Welcome to day 6

Topic: Housing Equity

Choose two resources to help you better understand the policies that affect the racial housing disparities of today.

Reminder, no matter who you are or where you are on the journey, you will not be perfect. Try to digest the information slowly and go at your own pace. Allow time for reflection and avoid feeling pressured to tackle everything.

Institutional racism exists through discriminatory policies and practices based on race within organizations and institutions.

The impacts of housing discrimination, once “baked into” policies across government and private sector, can still be felt today. We can see it in the way the Child Well-Being Maps eerily overlay onto the redlining maps of 1940 when predominantly Black neighborhoods were once deemed hazardous and unworthy of home loans. View map.

Housing is foundational.

Housing is foundational to everything we value in our community. Providing access to safe, stable, and affordable housing is instrumental in building an equitable region for all.

Unfortunately, access to housing opportunities has never been equal in this country. The policy that we now know of as redlining has led to lasting disinvestment in minority neighborhoods. These practices were prevalent in the City of Atlanta, and their effects can still be seen today.

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The Disproportionate Effect of Atlanta’s Housing Crisis

United Way of Greater Atlanta Public Policy Chair Katina Asbell offers insights on how a history of discriminatory housing and lending practices continues to create an uneven playing field.

A Tale of Two Neighborhoods, One Black and One White

This article is part of the 1988 Color of Money series by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It provides a description of lending and homeowner experiences in two different metro Atlanta neighborhoods. By Bill Dedman, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Atlanta’s Patterns of Segregation and Where They Originate

Darin Givens of ThreadATL gives a brief history of redlining in Atlanta, including maps and links to national articles.

Give. Advocate. Volunteer.

Join United Way and thousands of committed donors and volunteers who are working to ensure that equity and housing stability are baked into our path forward towards an equitable region where all children can reach their full potential.

For Reflection

While the GI Bill is credited with enlarging the white American middle class, it is also responsible for the uneven distribution of wealth following the war. Black service men and women struggled to access housing and education benefits after World War II, which only widened the gap between Black and white middle-class families.

"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."

– Ida B. Wells

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