Legislative advances, recounts, Sen. Bradford’s agency liberties compensation bill |

By McKenzie Jackson, California Black Media

The California Department of Civil Rights (CRD) won a $10,000 fair housing settlement last November against a property management company, CIM Group LP, a global real estate company based in Los Angeles, and the property owner , RACR Sora, LLC, to implement a blanket ban. regarding renting to tenants with criminal records at Sora Apartments in Inglewood.

Three months earlier, the department, which enforces California civil rights laws, won another $20,000 civil rights settlement against a Lemon Grove property manager who targeted a black tenant with a series of actions racists and threats of violence.

CRD Director Kevin Kish said the department investigates cases of overt racial bias in housing and sometimes more subtle acts of bias, such as no-nuisance or no-fee housing policies or holding tenants to different standards based on race.

Kish said: “People will be evicted if they call the police. This can have a negative impact on victims of domestic violence. We also see these no-crime ordinances, or anti-crime policies, used in racially discriminatory ways. If there’s some kind of incident and the police are called and it’s a black family, then they get evicted, but other people don’t necessarily get evicted.”

On April 11, 1968, one week after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President Lydon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion and nationality.

Trending

London Breed, Mayor of San Francisco

Kish noted that William Byron Rumford, California’s first black state assemblyman who represented Berkley and Oakland, spearheaded the passage of the Rumford Act in 1963. That law sought to end discriminatory housing practices in the state of Gold, five years before the Fair Housing Act. became law.

Real estate agent and housing advocate Ashley Garner is the CLTRE Keeper Home Ownership Program Director. That organization gave 25 black, indigenous and people of color $17,500 each in down payments and credit repair support to buy a home in Oak Park, a traditionally black neighborhood in Sacramento, last fall. CLTRE secured a $500,000 grant from the City of Sacramento to award the funds to residents after they complete an eight-week home ownership program.

In 2021, the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) noted that about four in 10 black families in California owned homes, which ranks with that of whites, Asians, and Latinos.

According to Forbes, the average price for a home in California is over $500,000, which is double the cost of a home in the rest of the country.

Black lawmakers recently introduced their Repair Priority Package of bills, which includes support for black first-time homebuyers, mortgage assistance for homeowners, and property tax relief for historically redlined neighborhoods.

California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) spokesman Eric Johnson said CalHFA helps potential low- and moderate-income Californians buy homes by providing down payment and closing cost assistance. “There are a lot of people who have stable jobs, good credit scores, steady incomes, but haven’t been able to save the money that traditional banks need or want to see for a down payment,” Johnson said . “We help these people. We offer a down payment loan to help you overcome this hurdle.”

CRD and the Department of Real Estate hosted the “Fair Housing Protection for People with Criminal Records” Zoom call on April 10.

On April 25, CRD will also hold Zoom seminars focused on supporting fair housing for people with disabilities.