shown by all concerned and with the many varied efforts under way to eliminate the considerable discrimination in housing that all agreed existed.

In the past, New York has faced and solved many housing and other problems of foreign-born minorities, and in time New York and all other great American cities will no doubt solve the current racial problems. In the New York hearing, Mayor Robert F. Wagner pointed out that New York City has more foreign-born Italians than the total population of Florence, Italy; more Puerto Ricans than San Juan; more residents of German birth than Bonn; more Irish-born residents than the combined population of Cork and Limerick; more Russianborn residents than either Minsk or Pinsk; and more Jews than in the entire State of Israel; and that the city's Negro population of over 950,000 is substantially larger than the combined Negro populations of the capital cities of all of the States of the South. The Puerto 1 Regional Hearings, pp. 10–11.

Rican population is rapidly approaching the Negro population. As of January, 1958, it was estimated that 618,000 persons of Puerto Rican origin lived in New York City. Annual Puerto Rican migration to the city averaged 34,478 from 1950 to 1957.2 Between 1940 and 1957 more than 650,000 nonwhites and Puerto Ricans migrated to the city.3 Thus New York is, as it has long been, a school for Americanization, for integration, and for democracy.

Mayor Wagner recounted the city's record of legislative and administrative action against discrimination in housing. It included the City Council's amendment to the Administrative Code in 1944 to provide for denial of tax exemption for housing developments with discriminatory practices; the 1951 Brown-Isaacs law that provided penalties for landlords who discriminated in housing developments receiving various types of city and Federal assistance; the first Sharkey-Brown-Isaacs Law in 1954, which banned discrimination in multiple dwellings covered by government mortgage insurance; and the 1957 Fair Housing Practices Law barring discrimination in private multiple dwellings and in developments of 10 or more homes.* This last law, administered by the City Commission on Intergroup Relations (COIR), covers about 70 percent of the city's housing supply compared with about 7 percent that is covered by the State law against discrimination in publicly assisted housing, administered by the State Commission Against Discrimination (SCAD)."

The Governor of New York State and the Mayor of New York City explained the basic purpose of this legislation. "We know that substandard and segregated housing causes a demoralization that we cannot afford among any part of our people," Governor Rockefeller said. "We know that the Constitution and the American purpose require us to end these conditions and to create truly democratic communities with decent standards of life for all." Mayor Wagner said that the city had come to recognize that discrimination in housing was not only wrong in itself but that it would "necessarily stunt and distort the natural growth of our city and frustrate constructive programs for the welfare of the people.

Id. at 147-148, 162.

.

Id. at 123. Facts & Figures, edition of Apr. 1, 1958. Migration Division, Dept. of Labor, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. For the years 1956, 1957 and 1958 the Commission was told that the migration of persons of Puerto Rican origin totaled 34,000, 22,600 and 17,600 respectively (id. at 386).

Id. at 12-13.

" Id. at 81.

• Id. at 8.

* Id. at 11.

The City Council declared the public policy of New York in the following terms in the 1957 ordinance prohibiting discrimination and segregation in private dwellings:

In the city of New York, with its great cosmopolitan population made up of large numbers of people of every race, color, religion, national origin, and ancestry, many persons have been compelled to live in circumscribed sections under substandard, unhealthful, unsanitary and crowded living conditions because of discrimination and segregation in housing. These conditions have caused increased mortality, morbidity, delinquency, risk of fire, intergroup tension, loss of tax revenue and other evils. As a result, the peace, health, safety, and general welfare of the entire city and all its inhabitants are threatened. Such segregation in housing also necessarily results in other forms of segregation and discrimination which are against the policy of the State of New York. It results in racial segregation in public schools and other public facilities, which is condemned by the constitutions of our State and nation. In order to guard against these evils, it is necessary to assure all inhabitants of the city equal opportunity to obtain living quarters, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry.

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the city to assure equal opportunity to all residents to live in decent, sanitary, and healthful living quarters, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry, in order that the peace, health, safety, and general welfare of all the inhabitants of the city may be protected and insured."

It is one thing to state these purposes and another to break the pattern of residential segregation already established and to open equal opportunities for decent housing throughout the metropolitan area, including the suburbs, to Negroes and Puerto Ricans. The latest city law had only been in effect ten months but Alfred J. Marrow, Chairman of COIR, ventured to say, in assessing the effects of the antidiscrimination legislation, that "outright discrimination has gone underground in New York City because the law and the positive declarations of our municipal policy have taught our citizens that discrimination can have no acceptance in our daily affairs."

The way COIR has gone about its assignment is encouraging. It has concentrated on bringing about compliance through education and negotiation, working on three levels, with the controllers of residential property (the owners, real estate operators, managers, builders, and lenders), the government agencies involved, and the people in the community.10 After COIR receives a complaint of discrimination, its intergroup relations officers conduct an investigation. Then there are "mediations in the field." If these are not successful, conciliation conferences conducted by members of the commission follow. Only

Sec. 1, ch. 41, title X, Administrative Code of City of New York.

• Regional Hearings, p. 74.

10 Id. at 78.

517016-59-27

if these fail are there formal hearings by the commission and finally, before court enforcement action is taken, there is review by a special panel appointed by the Mayor.11

During its first thirteen months of operation under the Fair Housing Practices Law, COIR processed 325 housing discrimination complaints. Of these, 196 were closed to COIR's satisfaction without recourse to formal hearings or litigation. In about one in four of these cases one of the following results was achieved: (a) the unit at issue was rented to the complainant; (b) a satisfactory substitute unit was secured; (c) an application for a unit to be available at a later date was accepted; or (d) a unit was rented to a prototype of the complainant. The remaining 140 odd complaints included cases closed because of lack of support of the allegation, withdrawal of charges, failure to complete the required procedures, and cases falling within the jurisdiction of the State Commission Against Discrimination.12 According to a report issued for the first six months of the Commission's administration of the law, about 87 percent of the 138 complaints then received alleged discrimination against Negroes, 5 percent involved religion, 6 percent ancestry, and 2 percent national origin.13

To build a network of administrative policies supporting enforcement of the law, COIR had worked out agreements with Federal housing agencies by which riders would be attached to all Federal mortgage insurance, notifying the insured parties that the local antidiscrimination laws must be observed. It was explained that the Federal Government would cease doing business with anyone found by COIR to be violating these laws.14 Similarly, COIR works with the city Department of Welfare in the placing of tenants, with the Bureau of Real Estate, and with the Department of State, which licenses real estate brokers, to get cooperation in enforcing the law.15

The chairman of COIR believes its most successful educational work has been in helping people in a neighborhood find their own solutions to their problems. The problems of a neighborhood "cannot be solved without the participation of the people who live and work in it,” he said.16

At the New York hearing, the Commission heard the story of Springfield Gardens-how a neighborhood in racial transition saved

11 Id. at 80.

12 Supplemental Statement on the Administration and Enforcement of the Fair Housing Practices Law, April 1, 1958-May 30, 1959. Letter of July 24, 1959, Commission on Intergroup Relations, New York City.

"See Research Report on Aspects of Administration and Enforcement of the Fair Housing Practices Law, April 1-September 30, 1958 (regional hearings, pp. 90-91, 95). 14 Regional Hearings, pp. 79-80.

15 Id. at p. 79.

18 Id. at 74.