“It’s hard to get anything done in a federal bureaucracy, but particularly anything fair housing and anything dealing with race. I never felt so ineffective at achieving things that I felt were more important than when I was at HUD” (Hannah-Jones, 19).

The quote above stuck out to me the most in the reading because I feel it best encapsulates the main points conveyed. This week’s reading talks about our country’s longstanding history of neglecting to promote fair housing for minorities and low-income families. It is a shame to see that our attempts to make housing fairly available to all since 1968 are still ineffective today. I was hoping that by the time I reached the ending of the reading, our discriminatory housing history would have turned around. Many communities still openly discriminate today without any consequences and still get federal funding. A lot of our housing development efforts in the past half-century seem to have this pattern of taking one step forward, two steps back.

Despite 50 years of time and experience for housing officials to learn about their roles, one of the recent studies show how ineffective the HUD still is in enforcing regulations today. When applying for federal funding, not only do block grant recipients take a cursory effort over filing documentations, HUD officials also still neglect to actively review these. Both sides of the equations tend to treat the application process as a formality, and as such, foster an environment of disinterest towards promoting civil rights. HUD also has a history of not taking any action unless under pressure from litigation. This attitude of nonchalance can explain our lack of progress in civil rights in the housing sector.