Friend --
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said on December 7th, 1964, “We are about past the day of legal segregation. We have about ended de jure segregation, where the laws of the nation or of a particular state can uphold it, because of the civil rights bill and the Supreme Court’s decision and other things... But there is another form of segregation coming up. It is coming up through housing discrimination, joblessness and the de facto segregation in the public schools.”
Segregation levels today mirror those that existed in the 1960s. The re-segregation of communities is a crisis exacerbated in metropolitan areas, like San Diego, where Section 8 housing vouchers are accepted only in low-opportunity, high-poverty neighborhoods, if at all.
Currently, one in three housing vouchers in the San Diego region are issued to a family with children, and well over 50% of black and Latino voucher recipient families with children live in neighborhoods with poverty rates above 20%.
The Obama Administration directed San Diego (and 22 other cities) to increase housing vouchers based on zip code because of the high concentration of voucher tenants living in high-poverty, segregated neighborhoods, and the many rental units available in high-rent neighborhoods. However, Trump has been taking steps to dismantle this crucial desegregation rule, and San Diego local government is doing everything in its power to follow Trump's racist segregation efforts.
Poverty attorneys including my housing policy adviser have been encouraging and urging the San Diego Housing Commission and City Council to continue efforts to de-segregate Section 8 housing by increasing voucher amounts to help low-income families move from high-poverty, racially segregated areas, to high-opportunity areas with quality schools and employment opportunities. Taking these steps would also increase our region’s number of units affordable to voucher holders by more than 10,000.
However, despite de-segregating Section 8 housing being a moral imperative that will also help our economy, our local government continues to perpetuate racial and class segregation. The CEO of the San Diego Housing Commission recently announced that he considered the Obama-era policy to be “nothing more than social engineering.”
Dr. King was a tireless champion for the poor and organized the Poor People’s Campaign to fight for economic justice. In his 1964 speech, he emphasized the economic divide that caused a black poverty rate that more than quadrupled that of white families: “Now, this economic problem is getting more serious because of many forces alive in our world and in our nation... So we can see that there is still a great gulf between the haves, so to speak, and the have-nots. And if America is to continue to grow and progress and develop and move on toward its greatness, this problem must be solved.”
Will you help me fight racial segregation in San Diego and increase opportunities for all?
I am the only candidate talking about these issues, and when I am on the City Council, I will act to require the San Diego Housing Commission to end its unfair and discriminatory policies that fuel the cycle of poverty and homelessness and exacerbate racial and class segregation.
Please contribute to my campaign today, and sign up to volunteer!
-- Bryan
Bryan Pease
http://www.bryanpease.com/ |
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