Race, Local Politics, Affordable Housing, and Residential Segregation

Cities across the country have political structures—such as Chicago’s “aldermanic prerogative”—that allow racial bias to poison decisions on the location of affordable housing. Are similar structures at work in your area? How can these structures be changed to prevent the resulting residential segregation?

In our October 2018 episode of the Advocacy Exchange, our monthly conversation with advocates advancing change, we talked with Kate Walz, the Senior Director of Litigation and Director of Housing Justice at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, and Patricia Fron, the Executive Director of the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance. We discussed how local power dynamics work to block affordable housing and further residential racial segregation—and what can be done to change these dynamics.

For more, be sure to read Kate and Patricia’s Clearinghouse article, “The Color of Power: How Local Control over the Siting of Affordable Housing Shapes America." http://povertylaw.org/clearing....house/articles/Walz_

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