I do know blacks claim that still to this day we have unfair housing practices that discriminate
DOJ's interest in housing discrimination lawsuit underscores the bias many Black homeowners have faced for decades
By Giselle Rhoden, CNN
Updated 1:24 PM ET, Mon February 21, 2022
CNN)A Black couple's lawsuit against a home appraisal company is now catching the attention of the Department of Justice.
Last week, the DOJ filed a statement of interest in the couple's claim that the first appraiser of their Marin County home violated the Fair Housing Act. Tenisha Tate-Austin and her husband, Paul Austin, say they were victims of appraisal bias. After spending months on renovations, a White appraiser valued their home much lower than they had anticipated, the couple told CNN in December. When a White friend showed the couple's home as her own, its appraisal rose $500,000. The new appraisal for their home was now valued at more than $1.4 million, the couple said.
The couple
filed the lawsuit in December, and it underscored decades long discussions about housing discrimination, Black homeownership and racial bias.
The DOJ's Civil Rights Division issued a statement on Monday saying that "combating housing discrimination, including bias in appraisals, is a high priority across the federal government."
On a personal note, I have a neighbor who had her house appraised and it was lower than she expected. A friend told her to take down all the black artwork in her house and have a white friend show it. She did and the appraisal went way up.
Although there have been laws on the books for years, they are not always enforced and sometimes realtors simply choose not to show houses to black applicants. There are stories about a black couple being told the house was sold and when they sent a white couple to check, they were told it was available.