toward EQUALITY : EXPLORING A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE : A Home on the Bias : These four went in search of an apartment--and equal treatment by landlords
Racial and ethnic discrimination in housing has been a concern since Congress adopted the federal Fair Housing Act 20 years ago. The law, which gave the government a “conciliation role” in housing discrimination disputes, was made tougher this year--protection now includes the handicapped and families with children.
Housing discrimination remains widespread. It can be blatant, as when a building manager sees a minority applicant or mixed-race couple and refuses to show the apartment. But far more often, housing discrimination is subtle. It can occur when a building manager says that the last vacant unit was just rented or when a landlord asks for an unusually large deposit or extensive credit report. In California, most discrimination cases involve black apartment seekers.
Times staff writer Jill Stewart followed an Asian, a Latino and a black as they applied for apartments in Glendale, the Fairfax District of Los Angeles and along the Beverly Hills-Los Angeles border, areas where incidents of discrimination have been reported. Each applicant sought a two-bedroom unit and told the landlord that he or she was a single parent with a teen-age child. If the subject came up during tours of the apartments, applicants reported their salaries as about $40,000.
The volunteers were Robert A. Arias, a Latino affirmative action compliance officer for Los Angeles County; Phillip Dixon, a black assistant metropolitan editor at The Times, and Lily Chen, an Asian who is the former mayor of Monterey Park and is public affairs director of the Los Angeles County Children’s Services Department.
Staff writer Stewart, who is Anglo, applied at the same apartments for comparative purposes. As with the others, she told landlords that she was a single parent with a child. This is Stewart’s account:
In December, Chen was shown two-bedroom units in a new building in a popular area of Glendale. During a thorough tour of the complex, the owner explained that the downstairs apartment was nicer because it offered more room but said he would give it to Chen for the same price as an upstairs apartment, both for $775.
He told her that she would need to meet the manager of the building before any final decision would be made upon her as a tenant, but he “appeared to be very interested in me and my experience there was most positive. He told me there would be no problem getting the apartment.” He said she would be asked to pay first and last months’ rent plus a $100 cleaning deposit and gave her an application form to complete.
A few days later, I had an identical experience.
In December, Dixon looked at a different apartment complex in a desirable Glendale neighborhood where two-bedroom units were being offered for $800 a month. A “very friendly” real estate agent told Dixon that there were several units available and showed him two with different layouts. She assured him that the city had good schools that were not part of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
After a lengthy tour, she offered to accept a $200 check to hold his favorite apartment until his application was processed, and she told him he would be subjected to a credit check at a cost of $15. She said that if anyone applied for the apartment he wanted meanwhile, she would let him know. “If I had wanted to get an apartment there, I could have gotten one there,” Dixon said. “I didn’t sense that she was going through the motions. She took her time going through the apartments. I got a sense that she was willing to rent me.”
A few days later, I looked at the same apartment and had an identical experience.
At a third building in Glendale, Chen hit it off immediately with the owner, who was “absolutely very cordial” and showed her around the building in a working-class Glendale neighborhood. He mentioned to her that he had rented apartments to two black professional people “who they just really enjoy as tenants.” She told him about her work with the county and chatted with the landlord. “The owner simply said that if I would pick one apartment, they wanted first and last months’ rent. They made it very clear they would have rented it to me on the spot, without any background checks.” Nor was she asked to complete an application form.
I later saw the same apartment and had a similar experience to Chen’s, including the mention by the owner that the building had some black tenants.
When Dixon visited a year-old complex in the Fairfax District, two-bedroom apartments were being offered at $1,200 with a view and $1,150 without. The agent was friendly and took him on a thorough tour, noting that the building offered amenities like a weight room and pool. She said the few vacancies were due to people moving out to buy homes. She did not ask Dixon if he could afford the unit or where he was employed--”something they always asked in Philadelphia,” where he lived before moving to Los Angeles in 1986. He was asked to mail his application in and was told he would be subjected to a credit check costing $25.
“She told me the move-in date was flexible and that if I was interested and the application worked out, I could move in pretty much whenever I wanted to move in,” Dixon said. “I felt that if I wanted to pay 1,200 bucks a month for that itty-bitty apartment, that would be fine with her.”
Arias, Chen and the author had identical experiences during their tours of this complex and were also told they would be subjected to a $25 credit check, but Chen’s and Stewart’s experiences after the tour differed markedly from Dixon’s and Arias’s. The manager told both Chen and the author that she was offering the view unit at $1,175--$25 less than the price quoted to Dixon or Arias.
The day after Chen saw the apartment, the manager telephoned her at home and asked whether she had decided to submit a formal application. The manager told Chen she felt she would be “an excellent tenant, and we would love to have you with us.” The manager made the same phone call to the author the day after she saw the unit. Dixon received no follow-up call and was not offered the lowered price.
Arias also toured an apartment complex in a desirable area along the Beverly Hills-Los Angeles border, where the manager repeatedly told him there was an apartment available for $1,250, in addition to larger and more luxurious units renting for $1,500 and up. “His dwelling on the $1,250 apartment, almost as if he felt it was more in my range, was the only negative thing I picked up on, and I may have misread his motive,” Arias said. The manager was pleasant and chatty, but showed him only one unit, and “was not trying to push it, not trying to get a commitment, just going through the motions.”
Hours after Arias saw the unit, I had a somewhat different experience. The manager was similarly friendly, but showed me two units with markedly different layouts renting for $1,500 on different floors. He then offered to show me an even more spacious unit renting for more than $1,700 on another floor, and another for more than $1,800. There was no mention of a small unit available for $1,250. After the tour, the manager encouraged me to call him back when I was ready to decide. Arias said no encouragement was offered.
WHERE TO TAKE FAIR HOUSING COMPLAINTS
LOS ANGELES COUNTY Hollywood Wilshire Fair Housing Council (213) 464-1141
Westside Fair Housing Council (213) 475-9671
San Fernando Valley Fair Housing Council (818) 985-9883
San Gabriel Valley Fair Housing Council (818) 791-0211
Metro Harbor Fair Housing Council (San Pedro) (213) 539-6191
Long Beach Fair Housing Foundation (213) 599-0109
Fair Housing Congress of Southern California (213) 462-4673
State Department of Fair Employment and Housing, L.A. (213) 620-2610
ORANGE COUNTY State Dept. of Fair Employment and Housing, Santa Ana (714) 558-4159
Fair Housing Council of Orange County (714) 835-0160
SAN DIEGO COUNTY State Department of Fair Employment and Housing (619) 237-7405
Neighborhood House Assn. (619) 263-7761
