East Bay Rental housing survey finds Rampant Racial Discrimination

Landlords in the East Bay island city of Alameda discriminated against prospective African American tenants nearly half of the time, according to a new survey, a rate that is double the national average. Sentinel Fair Housing, a fair-housing group using a grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, sent black and white "testers" to some two dozen Alameda rental properties this summer. Forty-four percent of the time, the study found, the same rental agent treated an African American applicant significantly worse than a white renter with similar qualifications. Caucasian renters were shown more apartments, quoted lower security deposits, charged less for credit reports or encouraged with follow-up phone calls, while black testers -- who had higher incomes or credit scores -- were discouraged from renting, the study found. "Many of the managers or the owner have a stereotypical and erroneous opinion that a black person is going to be a less desirable tenant," said Mona Breed, executive director of Sentinel Housing. "We were as distressed as anyone when we began to analyze these results." The rate of discrimination found in the study appears much higher than what other HUD studies have shown nationwide, said Chuck E. Hauptman, who directs HUD's office of fair housing and equal opportunity in San Francisco. [more ]