in 1950 than they did in 1940, this increase did not keep pace with the rapidly growing urban Negro population."

Another indication of the unequal housing conditions for whites and nonwhites is the high proportion of nonwhites in areas being cleared under slum clearance and urban redevelopment programs. Nonwhite families in such project areas have ranged from 65 percent as of March, 1953 to 55 percent in 1958.12 This is just another way of saying that a high proportion of slum-dwellers are nonwhites. The former Housing and Home Finance Administrator, Mr. Albert Cole, estimated in 1954 that at least two-thirds of the slum families in our major cities are from minority groups. 13

All of this only demonstrates that while the shortage of low-cost housing is in some sense the cutting edge of the nation's housing crisis, it is the nonwhite minority that bears the brunt.

STATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE REPORTS

Reports from the Commission's State Advisory Committees tend to confirm the above facts. The facts, statistics, and opinions in the following excerpts are those given by the respective State committees and have not been verified by the Commission.

ARIZONA

"Only Negroes have housing restriction problems. . . . Other minority groups, including lower class whites, find quality and quantity housing available according each to their financial status."

Los Angeles

CALIFORNIA

"Negro families have never been able to secure adequate housing cheaply and at moderate prices. . . . Negro families usually have been obliged to buy homes in order to have places in which to live and to pay prices which often necessitate the taking in of boarders to help defray the cost of the house. Even rentals are high for the families who do not buy so that in 1950, almost 15 percent of the Negro population was composed of boarders occupying only a part of a larger home. The homes in which Negro families live are rarely new, but usually 20 to 30 years old, and of an age and quality typical of older eras.

"Spanish-American housing areas continue to be characterized by high percentages of rental-occupied, overcrowded, cheap, dilapidated housing badly in need of repairs. Even in 1950, rentals rarely exceeded $30 per month and more often than not averaged only $12 monthly. . . . It is apparent that the homes have deteriorated further since 1950. . . . Mexican-American families have been found to be occupying homes in the poorest condition and most in need of major repairs."

...

COLORADO

"Adequate housing and housing by choice and qualification is the most critical of all civil rights problems in Colorado faced by minority group members.

" Equal Opportunity in Housing, American Friends Service Comm., May 1955, pp. 6-7; and Presentation to the President by National Urban League, June 18, 1954.

13 Washington hearing, p. 12.

13 Talk before Economic Club of Detroit, February 1954.

"Because the minority group member cannot compete in the open market, they usually have to pay more for less, make a larger downpayment, and in many instances, resort to a second mortgage and even a third mortgage in order to buy on the perimeter or on many occasions within the ghettoed area."

Denver

"The great majority of Denver's Negroes-one estimate is 95 percent-live in a ghetto area."

DELAWARE

"Poor housing for Negroes is, perhaps, the most obvious of all racial differentials that exist between white and colored people in Delaware."

Of 7,000 dwelling units classified as dilapidated in the State, 5,500 are Negro-occupied.

For the decade 1940-50, the proportion of dwelling units to Negro population declined while the corresponding figure for the white segment increased.

"... colored residents pay more rent and higher purchasing prices for substandard housing accommodations . . . . Not only are economic rents higher for Negroes but they pay more in interest and other charges for the houses they buy.

"Everywhere there are new developments in the State, both private and Government-subsidized, and hardly any are available to Negroes."

GEORGIA

"The committee felt that Atlanta presents a unique situation and that as a whole the remainder of the State would be revealed as low in Negro home ownership, heavy in relatively high-priced, substandard rental quarters."

INDIANA

"The area of discrimination in housing in Indiana is probably the greatest blight we are facing in the problems affecting the Civil Rights Commission."

Fort Wayne

Sixty-five to seventy percent of nonwhite occupied dwellings are dilapidated. In one substandard area consisting of 2,000 homes, 98 percent of the residents are nonwhite.

The period of the last 5 years would show about 5,800 new homes having been built. Of that number, about 50 are occupied by Negroes.

Indianapolis

"Real estate men generally agree that sales to nonwhites are on an inflated price basis due to the scarcity of the market and to lack of substantial downpayments and consequent high financing.

"The Executive Director of the [Redevelopment] Commission reports that 7,500 persons have or will be displaced through redevelopment programs. Of these 1,470 are white and 6,030 are nonwhite."

South Bend

"During the last 5 years, less than 2 percent of the new housing supply in South Bend or Mishawaka has been available to Negroes, on an open occupancy or segregated basis. . . .

Of 62 families to be relocated by the South Bend Housing Authority, 57 are nonwhite. ". . . about 35 families . . . will need help in relocation. Most of these, or almost 98 percent are Negro families."

KANSAS

"Probably the area of housing is the area where the lines are more sharply drawn than in any of the other areas of discrimination. There are in existence more flagrant denials of civil rights in the area of housing."

Wichita

“... in 1950, the Negro population suffered from a decisive disadvantage in the quality of housing available to them. There was twice as much overcrowding in the Negro district (10 percent with more than 1.5 persons per room compared with only 4 percent for the city as a whole), three times as much doubling up; twice as many houses without private baths or dilapidated, four times as many without running water (25 percent versus 6 percent), twice as many without central heating and four times as many with no mechanical refrigeration. In most of the Negro districts, the houses were quite old and in two tracts twothirds of the houses had been built prior to 1920. The average in the Negro district was about $4,750 compared with $9,450 in the rest of the city. . . .”

MARYLAND

Baltimore

In 1950, 48.7 percent of all nonwhite occupied units were substandard. This is four times the corresponding figure of 12.8 percent for white-occupied homes. Eighty-three and nine-tenths percent of Negro dwellings are located in blighted areas whereas 21.5 percent of white-occupied dwellings are similarly located.

There is three times as much overcrowding among the Negro as among the white population (Baltimore Housing Authority, 1950).

In 1940, Negroes occupied 17.2 percent of available housing while constituting 19.4 percent of the population. In 1950, Negroes accounted for 23.8 percent of the city's population and occupied 19.4 percent of the available housing. The population increase was 4.4 percent, but Negro occupancy increased only 2.2 percent (Baltimore Housing Authority, 1950).

During the last 15 years, 100,000 units were built by private concerns. Only 1 percent was available to Negroes. Between 1946 and 1956, less than 100 new units were built by private interests for the minority market.

The Negro's housing dollar has less value than the white person's.

MASSACHUSETTS

Boston, Springfield, and Worcester

“... [while] the 'newest' sections of the cities are still old, it is the oldest section that nearly always provides most of the minority housing and 60 percent of the Negroes live in these substandard areas [i.e.], areas which would qualify for urban renewal programs of redevelopment rather than rehabilitation or conservation."

MISSOURI

"It is readily estimated that at least 70 percent of the members of minority groups live in substandard housing . . . and that they are victims of slum clearance which ironically has meant in most cases 'Minorities Clearance'."

Kansas City

Officials issued 106 building permits for single houses to Negroes during the period 1940 to 1958, and 100 new houses were actually built for Negroes during the 10-year period 1946 to 1956.

St. Louis

"The 1950 census shows that between 1940 and 1950, the percent of dwelling units occupied by nonwhites increased from 12.5 to 15.5 percent (3 percent). In the light of the interim nonwhite population increase of 4.6 percent of the total population, the growing deficit becomes clear."

Thirty percent of the city's population is Negro, yet the Negroes occupy only 16 to 20 percent of the total housing supply.

"Historically, Negroes pay from 10 to 25 percent more for new housing than do whites."

NEBRASKA

Omaha

"Based on a general knowledge of conditions and not on any statistical study, it has been estimated that . . . 50 percent of the Negro population live in substandard housing; 90 percent of the Indian population are similarly housed. "Negroes have not generally shared in new housing that has been built and offered for sale in the past 3 years, 1956-59."

Las Vegas

NEVADA

"Approximately 22 percent of the housing currently available to white families is substandard whereas approximately 55 percent of that available to nonwhite families is substandard. . . . The rate of new construction for nonwhite families is substantially below that of construction for white families."

Albuquerque

NEW MEXICO

From 1950 to 1958, 30,000 new units were built. Only 24 were open to Negroes. The Negro population which is 3 percent of the total population shared in 0.008 percent of the new housing..

NEW YORK

"Negroes are the principal victims of housing discrimination in New York today. Persons of Puerto Rican origin are also deeply affected, particularly when their skins are dark enough or their accents sufficiently pronounced to make them easily identified."

"In the major cities, severe overcrowding is two to three times as prevalent in areas where Negroes live than in these cities as a whole. Age combines with overcrowding to make dwellings in Negro areas largely unfit for human habitation. Yet Negro families often pay no less rent than whites who occupy apartments of the same size but vastly superior conditions."

New York City

"Between 1950 and 1956, in the New York metropolitan area only 12,000 nonwhite families found homes in new private dwellings out of 737,000 new homes built in the area."

NORTH CAROLINA

of the nonwhite occupied dwelling units in the State, approximately 39 percent is dilapidated as compared to about 13 percent for white occupied dwelling units. About 22.5 percent of nonwhite occupied units are overcrowded, that is, has more than 1.51 persons per room, while about 8 percent of white occupied dwellings is in this category.

OHIO

Most of the Negroes live in substandard housing in the older more dilapidated portions of Ohio's cities. "However, the prices for which such real estate is sold or rented to minority groups are generally in excess of its actual or real market value."

PENNSYLVANIA

"The great body of evidence indicates that housing discrimination is widespread in the State, and that it totals almost 1 million citizens among its direct victims.

"... housing discrimination is not a problem limited to just the larger cities. At least 30 cities . . . which have Negro populations exceeding 1,000 show evidence of patterns of discrimination and segregation in some instances more severe than in the large cities."

In almost all of the 17 other cities surveyed [other than Philadelphia and Pittsburgh], where evidence was presented, no new development housing had been made available to Negro occupancy. Only occasional instances were discovered where Negro families had been able to build their own homes on an individual basis, but even here there were reports of difficulty in securing suitable lots, mortgages and contractors."

Allentown

"... houses in the area open to Negroes are reported to be 50 to 70 years old." Easton

Houses available to Negroes are from 50 to 65 years old.

Erie

From "1940-50, the Negro population grew by 250 percent but their dwelling areas substantially contracted."

Lancaster

Houses available to Negroes are from 50 to 100 years old.

Philadelphia

Of 17,600 dilapidated dwelling units, 11,300 are occupied by Negroes. One-third of the rental units occupied by nonwhites are classed as substandard as compared to one-tenth of the white-occupied rental units.

"... Ninety-five percent of Negro homeowners and 99 percent of Negro renters live in structures built before 1930."

". . . out of an estimated 200,000 new dwelling units built between 1946–1955, only 1,927 (less than 1 percent) were available to Negroes.

"... Negroes on the average pay more of their incomes for rent . . . 22.3 percent as against 18.6 percent for whites."

Pittsburgh

“... of more than 7,000 rental units built in the city and suburbs between 1947 to 1953 . . . only 130 (were open) to Negro occupancy."

Reading

"... over 50 percent of the dwellings in wards with highest Negro population were built before 1900, but by contrast, in wards without Negro dwellings less than 15 percent were built before 1900."