Reso 2022-107 Denouncing Discriminatory Housing Practices

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IN THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SAN LEANDRO RESOLUTION NO.2022-107 RESOLUTION OF THE SAN LEANDRO CITY COUNCIL DENOUNCING DISCRIMINATORY HOUSING PRACTICES OF THE PAST AND AFFIRMING THAT SAN LEANDRO IS A WELCOMING PLACE FOR ALL WHEREAS, the San Leandro City Council acknowledges that in an earlier period of its history, members of the San Leandro community engaged in discriminatory housing practices; and WHEREAS, some of those practices included the use of exclusionary covenants, conditions and restrictions, otherwise known as CC&Rs, which can be included in a home deed to describe the things a homeowner can and cannot do with the property; and WHEREAS, in the early 20th century, neighborhood developers in San Leandro and many other communities across the United States began adding racial covenants into the CC&Rs of new homes, which restricted the property from being sold, rented, leased, or occupied by a person other than of the White or Caucasian race; and WHEREAS, starting in 1934, federal housing policies associated with the New Deal era required many suburban developments to include racist covenants in housing deeds, resulting in millions of homes across the United States being out of reach to persons of color; and WHEREAS, in 1948, the United States Supreme Court determined that such covenants were unconstitutional, though many were not formally rescinded; and WHEREAS, the creation of homeowner associations was a strategy many communities across the nation used to develop legally valid covenants that did not overtly stipulate restrictions related to race, color, or creed, but instead gave power to association boards to subjectively determine if a potential tenant was "desirable"; and WHEREAS, in San Leandro, by the late 1960s, such practices created 12 restrictive homeowners' associations, representing two-thirds of property owners; and WHEREAS, for decades, these politically powerful homeowner associations, as well as many realtors and members of the business community worked to maintain San Leandro's status as a racially exclusive suburb, without any direct intervention by City government; and WHEREAS, in 1963, California passed the Rumford Act (also known as the California Fair Housing Act) to protect the rights of African Americans, and other people of color, to purchase or rent housing without being subjected to discrimination; and WHEREAS, in 1968, the United States Congress passed the National Housing Act, which specifically prohibited housing discrimination by race, color, creed, and national origin across the United States; and RESOLUTION NO.2022-107