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(During the following weeks, Sister Janet Reports will host a
series of guest columnists who will each focus for us a legislative issue of
particular relevance. Through such an educational opportunity, we Christians
might more fully exercise our responsibility to respond to the need for
informed political concern. This week, Representative W.M. (Bill) Alexander,
39th District, writes on housing legislation.)
I appreciate this opportunity as a guest columnist to inform you
of housing legislation before the 1973 Session of the General Assembly.
House Bill 523 would prohibit discrimination in housing. It seeks
to eliminate, by making them unlawful, the unethical business tactics that have
caused an increase in segregated housing patterns. It does not interfere with
individual freedoms. The bill exempts an individual who is selling his own
home, who does not use the services of a real estate broker, or who is not in
the business of buying or selling housing accommodations. Thus it protects the
freedom of an individual to discriminate without being forced into a
discriminating housing market.
Many people have made the observation that the housing patterns of
Atlanta are more segregated than ever before.
A few years ago there were small Black communities scattered
throughout the City of Atlanta. Today it’s a different story. We have
large sections of the city that are practically all white or all black. There
are larger areas in the suburbs that are all white. Children grow up in these
“white ghettoes” without ever coming into contact with the Negro race
until they go to college or work. This situation is not healthy. Children who
are growing up in today’s more segregated housing will have to work
together in the future as adults. Today’s more segregated housing patterns
also create the problem of school busing. It is ironic that during the past 18
years while the United States was pursuing a national policy of integrated
education, local housing patterns were becoming more segregated.
House Bill 523 is intended to assure equal opportunity to all
persons for decent housing accommodations, to prohibit discrimination because
of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin in a transaction involving a
housing accommodation. We could then have families seeking housing
accommodations where they could afford and convenient to their jobs, schools,
and churches without regard to race, etc. Some have called this forced housing,
but there is nothing in this bill to force a person to buy a house in a certain
area. If this bill became law our segregated housing patterns would not end
overnight, but it would be a start.
House Bill 481 is a local bill creating the Atlanta Housing
Finance and Development Authority to issue tax exempt revenue bonds for the
purpose of marking mortgage loans to qualified housing sponsors for the
construction and rehabilitation of housing for low and moderate income persons
and families.
The government recently imposed an 18-month freeze on all
federally subsidized housing programs. It is estimated this would be an
economic loss to the state of $380 million over the 18-month period. This could
mean no new housing starts for families whose incomes are below $12,000 a year.
There continues to exist in Atlanta and the State of Georgia a
critical shortage of safe and sanitary housing within the financial means of
families and persons of low and moderate incomes.
The House Committee on State Planning and Community Affairs is
planning to introduce a general bill to provide similar financing on a
statewide basis.
House Bill 430 creates the State Office of Housing within the
Division of Community Affairs. It will be responsible for the development of a
state housing program, assessing the housing problems and needs and
coordinating federal housing planning programs on a state level.
If these bills become law they should launch the State of Georgia
into a new and progressive field in the area of housing. I urge you to study
these bills and let your elected representatives know how you feel on these
issues. |
