Unruh’s Impact on Housing
I cannot let the passing of Jesse Unruh go by without acknowledging what he did for me through his legislation.
As a struggling graduate student in social work 22 years ago, I was attending San Diego State College right on the heels of the Watts Riots. All of the state universities were colleges then. I faced discrimination in securing housing close to the campus solely due to my race. In those days racism was overt and tangible.
When I discovered the provisions of the Unruh Civil Rights Act, it was like playing monopoly because for each rejection that one could prove from an apartment based on race, one could collect $250 in damages. It was much more effective than the Rumford Fair Housing Act because it provided immediate relief.
After securing housing at a cost at least $10 higher than my white peers, I wanted to find a way to rectify what I perceived to be an unneeded burden on bright minority students seeking to matriculate in advanced study: a surcharge for one’s education in the form of either having to live in the ghetto and commute and/or live in the college area and pay a higher premium if you could find someone to rent you.
Therefore, my master’s thesis consisted of a systematic study of housing discrimination in several areas of San Diego with comparisons. I did this with three peers, one of whom is now a judge on the bench of the San Diego Superior Court. The title is: “An Investigation of Discrimination Against Negroes in Housing in the City of San Diego.”
With the cooperation of white and black students at San Diego State who participated in the study, we were able to get the college to institute a policy of screening listings and prohibiting racial discrimination in college-approved housing.
Unruh was a catalyst for the study and though I saw him many times in the hardware stores in Inglewood and Marina del Rey, I could never bring myself to interrupt his privacy. I wish I had. I hurt when I heard he died and I firmly believe many many blacks and other minority groups owe him a great deal.
When one observes the little house logo which must be displayed in housing developments, one should think of Jesse Unruh and the many others such as the late Assemblyman Byron Rumford who were integral to what remains an unending struggle against random and systematic bigotry.
E. FREDERICK ANDERSON
Los Angeles
