It’s time to atone for racist housing policies once rampant in California | Opinion

There was a time in California, less than a century ago, when racial and ethnic discrimination was written into housing covenants meant to keep non-white people out of specific neighborhoods in cities across the state.

Slowly but surely, the discriminatory words that codified housing discrimination in California are finally being redacted to satisfy a law that only took effect in 2022.

Better late than never? No, not really. Not enough Californians are even aware that these racist covenants existed in their own communities or that they contributed to housing segregation in “progressive” California.

All Californians need to be aware of this history. The actual words within old housing covenants demonstrate how recently racism was baked into everyday life of not so long ago: “No part of said real property shall ever be occupied at any time by any person or persons not of the white or Caucasian race,” read verbiage standard in recorded documents in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s.

Whites sometimes felt the need to specify in land deeds who they didn’t want in their neighborhoods: “No Negroes, Mexicans, Hindus, Filipinos,” read one template used throughout the golden state. Others targeted Turks, Armenians, Cubans, Hawaiians, Chinese, Japanese and other “Asiatics.” Servants were allowed to work in the homes even if they couldn’t live in the neighborhoods themselves.

While these covenants have been illegal in practice in the last half-century, the hateful wording has lived on because property deeds are forever.

Imagine the emotional damage caused over the years as new homeowners, scouring documents provided by title companies, came upon this systemic bigotry.

Imagine the financial damage to countless families of color prevented from acquiring homes — a key factor in attaining legacy wealth — who were instead relegated to the proverbial “other side of the tracks.” These CC&Rs are a big reason that white Americans’ median wealth today is 7.8 times that of Blacks, according to Brookings.

“During the Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations, public housing programs purposely and self-consciously concentrated African Americans in urban ghettos, while federal housing finance programs purposely and self-consciously created whites-only suburbs,” UC Berkeley academic Richard Rothstein wrote in a 2014 legal journal.

Steps toward healing

Seeing a chance to partially right a wrong, California legislators passed Assembly Bill 1466. That law, which took effect on July 1, 2022, requires that clerk-recorders in the state’s 58 counties review all property records and redact shameful passages.

Many have started the herculean task, often contracting with third-party vendors to scan and review documents with optical character recognition software. Estimating that this effort could take years, the law allows agencies until the end of 2027; longer, if county supervisors approve extensions. The law also lets counties impose $2 fees on documents being recorded now, to help cover costs.

About 23 million property records in Sacramento County alone must be reviewed, according to an AB 1466 implementation plan.

Fresno County’s clerk-recorder estimates having 6.5 million documents. Its county supervisors did not approve a fee bump but signaled they may.

In Modesto, Stanislaus County Clerk-Recorder Donna Linder thinks she can cover a vendor’s contract, which should be less than $200,000, using a department modernization fund, negating the need for a recording surcharge. Her office has nearly 6 million property documents to go through.

Linder was given a head start by retired educator Sharon Froba and her husband, David, a retired attorney, who stumbled on race-based covenants a few years ago. They marshaled the energy of local high school student volunteers and found discrimination in 91 of 169 Modesto subdivisions created mostly in the 1930s and ‘40s.

In 2019, teens throughout Stanislaus County wrote about race-based covenants while competing for scholarship money in an American Heritage essay contest sponsored by the county Office of Education, Modesto City Schools and The Modesto Bee.

San Luis Obispo County officials estimate needing $1 million to $3 million to review property records there.

High time to say `sorry’

While racist covenants are being slowly eliminated, local leaders should consider taking a more personal step toward healing. City councils and county supervisors should issue formal apologies.

President Ronald Reagan did it in 1988 when he signed a law passed by Congress admitting the injustice of Japanese internment camps during World War II, and providing $20,000 for each detainee. In 2008, the US House of Representatives apologized to Blacks whose ancestors suffered slavery. The question of slave reparations is the top priority of California’s Reparations Task Force, the first of its kind in the United States.

Closer to home, a Sierra Nevada ski resort in 2021 was renamed Palisades Tahoe because the old name was a sexist and racist slur.

It’s not a stretch for leaders of today to acknowledge errors of the past. Gestures of humility and remorse do not betray weakness. They signal an awareness that human beings must do more to treat each other with respect and dignity.

While current elected leaders can’t fully atone for the sins of previous generations, a genuine apology for the harm caused by racist covenants is in order.