Introduction
Historically, low income people of color have faced discrimination of all sorts, but especially housing discrimination. Even when the Fair Housing Administration began issuing mortgage loans in order to stimulate the economy and give United States citizens the opportunity to purchase a home, this luxury was not equally issued to low income people of color, especially African Americans. In order to combat this discrimination of housing accessibility, especially affordable housing, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was enacted. Through this act, discrimination in housing on the basis of race, sex, gender, education level, etc. was illegal. This act gave rise to housing accessibility to all people, which snowballed other programs and policies
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The Fair Housing Act of 1968, also commonly referred to as the Civil Rights Act of 1968, was signed into law primarily to “inform the provisions of the Act aimed at dismantling the systemic, racist policies that governed nearly all aspects of American life” (Leacock 2019), which was especially important following the incessant housing discrimination and lack of accessibility to fair housing by low, income people of color throughout previous years. The Fair Housing Act had major success for its policies governing housing, specifically in protecting citizens from discrimination in housing, as well as providing more support in finding more affordable housing.
The most notable stakeholders that are affected by a lack of access to affordable housing are marginalized groups, such as low income people of color. Other stakeholders are The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), private investors, who will receive federal tax income credit if they build affordable housing, property developers, attorneys that might be needed during a Low Income Housing Tax Credit deal, and private and nonprofit organizations that are often at the forefront of the investment and development of affordable housing such as HOME and CHD
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The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was one of the initial acts that began to address this housing inequality, and fight against the discrimination that was often seen in the past, in regards to low income people of color being able to rent or buy a house. Subsequent interventions and programs were then created in an attempt to provide many marginalized communities and families with the opportunity to rent or buy a home. Programs like the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, Low Income Housing Tax Credit programs, and Community Housing Development Organizations have attempted to amend the inequalities in housing, which in some regard can be attributed to systematic racism in the United States through our history. These programs have had successes in providing accessible and affordable housing to their targeted marginalized populations but some other programs that could be even more effective in utilizing are the Boulder Community Housing Assistance Program (CHAP) on a more national level, as well as Singapore’s housing program policies. While there have been many organizations that have tried to make an impact on the housing inequality that has been witnessed against low income communities of color, there is still more work to be done. There have been rent increases and a continually lack of affordable and