Writer: Dylan Bruton
2 min read April 2024 — Considered a key component to quality of life, home ownership also indicates the success of the economy at large. Today, the proportion of homeowners is nearly 65.7%, down 3.5% from a high of 69.2% in 2004.
Like in other U.S. cities, factors impacting homeownership in Jacksonville extend beyond interest rates and inflation to racialized housing discrimination.
Jacksonville Area Legal Aid recently received $425,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to address fair housing and discrimination issues. The organization is one of six Florida housing organizations to receive nearly $2.5 million from HUD as part of a concerted attempt to end discrimination and support fair housing. One of those groups,
“We know that the way our city looks today is the result of intentional government action that has lasted for decades. And if we want to have a different city, if we want to have a city that works for everybody, we’ve got to focus on the locations, we’ve got to focus on our history so that we can change our future,” said Jim Kowalski, president and CEO of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, as cited by News4Jax. Kowalski also stated the money from HUD will be implemented into their efforts with investigative work and litigation whenever there are cases that are taken to court.
The legacy and history of housing discrimination in Jacksonville is deep and complicated, particularly with redlining. As defined by the Federal Reserve, redlining is “the practice of denying a creditworthy applicant a loan for housing in a certain neighborhood even though the applicant may otherwise be eligible for the loan.”
To show the practice of redlining that has contributed to a widened racial wealth gap intergenerationally, University of North Florida researcher Caroline Howard constructed two maps of Jacksonville neighborhoods from both the 1930s and today.
Rory Dubin, president of Northeast Florida Association of Realtors (NEFAR), in particular has implemented strategies within his organization to encourage and promote fair housing and DEI. “Our city, the background and the history calls for needing to be very proactive in that arena,” he told Invest:, which has inspired him to take it even a step further with a new initiative on the way.
Last year, NEFAR created a diversity, equity, and inclusion committee and had representation at the fair housing symposium held in Jacksonville. “NEFAR has a very diverse membership that reflects the population of Jacksonville. We have a very robust DEI committee and one of the initiatives I am planning is related to the awards we give out at the end of every year. I’m going to create, along with our board of directors, a DEI award for the realtor that has best showcased and gone above and beyond in their own practices for fair housing, diversity, equity, and inclusion,” he said.
“Fair housing is extremely important to us.”
For more information, please visit:
