The Forty Year “First Step”: The Fair Housing Act As an Incomplete Tool for Suburban Integration

The Fair Housing Act serves as the primary federal statute prohibiting housing discrimination on the basis of race. The legislators who passed the Act in 1968 were motivated in part by desires to quell urban unrest, and to provide middle-class African Americans with the freedom to live within majority- white suburban neighborhoods. The Act, through its ban on racial discrimination, is supposed to help create integrated metropolitan communities. Forty years after the Fair Housing Act’s enactment, both housing discrimination and segregation within the suburbs remain prevalent. This Note seeks to provide understanding as to why there is a disconnect between the Fair Housing Act’s goals and its subsequent results. Through an examination of the Act’s legislative history and judicial interpretation, this Note argues that the federal statute serves as only a prelude to additional policies that should help provide equality to underdeveloped communities. The Fair Housing Act protects the option of a homebuyer to choose not to integrate. This consumer choice can subvert the Act’s goal of integration and can also cloud the ability of courts to identify discriminatory racial steering by agents of the buyer. In light of these challenges, this Note proposes a supplementary policy to the Fair Housing Act which focuses on enrichment of the urban ghetto. Through regional collaboration, metropolitan areas can help relieve disparate fiscal burdens that plague the ghetto as well as neighboring black middle-class neighborhoods. As these communities are empowered, the stereotypes and fears that prevent suburban integration should dissipate.