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PCCLAS
CONFERENCE PROGRAM |
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David Diaz, CSU-Northridge
“Immigrant Latinos and the Affordability Crisis”
The structural condition and the character of housing in
Latina/o neighborhoods is correlated with implementation of
federal housing programs, and real estate and banking industry
practices. The demand for affordable housing was (and continues
to be) a prominent issue in barrios and throughout the US. The
housing crisis is the ciritical feature of virtually all barrios
during the 20th century. Barrios continue to suffer from
substantial deterioration, real estate speculation, a
significant percentage of renters, and under investment from
both the private and public sectors. While renters predominate
barrio housing patterns, there are sectors of long term home
ownership and in some instances, a renewed era of home purchases
which have at minimum stabilized land value, albeit at the
lowest echelon of regional housing markets.
These comunities are characterized by overcrowded housing, lack
of local government reinvestment, limited infrastructure
rehabilitation and conflictive zoning codes. Barrios exhibit a
range of housing types including single family dwellings,
duplexes, small scale bungalow apartments, large apartment
complexes and mixed use structures.
The street scape is an electic mix of scale, architecture,
housing stock condition and density. Some streets have
maintained a lower density character, while the next
block may have a substantial level of apartments of varying
configurations. Many apartments were constructed without
adequate parking or social space. This presents a major
challenge to both local officials responsible for housing
programs and community based organizations involved in low
income housing production.
Since 1980, coinciding with a rise in income levels influenced
by affirmative action and increased access to colleges there is
a bifurcation of housing demands in the Latino community—an out
migration to suburban areas, and an increasing renter class in
traditional barrios and colonias. This pattern reflects
conventional urban residential dispersion patterns of the Post
WW II era. Latina/o migration was stunted until the structural
issues of racism and exclusion were fundamentally addressed in
federal legislation during the 1960s. This change in housing
demand only materialized when regressive redlining, racism in
housing opportunity, discriminatory employment policy and
cultural maturity within Euro-American cultural were addressed
during that period.
In the current era of globalization and transmigration of labor,
Latinas/os have migrated throughout the US. this universality of
migration indicates that affordable housing policy is national
not regional. Currently, there are Latino neighborhoods in Iowa,
Nebraska and Ohio, due mainly to the agriculture industries
demand for cheap labor and decentralized manufacturing into
rural america. In addition, in similar fashion to the tourist,
restaurant and small manufacturing sectors in California, New
York and other eastern cities have office buildings, kitchens
and hotels serviced by a small army of Latinas/os. The demand
for adequate, safe shelter has severely impacted housing markets
that are complicated with overcrowded, overpriced and poorly
maintained housing situations. This increased demand for
affordable shelter is a major unmet need. Neither the private
nor public sectors have responded to the challenge of increasing
the supply of housing at the lower end of the market. In
essence, the demand by Latinas/os for affordability has
transcended the southwest and now is a permanent feature of
national housing policy.
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