Like many communities across the country, Arlington has a history of housing segregation along racial lines. In the 1930s, the Federal Housing Administration encouraged homeownership by providing 30 year loan programs with low down payments. (Read more about our work on housing segregation: Lessons for Arlington from Minneapolis and Leckey Forum Explores Path to Inclusion.)
Marty Swaim, co-founder of the local nonprofit Challenging Racism, says those loans were “simply only available to white people.”
Swaim participated in Housing Arlington’s third and final virtual community conversation of 2019. (See our previous posts on Housing and the Economy and Housing and the Environment.) She said Arlington’s neighborhoods still aren’t equitable—and it’s obvious just by traveling through the county along Glebe Road.
Life expectancy for people living in North Rosslyn and Aurora Highlands is 88 years; for people living in Buckingham, it is 78 years. Learn more in the Northern Virginia Health Foundation’s Getting Ahead report.
Statistical data back up what Swaim can see. For example, African Americans are disproportionately represented in homeless shelters, and people living in neighborhoods with higher percentages of people of color in Arlington have a significantly lower life expectancy than those in other neighborhoods.
So what does equity mean here in our community?
Photo by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Dr. Reuben Varghese, Public Health Director, Arlington County Department of Human Services, used an image created by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explain: “Equity changes the lens from a one-size-fits-all to giving each population the appropriate bicycle to get to their destination.”
More importantly, how can we achieve equity in housing? The panelists offered the following suggestions:
Ask people what they need; listen instead of trying to solve problems for people. —José Quiñónez, Director of Community Impact, Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing
“Mix it up.” Add variety in the way we build by diversifying types of units and where they’re located. —Marty Swaim, Co-Founder, Challenging Racism
Ask, “Who benefits, who is burdened, who is missing, and how do we know?” Use the answers to those questions to challenge or change government policies. —Dr. Reuben Varghese, Public Health Director, Arlington County Department of Human Services
Implement the use of Small Area Fair Market Rent vouchers as designated by HUD, and use decision-making tools to help build equity in public policy, such as the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE). —Nicole Harmon, Housing Assistance Bureau Chief, Arlington County Department of Human Services
Don’t close off communities. Instead, work to find a balance of supply and manage growth for public infrastructure county-wide. —Christian Dorsey, Chair, Arlington County Board
Dorsey said the community will know success in housing equity when “people look at Arlington and see an array of choices of where to live that are available to all.”