The California Association of Realtors has apologized for the “leading role” it played in the state’s history of “segregation and exclusionary practices,” becoming the first state Realtor association to do so.
Specifically, the group’s leaders repudiated the role of a predecessor organization, the California Real Estate Association, played in the 1950s and 1960s in supporting two measures that impacted the ability of low-income and minority residents to access housing.
They include support for Article 34 in 1950, which required voter approval of public housing projects, making it difficult to build affordable housing in the state; and Proposition 14, a 1964 ballot measure that overturned the Rumford Act, California’s fair housing law.
Article 34 remains in effect despite numerous efforts to repeal it, most recently with CAR’s help. But the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Proposition 14 in 1967 in a case brought by Santa Ana renters Lincoln and Dottie Mulkey.
“Unfortunately, this organization has a regretful history of advancing discriminatory policies,” Otto Catrina, CAR’s 2022 president, said Friday, Oct. 21, in a news conference in Los Angeles. “I’m here to say the association was wrong. We not only apologize for these practices, we strongly condemn them.”
Several people attending Friday’s news conference cheered CAR’s decision to apologize.
“I want to thank God for this historical moment. It’s been a long time coming,” said Derrick Luckett, California president of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, or NAREB, a 75-year-old organization of African American real estate professionals, formed when Blacks were denied membership to Realtor associations.
“A lot of people have been denied wealth and things that they should be entitled to,” Luckett added. “And I’m hoping going from this point forward that we’re going to be in a better place, a better space and we’re going to be eventually one big group to make sure that we all are fighting for democracy and housing on a level playing field.”
“We all applaud CAR for this apology,” said Dolores Golden, chief executive of the Multicultural Real Estate Alliance for Urban Change. “We accept it, and we support it. … We are all working together for democracy and housing and to stamp out redlining in lending practices.”
The California Realtor apology is part of a larger, nationwide reckoning Realtors are having with their industry’s role in promoting racial segregation since the early 1900s. The Chicago Association of Realtors apologized in 2018, the 50th anniversary of the federal Fair Housing Act. The National Association of Realtors issued a similar apology in November 2020, followed by recent apologies by Realtors in Atlanta, St. Louis and Minneapolis.
Catrina said California’s decision to issue a formal apology came in response to requests by Bay Area members of the association’s diversity committee.
Historians document a different America at the start of the 20th century, saying many U.S. cities were integrated before a series of practices starting with exclusionary zoning and racially restrictive deed covenants began carving out all-White neighborhoods across the nation. The Federal Housing Administration promoted the practice by requiring new developments contain deed covenants or other barriers to non-White homebuyers as a condition for funding.
Realtors played key roles in the development and support of those policies, historians say.
Dorothy Mulkey, a Santa Ana resident who in the 1960s filed the lawsuit that went to the Supreme court and struck down Proposition 14. The proposition had reversed the Rumford Fair Housing Act which made it illegal to discriminate in housing on the basis of race. Dorothy, or Dottie as she’s known filed the lawsuit after she and her husband were turned down three times while trying to rent an apartment in Santa Ana. The NAACP and other groups had prepared the Mulkeys by having them followed by a white couple who applied for each apartment after the Mulkeys applied. The white couple was offered the apartment each time. The case landed in the Supreme Court and thanks to the lawsuit the Rumford Fair Housing Act was reinstated. Very few know this history today. (File photo by Michael Goulding, theOrange County Register/SCNG)
The legacy of discrimination continues. U.S. Census figures show that while 64.5% of White, non-Hispanic Californians were homeowners in 2021, just 35.5% of Black households, 45.6% of Latino households and 61.2% of Asian households in the state were homeowners. The denial of homeownership led to a loss of housing appreciation that contributed to higher household wealth among Whites. CAR reported that less than half of Black households earn the minimum income needed to buy a home.
“Homeownership is a key element in building generational wealth and economic security for working families,” Catrina said during the news conference. “As stewards of homeownership, Realtors have a unique role to play in the fight for fair housing.”
The state Realtor group outlined a number of actions it’s undertaking to support homeownership in underserved communities, including support for efforts to repeal Article 34 and for other legislation promoting fair housing.
The association also has partnered with housing groups in Los Angeles, Riverside and the Bay Area city of Richmond to provide grants of up to $10,000 to help minority homebuyers pay closing costs. The program has distributed or is now processing $755,000 in closing cost grants and has approved an additional $250,000 for future grants.