Homeowners Picket FHA Officials Over Broken-Down Homes, Unkept Promises, Philadelphia Tribune (June 24, 1972)

This article, published in the Philadelphia Tribune (the oldest continuously operating Black newspaper in the country), details a group of homeowners’ fight to access money for home repairs. The homeowners bought their houses through the Federal Housing Administration’s Section 235 program, a public-private partnership to help low-income Americans purchase houses. Though the FHA was supposed to pay for necessary home repairs, underfunding, corruption and bureaucratic red tape meant that many homeowners never saw their promised money.

Apart from being poorly managed, the Section 235 program ultimately had a segregating effect, with most white participants able to purchase new homes in the suburbs, and most Black participants relegated to substandard urban housing.

Although the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968) officially prevented racial discrimination in housing, Black Americans continued to face racist real estate practices and barriers to safe housing. This article demonstrates one of the ways housing discrimination operated during the post-Fair Housing Act era.