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Mayor Andrew J. Ginther wants to fix our affordable housing problem – 54,000 central Ohio households spend more than half their income on housing – which disproportionately affects minorities.

Median household income for Black households in Columbus is $35,569, which is 40% less than that of white households, and nearly 40% of Black workers make just $15,000 or less a year, compared to 14% for white workers.

This problem didn’t happen by chance.

Michael Wilkos, senior vice president for community impact at United Way of Columbus, attributes a trio of causes: unabashed racial animus, government policies and purposeful segregation by developers.

At one time, it was socially acceptable to openly promote segregation. Baltimore mayor J. Barry Mahool said in an official 1910 plan for the city, “Blacks should be quarantined in isolated slums in order to reduce the incidence of civil disturbance, to prevent the spread of communicable disease into the nearby white neighborhoods, and to protect property values among the white majority.”

FDR’s New Deal left out Blacks.

In 1933, his new Home Owners’ Loan Corporation published instructions for evaluating mortgage lending risk. Neighborhoods considered high risk or “hazardous” were often “redlined” by lending institutions, meaning loans were unavailable. A large majority of neighborhoods graded as high risk or ‘hazardous’ continue to be low-to-moderate income today. And by hazardous, the evaluations identified minorities.

The majority of platted subdivisions in Columbus and surrounding suburbs – like Upper Arlington and Worthington – created in1920-1929 prohibited integration. Through restrictive deeds, Blacks, mostly, were prevented from buying, but so were Asians, Jews and other minorities.

Do vestiges remain from the days of restrictive covenants? Perhaps.

Upper Arlington, with a median household income of $123,000, is 90% white and 0.3% Black. New Albany, a much newer community, with a median household income of $203K, is 80% white and 8% Black.

Wilkos sees two significant consequences from years of discrimination. First, zip codes have become a good indicator of life expectancy, poverty rates, incarceration rates, high school graduation rates and the likelihood of getting shot – in short, a predictor for success in life.

Second, neighborhoods once designated “hazardous” have now become opportunities for investors to buy houses at low prices and turn neighborhoods around, an irony that’s hard to miss. While investors and buyers are happy; there’s less housing stock available for people of low-income.

We need a massive amount of rent or construction subsidies, and as our population increases, so does the breadth of the problem. But we need to be mindful that housing designated for only low-income people leads to problems. The infamous Cabrini Green project in Chicago is a good example of what not to do.

Another strategy is requiring landlords to accept government assistance that is available for some low-income renters. Bexley has taken the lead when it recently passed an ordinance that prohibits landlords from discriminating against tenants because of the source of their income. Columbus, Westerville and Reynoldsburg have followed Bexley’s lead.

And there’s plenty of room for being creative.

Years ago, Shaker Heights on Cleveland’s east side worked proactively to integrate its neighborhoods by offering loans and mortgage supplements. Benefits were available for white homebuyers willing to move to neighborhoods that were primarily Black, and to Black homebuyers willing to move to neighborhoods that were primarily white. The program ran for 27 years and, when it ended in 2012, had provided 425 loans.

Wilkos advocates more mixed-income neighborhoods, limiting the development of isolated enclaves and investing more in struggling neighborhoods. “It’s important to understand how we got here. Taking purposeful steps to undo what has been happening for the last hundred years or so requires real work.”

[This post was published as an op-ed in The Columbus Dispatch on May 21, 2021.]

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Jack D’Aurora writes for Considerthisbyjd.com

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