A study has found that African Americans in Long Island, New York, and across the United States continue to face serious challenges in finding housing.
The report, written by civil rights advocate Elaine Gross and published in the Touro Law Review, explains how many of these challenges are the result of historic discrimination, which has not been fully addressed even today.
According to the report, after slavery was abolished in the United States, African Americans gained legal citizenship and the right to own property.
However, this did not guarantee equal access to housing. Across many parts of the country, white communities created systems to block African American families from buying or renting homes in their neighborhoods. These barriers came in many forms.
In some cases, it was outright violence and intimidation that kept African Americans away from white areas. In other cases, local governments passed zoning laws that made it illegal for Black people to buy homes in certain locations.
Even when these openly racist policies were challenged and banned by the courts, new methods were created to achieve the same goal.
The report explains that restrictive covenants became one of the most common ways to block African Americans from moving into white neighborhoods.
These were legal agreements placed on properties that said the house could not be sold to a Black person.
Though such covenants were later declared illegal, the legacy of this practice remains. After the ban on restrictive covenants, banks, insurance companies, and real estate agents created other ways to maintain segregation.
One of these methods was redlining, where financial institutions refused to give loans or insurance to people living in areas considered “high risk,” which often simply meant areas where Black people lived.
Elaine Gross, who leads ERASE Racism, a civil rights organization focused on fighting housing discrimination in Long Island, said that although many of these policies are no longer legal, their effects continue.
She explained that African Americans today are still more likely to be denied home loans compared to white applicants with similar incomes.
Real estate agents, too, often steer Black families toward certain neighborhoods, limiting their chances of moving into areas with better schools, services, and job opportunities.
The report describes Long Island as a clear example of how these problems work in practice. Gross said Long Island remains one of the most segregated regions in the United States.
Black families trying to move into majority-white areas often find themselves blocked by a mix of financial, legal, and social barriers.
The result is that many African Americans in Long Island live in communities that have fewer resources, poorly funded schools, and lower access to jobs.
Gross emphasized that this is not always due to choice, as some people claim, but rather due to long-standing systems designed to keep African American families in certain parts of the region.
She said that many Black families who would like to move into better neighborhoods are simply unable to do so.
The report also explains how housing discrimination affects more than just where people live. When Black families are kept in under-resourced neighborhoods, their children often attend schools that receive less funding and provide lower-quality education.
Adults in these neighborhoods may also find it harder to get good jobs, as they are far from major employment centers and lack reliable public transportation.
Over time, these disadvantages add up, keeping Black families in poverty for generations.
A key concern raised in the report is the decline of national efforts to address housing discrimination. Gross said that while the civil rights movement of the 1960s brought national attention to the issue and led to major legal changes, there is no longer a unified national movement working to end housing segregation. Instead, most efforts are now local, led by smaller organizations like ERASE Racism. Gross warned that this lack of national attention could mean that progress remains slow and fragile.
She also pointed out that homeownership is one of the main ways that American families build wealth. Because many Black families have been denied the chance to own homes, they have been locked out of this opportunity.
As a result, the wealth gap between Black and white families has continued to grow. Without homeownership, Black families have less ability to pass on wealth to future generations, making it harder for them to achieve financial stability.
The report ends by calling for stronger action from both government agencies and private businesses.
Gross said that anti-discrimination laws must be enforced more strictly and that banks, real estate agents, and local officials must be held accountable when they continue to block African Americans from moving into better neighborhoods.
She also called for public education campaigns to help change attitudes toward race and housing.
In her conclusion, Gross made it clear that the struggle over housing is about more than property. It is about equal opportunity, economic fairness, and the right of every family to live where they choose without facing barriers based on race.
She said that unless the country takes serious action to address the systems that maintain segregation, African Americans will continue to be denied equal access to housing—a basic right that many other Americans take for granted.
By: Joshua Narh