MINNESOTA Discrimination against Jews exists to a somewhat lesser degree than against nonwhites. It "is mitigated somewhat by their generally more favorable economic position and has decreased noticeably since World War II." Kansas City MISSOURI Jews are barred from residence in Leawood, a section of the city. St. Louis The area called High Acres bars Jews from residence. A comparison of incomes in 1949 points up the poor economic condition of the nonwhite population as compared to the white: "It has been alleged, and with reasonable basis in fact, that whereas too many whites live in substandard housing, this circumstance is almost completely explained by the factors of poverty and ignorance . . . while there are instances in which poverty and ignorance do not explain [the Negroes'] inability to obtain for themselves adequate and standard housing." NEW HAMPSHIRE Portsmouth ... "The problem of the Negro minority in New Hampshire centers chiefly in the field of private housing in the Portsmouth area. . . . Proprietors of many apartment houses in that area refuse colored families, and some owners are reluctant to sell property to them." Albuquerque NEW MEXICO Two thousand to two thousand five hundred Negro personnel from two bases in the vicinity of this city are forced, because of their color, to live in "converted garages and chicken coops" at rents from $55 to $70 a month. NEW YORK "Their [the Negroes'] predominantly low incomes are not the only, nor even the most important cause of housing disadvantages suffered by nonwhites. Scholarly investigations have provided convincing evidence that a growing number of Negro families in the State now possess sufficient incomes to buy or rent good homes outside slum areas; but that when Negroes of high economic, educational, and social qualifications seek homes outside of established Negro areas, they seldom have the opportunity to buy or rent the home of their choice. It has been demonstrated beyond doubt that discrimination is the ultimate controlling factor preventing Negroes from exercising freedom of choice in the housing market." NORTH CAROLINA “... data indicate that low incomes and limited purchasing power of the nonwhite population are probably not the only factors which account for the abnormally high proportion of inferior housing owned or occupied by them." NORTH DAKOTA "The questionnaire on housing does not reveal any serious civil rights problem so far as housing is concerned. If we do have problems, they are primarily due to economic considerations rather than to any discrimination or other causes that would involve issues of civil rights." Cincinnati OHIO The median income for the city is $5,022 and for the Negro population $3,399. Eugene-Springfield area OREGON The importance of the financial disability is suggested by the following facts: In a 1958 survey, the median income of Negro heads of households was $2,500, compared with the average income of $6,568 for the population of the area in 1957. Eugene-Springfield area and Portland "The improvement of housing of the Negro minority . . is obstructed by three factors: (1) a prevailing income level which limits them to housing which is below the cost of adequate facilities; (2) resistance to their movement into the better residential areas; and (3) an apparent reluctance on the part of many Negroes to break away from the Negro neighborhoods where their friends are and where they feel more secure." Philadelphia PENNSYLVANIA There is discrimination against Jews along the "Main Line." Pittsburgh The suburb of South Hills discriminates against Jews. TEXAS Cause of concentration of minority groups: "social mores, tradition, custom, and, also, economic factors." There is no "material difference, by and large, in so-called discriminatory practices in Texas than currently exist throughout the country." UTAH The median income for Negroes in 1950 was $1,897 and that for whites $2,047. This does not bar the element of discrimination. New cities have sprung up outside of Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah. Kearns, for example, is such a city which bars nonwhites. Since this is a low-cost development requiring only a token downpayment, it is within the financial reach of members of minority groups. But regardless of ability to pay, no Negro, Indian, or Mexican is allowed to purchase a home there. There are 1,500 Jews and 8,000 Greeks in the State and there is no discrimination practiced against them. "The Indian is a real enigma. Even today, when he may vote, even while residing on reservation, when his children attend fully integrated white schools, when he is experiencing a new era of economic betterment growing out of the development of mineral deposits on his lands and reimbursement for past depredations by the white man (Colorado Judgment, $32,000,000) even with all of these improvements, he is still inordinately shy, unprepared for any sort of real assimilation into urban society, unskilled for urban employment. His biggest fear is 'termination', a word promising him a deed to his share of the reservation, freedom from his status as a ward of the Government, and equal status with (as well as all of the anxieties and financial responsibilities of) his palefaced cousin-none of which does he want. "The Mexican-American or Spanish-speaking-American experiences many of the difficulties of the Indian with whom he has often intermarried . he has little training, often cannot adequately speak the English language. . WASHINGTON Seattle Discrimination against Jews is practiced in the following communities around and in Seattle: the new suburbs of Mercerwood in Mercer Island, Brydel Wood in Bellevue, and the older communities of Broadmoor, Highlands, Sands Point Country Club, Windermere. Choice is a factor in the nonwhite's continuing to live in his present situation. "Some are reluctant to live among persons of differing ethnic background; others refuse to become the first Negroes to pioneer into an all-white neighborhood." Yakima ". . . discrimination against Negroes and Orientals in housing is less evident, though such families tend to be found in substandard housing chiefly through their economic inability to pay the high prices and rents asked on today's inflationary market." WEST VIRGINIA Low income prevents all races from acquiring adequate housing, but ". . . it is evident there is definitely discrimination practiced on a universal basis." At the Commission's National Conference of State Advisory Committees, former Governor Charles A. Sprague, of Oregon, presented a synopsis of the findings and conclusions of the six housing roundtables. The following is an excerpt from that presentation: "Partly, this concentration [of minority groups] is due to the desire for fellowship among people of their own group. But, usually, it is enforced by economic or social compulsions. "Discrimination also prevailed against Oriental groups where they were numerous; but since the Second World War discrimination against Orientials has been largely eliminated. The problem, then, of segregation in housing in cities seems to adhere almost exclusively to members of the Negro race. "It was reported in some sections that in resort areas Jews suffered some discrimination in acquiring suitable housing. With respect to Indians, housing is reported to be inferior on most reservations, and apt to be segregated in cities adjacent to Indian reservations where Indians have removed. The problem with Indians, however, was not primarily one of racial discrimination, but of economic and cultural status. "In rural areas of the South the chief problem with respect to housing arises from the low-income level of the Negroes." 517016-59-26 4. EFFECTS OF THE HOUSING INEQUALITIES OF MINORITIES "Some of the effects of the housing inequalities of minorities can be seen with the eye, some can be shown by statistics, some can only be measured in the mind and heart. // The Mayor of Atlanta took the Commission to one of the worst slums in the country, Buttermilk Bottom. No one who has walked through these unpaved alleys, followed by ragged children who are growing up in over-crowded tenements and shacks, can doubt that slums breed disease, demoralization, juvenile delinquency, and crime. Since some two-thirds of the slum families in most major cities are colored, as they were in Buttermilk Bottom, we were not surprised by the evidence submitted in each of Commission's hearings concerning the human effects of this inferior housing. Some of the firsthand testimony will be hard to forget. A Puerto Rican witness described the conditions in the New York neighborhood where he and thousands of other Americans live: East Harlem is a rent jungle, where four filthy rooms and a kitchen brings the landlord the unheard-of rental of $139 a month. East Harlem is a place where 10 and 11 human beings have been crowded into one room. East Harlem is a place where a decontrolled apartment is subdivided into eight cubbyholes, filthy cubbyholes at that, where tenants are afraid to put their lights out at night for fear of rats. . . .75 A New York housing official described one building he had inspected which housed 25 families with six or seven persons living in a single room; it had only one toilet for all these families.76 "For many, charity begins at home," Jackie Robinson testified, "So do hate, hostility, and delinquency, especially when the home invironment is a slum, lacking adequate space, lacking facilities, but not lacking for high rentals, while infested with insects and rodents." " The President of the Protestant Council of New York testified that overcrowded slum living "inevitably strains family life, induces frustration, encourages immorality, breeds violence, and cripples the minds and bodies of growing children." He called it "a form of infanticide.78 These statements are borne out by statistics. A report of the New York Academy of Medicine reported that the estimated substandard 20 percent of metropolitan areas accounted for 60 percent of these areas' tuberculosis, 55 percent of their juvenile delinquency, and 45 percent of their major crimes.79 Congested areas can be found by 75 Id. at 391. 70 Id. at 149. 77 Id. at 270. 78 Id. at 322. 70 Ibid. of Medicine. See January 1954 Report of Committee on Public Health, New York Academy looking for the neighborhoods that report the highest rates of tuberculosis and infant mortality, the greater incidence of fires, and a disproportionately high ratio of juvenile delinquency. This same substandard 20 percent of the urban area accounts for approximately 35 percent of the fires.80 The relation between bad housing and crime was evident in New York long before Negroes took over most of the worst housing. Crime and juvenile delinquency were common among each new group of immigrants, when they lived in the central city slums. As they moved from these centers to better outlying neighborhoods, their high crime and delinquency rates declined sharply." This observation was supported by the executive director of the Southeast Chicago Commission, Mr. Julian Levi, who stated: There is a definite correlation. It is so close, in fact, that we can take certain crimes, put them on a map, and speculate pretty well as to the character of housing which is there.82 In Atlanta the chairman of the Citizens' Crime Committee testified that the striking correlation between bad housing and crime put the relatively high rate of Negro crime in its right perspective. The ratio of Negro offenses to population in Atlanta far exceeds the rates for whites in all reported kinds of crime, except auto theft and negligent homicide. Predominantly Negro areas have a higher than average rate of juvenile delinquency. But the Crime Committee also found one predominantly Negro census tract where there was a high incidence of Negro home ownership that was as free of juvenile delinquency as the most favorable white neighborhood. It found another predominantly white census tract where there were a large number of white migrants from rural areas with a rate of juvenile delinquency as high as that of any Negro neighborhood in the city.83 The incidence of juvenile crime was found to be heaviest in areas where housing is dilapidated, poverty widespread, living conditions overcrowded, and home ownership low. The geographic location of adult offenses and offenders was not readily available, but the Crime Committee concluded from its studies of the location of juvenile delinquents that factors other than race caused the high rate of Negro offenses. It further concluded that several environmental factors were decisive. Most important was the breakdown of the home. This breakdown, it concluded was hastened not merely by bad slum neighborhoods but also by the loss of self-respect of recent farm migrants to the city. Inadequately trained parents are often overwhelmed by so Id. at 301. 1 Id. at 204. 8 Id. at 882. 83 Id. at 571, 573. |