Those in need of affordable housing in Western New York are consistently being locked out of the system designed to assist them.
More than 40 years after the passage of the anti-discriminatory Fair Housing Act of 1968, a study completed through the UB School of Social Work has found that the right to fair housing remains one that only a privileged few are afforded.
Fragmented policy implementation across municipalities, limited access to affordable living spaces, and fundamental discrimination based on race and socio-economic, familial, and disability statuses combine to become a backward force that many cannot overcome.
"I see it as a social justice issue," said Kelly L. Patterson, Ph.D., co-author of the study and assistant professor of social work.
Patterson said that all people should have accessibility to quality housing in the neighborhoods that they choose.
However, in the suburbs of Western New York, this "basic human right" is widely overlooked due largely to an inadequate supply of affordable apartments in Erie County, the study reports.
The "not in my backyard" or "NIMBY" effect, which states that residents of a community will oppose fair housing for fear of the clientele it will draw, is equally as depressive.
"It's ignorance," Patterson said. "[Suburban residents] have a certain picture in their mind of the people who are going to be living in that type of housing, and it's negative."
Robert Silverman, Ph.D., co-author of the study and associate professor of urban and regional planning, said that misinformation is detrimental to the development of fair housing in Erie County. The common perception that those in need of fair housing will bring social ills to a community is false, he said.
"In reality, they're people we interact with every day," Silverman said.
Residents working in service jobs, as teachers, at grocery stores and day care centers, as well as single parents with children, are among those on tight budgets in need of affordable housing.
"If people don't have access to the full range of housing then they don't have access to the full range of opportunities to better themselves and their families," Silverman said.
Fragmented policy, which scatters information about fair housing across departments in multiple municipalities, contributes to inaccessibility, according to Patterson.
"It's problematic because people [seeking housing] aren't informed," Patterson said.
Patterson criticized the inconsistencies of information dissemination, as it shields many from knowledge about their legal rights.
Politicians with the ability to reform fair housing legislation often ignore the issue in favor of votes, according to the co-authors. When opposition from what Silverman describes as primarily a "homogeneous, white, conservative" group emerges, politicians get a skewed view of public sentiment.
"Because places like Western New York have been segregated historically, not all groups have the same access to public officials at that grassroots level," Silverman said. "Their voices aren't heard; there's a silent majority."
Joseph Butch, a civil rights analyst for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), emphasized housing markets throughout the nation trend toward racism. Based upon "paired tests," in which both a white person and a black person explore the same housing options, a random assortment of cities exhibited similar data.
"There is a 30 to 40 percent chance that a minority would be treated less favorably than a non-minority across the country," Butch said. "It's very consistent."
Butch serves as HUD's representative in the Erie County Fair Housing Partnership, a not-for-profit organization that combines leaders from all sectors of public life to promote equal opportunity in housing. He states that most studies exploring fair housing only scratch the surface of what is an extremely complex issue with innumerable variables.
"All civil rights are important," Butch said. "Housing choice is a function of all aspects of the market area: social, cultural, behavioral. One of the big things is that this needs to be approached objectively, not [from a biased perspective]."
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