The late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an advocate and helped to pass the Fair Housing Act of 1968, a law that made housing discrimination illegal. Recently, at the Urban League of Philadelphia’s annual Whitney M. Young, Jr. Empowerment Luncheon, keynote speaker Chad Lassiter reminded attendees that there is still more work to be done.
“More than 50 years later, we still grapple with the harsh reality of housing disparities,” said Lassiter, executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, also known as PHRC, the state’s top civil rights enforcement agency. “Black Americans continue to face discrimination in housing and disproportionately affected by homelessness and are less likely to be homeowners than their white counterparts.”
The Urban League has a nationally recognized free housing counseling program that served about 3,000 people in 2022, helping about 70 families purchase homes with a total market value of more than $4.2 million.
“Housing discrimination is not a myth. It is a stark reality,” Lassiter said. “It manifests itself in various forms from landlords refusing to rent to Black people, to real estate agents sailing Black people away from predominantly white neighborhoods, to lenders denying Black applicant’s mortgages at a higher rate.”
The practices not only violate the principals of fairness and equality, he said, they also perpetuate racial segregation and economic disparity.
During his speech, Lassiter recommended several books including “The Philadelphia Negro,” by W.E.B. DuBois, an African American scholar, which discussed problems like discrimination for Black city residents in the 1800s.
About 300 people attended the Urban League event at the Lowes Hotel, which also served as a fundraiser. The organization named several honorees, including Councilmember-at-Large Katherine Gilmore Richardson, who received the Community Leader Empowerment Award; Wells Fargo Foundation, which received the Corporate Empowerment Award and the Community First Fund, which received the Diversity and Inclusion Award.
The Urban League is dedicated to helping to lift Philadelphia up from its reputation as the one of the nation’s poorest big cities, through its workforce development, youth education, entrepreneurship and health and wellness programs.
Keith Bethel, Urban League chairman of the board welcomed the crowd and introduced several government officials in attendance, such as newly appointed Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel; Senator Sharif Street, D-3rd District; U.S. Rep. Morgan Cephas, D-192nd District and Councilmembers Jamie Gauthier, D.-3rd District and Anthony Phillips, D.-9th District.
Some of the sponsors included Comcast NBCUniversal, GEICO, CSL Behring, Bank of America, CIGNA, TD Bank, Pa. Health & Wellness, JPMorgan Chase, Independence Blue Cross, Citizens Bank, The Phillies, African American Museum in Philadelphia, Jefferson Health Plans and Giant.
“Without access to affordable housing individuals would be trapped in poverty,” Lassiter said. “It extends beyond the individual, it affects families, communities. It affects generations. It contributes to the racial wealth gap with Black families having significantly less wealth than white families. It affects educational opportunity with children raised in segregated, under resourced neighborhoods. It also affects health outcomes.”
