After reading the ProPublica article about historical HUD inefficiencies, my biggest takeaway was that the government inefficiency following the enactment of the Fair Housing Act reduced the effectiveness of the law for years to come.

The author offers a compelling argument that the HUD has made an inadequate effort to fully integrate the housing of African Americans by presenting evidence across numerous presidencies. Moreover, it surprised me to read about the political reasons why this was happening; it seemed like many government officials had not bought into the Fair Housing Act, despite it being passed as a part of the 1968 Civil Rights Act. It appears that this lingering sentiment inhibited the full enactment of the Fair Housing Act, at a time when the movement for integration had neared its peak. By being hesitant to fully enact the legislature, the HUD effectively reduced the impact of the law.

Because this momentum had cooled, the Fair Housing Act was not implemented to its full effect, many African Americans were not able to relocate to integrated housing, which caused the prior disparity to remain. Since housing affects many social aspects of life, that disparity also led to a lingering disparity in social opportunities for those still living in largely segregated communities. I think this relates back to a prior reading about Pruitt-Igoe, because once a community is deemed a ghetto (and segregated communities were largely considered as such), local authorities can often turn their heads the other way when facing a decision on whether or not to fund a struggling neighborhood. This effectively creates a cycle of inefficiency, where the HUD initially fails to integrate housing communities, and then those same communities are unable to integrate on their own as they are unable to receive adequate funding.