By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
On Monday, Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law House Bill 1474, sponsored by Rep. Jamila Taylor, which creates a covenant homeownership account and program to address the history of housing discrimination due to racially restrictive real estate covenants in Washington state.
The program will provide down payment and closing cost assistance to groups of people identified in a covenant homeownership program study. According to advocates, the establishment of such an account and program will help thousands of people achieve homeownership and help remedy the well-documented past practices of discrimination in the real estate industry in Washington state.
The bill signing, which took place at the Northwest African American Museum, drew a very large crowd of activists and community leaders who praised the passage of the bill by the State Legislature.
“Today we are here on this momentous day, this is a great day for Washington state and a great day for justice,” said Inslee. “It is terrible to think our wonderful state, the Evergreen state, at one time had these racial covenants that prevented people from getting access to housing. And that wasn’t that long ago. I was 16 years of age and this was still going on with enforceable covenants preventing a person of non-white heritage from getting housing.”
According to the bills sponsors, during the 20th century, developers could restrict who could live in neighborhoods throughout the state. Phrases barring owners such as “other than the white race… except servants” were commonly placed in homeowner covenants. While that practice was outlawed in 1968, Washington State Lt. Gov. Denny Heck said, “the impact of the racist policies is still felt today.”
Today, the homeownership rate for BIPOC households in Washington is 19% below that of non-Hispanic white households (49% and 68%, respectively, as of 2019). Like in so many other areas where disparities exist, Black households fare even worse than other households of color, as the homeownership rate for Black households is only 31%, less than half that of non-Hispanic whites. While the imbalance in supply and demand in Washington’s housing market has only exacerbated these inequities.
According to the bill, generations of systemic, racist, and discriminatory policies and practices have created barriers to credit and homeownership for Black, indigenous, and people of color and other historically marginalized communities. The state legislature concluded that the state government was both an active and passive participant in some of these discriminatory policies and practices, which included redlining, racially restrictive covenants, mortgage subsidies and incentives, and displacement and gentrification.
Homeownership is the cornerstone of the American dream. It is the primary conduit for families and households to build wealth, stability, and community and pass wealth down to future generations. Yet access to this opportunity has not been evenly distributed. House Bill 1474 concurs with the assessment that in the past those policies, laws, and practices had a profound and negative effect on Black people and Black communities.
“We stand in coalition with a multi-racial organizing group, but this is a moment, a moment in time that shows that history is now,” says Rep. Jamila Taylor, (D-Dist. 30) the prime sponsor of the bill. “History that is connected to today’s policies and as we are addressing the wrongs of some other legislation, we can face this together, we can move our communities forward together, we can stabilize communities together, we are going to get it done, with your focus, with your energy, with your tenacity.”
The funding generated from the homeownership program would be available to those excluded by the discriminatory language who either lived in Washington state before 1968 or are descendants of someone who lived in Washington prior to that year.
While discriminatory covenants have restricted access to housing, they have also impacted many other areas that affect the quality of life for Black people and other communities of color. These issues include building wealth, housing security, and other outcomes for Black people. In addition, they promote higher rates of rent in underserved communities, substandard or otherwise unhealthy or unsafe housing, homelessness, and predatory and discriminatory lending practices that can lead to further displacement and gentrification.
Affordable housing advocates said the “exciting” law would be the first of its kind in the nation.
“Today, what we are about to do with this bill is enable the government,” says Patience Malaba, Executive Director of the Housing Development Consortium. “A government that has been responsible for creating a lot of discriminatory policies to actually remedy the wrong.”
“We’ve seen the compounding of all these practices, policies, and laws have led to where we are right now, and we are not making traction,” said Taylor. “We are not going to back down. 400 years of systemic oppression against Black people and other marginalized people in this community cannot be undone in one piece of legislation. Gov. Inslee, we have more work to do.”
“I know some of you have been advocating for justice long before I was born, long before some of the folks here (at the signing) were born and in office during the ’70s, this is your legacy, this is to honor your legacy, this is to honor the work that you have done and that you might not have thought you’d see this in your lifetime,” she concluded.
