A Pursuit of liberation

Housing policy, beginning in the 1930s, rested at the core of the postwar housing industry. The Federal Homeowners Association (FHA) acted as the prime facilitator for government issued housing subsidies. The FHA also acted as a model for future insurance programs backed by the federal government. The GI Bill’s housing provision specifically adopted the FHA’S insurance plan but went a step further by creating additional incentives (Freund 2007 pg 181).  Long-term debentures and waived down payments were amongst the number of incentives put forth by the GI Bill. Along with adopting it’s insurance plan, the GI Bill also established similar appraisal standards underlined in the FHA’s Underwriters Manual. These guidelines aided in maintaining segregated housing markets. These discriminatory procedures pushed suburbanization to be the primary beneficiary of federal subsidization.

As a result, public housing efforts took a back seat in market stimulation. The Wagner-Taft-Ellender is a prime example of efforts that began but never saw full fruition due to underfunding. Title 1 and 2 of the bill focused on urban renewal but due to a lack of authorization from both Congress and the White House and the supplementary absence of proper subsidy allocation the project was effectively silenced (Freund 2007 pg 186). Demands from labor and civil rights organizations caused little change. Attempts by the FHA to quell their protest only furthered the issue of homeowner inequality. The creation of separate white and minority housing markets allowed for the FHA to further control the livelihoods of citizens of color within the U.S. Furthermore it created a discourse in which race could be discussed under the guise of actuarial ‘risk’ factors (Freund 2007 pg 187).