Entry #6 Housing Discrimination, the Whispering Woods

Brian Gerker
Media Portfolio Entry #6
11-11-07

Housing Discrimination vs. FHA

1.Representation of the Item:
[Author Affiliation]
By Melody Deniece Moore
CHRONICLE ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Indexing (document details)
Author(s): Melody Deniece Moore
Document types: General Information
Publication title: Michigan Chronicle. Detroit, Mich.: Sep 5-Sep 11, 2007. Vol. 70, Iss. 51; pg. A1, 2 pgs
Source type: Newspaper
ProQuest document ID: 1346028711
Text Word Count 474
Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1346028711&Fmt=3&clientId=3340&RQT=309&VName=PQD




2. Intro and Why: This article I found is one that shows housing discrimination against blacks. I found this article from Ethnic Newswatch, and it was published in the Michigan Chronicle. Over a fifteen year period it was found that the owner of a Livonia apartment complex did not lease apartments out to blacks. This company even left vacancies in some apartments in refusal of selling to blacks. They did not provide actual numbers but they said the ratio of selling to blacks and whites was greatly in favor of whites. Eventually, the owner of Whispering Woods Apartments was sued for discrimination, once the Fair Housing Commission got involved. They were sued in the amount of $725,000 which was dispursed to the United States government, and the 21 blacks that were discriminated against.
I chose this article because it relates to class discussions. We had a class in which we discussed the fairness in housing. Also we discussed the discrimination factor in not renting places to colored people. It relates to Wu’s article, where the FHA and GI Bills were introduced.

3.Analysis: This Media item relates to the Frank Wu article “Yellow.” In the Frank Wu article, Wu discussed the housing discrimination of blacks and Asians after World War II. After the war, returning GI,s needed to rent places to live. Often times, blacks and Asians would not be able to obtain housing because a white returning GI would get it before them. Thus, the Fair Housing Act was formed to prevent this discrimination. The Act states that “All persons, under the Fair Housing Act, have the right to obtain housing wherever they desire regardless of their race and without having to suffer discrimination.” However, in the Whispering Woods case, discrimination did happen. The lawsuit filed against them by the government was just in 2002. This article matches up very closely to what Wu presents. Blacks were discriminated against again, even after 60 years, and were treated unfairly in obtaining housing. This issue causes great concern. And it is terrible to see that an issue which was supposed to be solved 60 years ago still remains.

4. Response: In my beliefs, housing discrimination should never happen. Everyone needs a place to live, so let them. Also, since there are many laws and agencies that should stop housing discrimination, it is rather disappointing to see this still happening. At this point in time discrimination against colored people just should not be a part of society. The housing discrimination we learned about from Wu seemed bad enough after the war and all, so I would like to think that things should have completely changed after those issues.