Experience

Publications

• “Can Health Equity Co-Exist with Housing Inequalities? A Contemporary Issue in Historical Context,” Louis Lee Woods II, Mary Shaw-Ridley and Charlotte A. Woods Health Promotion Practice, July 2014, Volume 15, No. 4: 476-482.

  Health Promotion Practice

  The housing policies established by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Federal Housing Administration, and the Veterans Administration transformed the American housing market. However, these policies intentionally excluded communities of color from the postwar American housing boom by defining them as contami- nants eroding national property values. Hence, racially restrictive federal housing policies established an ineq- uitable generational trajectory for residents in communi- ties across the United States. Public health practitioners are faced with the monumental challenge of addressing health disparities that were in part created by non– public health policies. The purpose of this article is to examine how federal housing policies historically con- tributed to creating the built environment and therefore establishing a foundation for health disparities. These pervasive, exclusionary policies and the generational stigma associated with this issue raise serious questions about the ethics of contemporary policies, practices, and research aimed at achieving health equity.

• “Can Health Equity Co-Exist with Housing Inequalities? A Contemporary Issue in Historical Context,” Louis Lee Woods II, Mary Shaw-Ridley and Charlotte A. Woods Health Promotion Practice, July 2014, Volume 15, No. 4: 476-482.

  Health Promotion Practice

  The housing policies established by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Federal Housing Administration, and the Veterans Administration transformed the American housing market. However, these policies intentionally excluded communities of color from the postwar American housing boom by defining them as contami- nants eroding national property values. Hence, racially restrictive federal housing policies established an ineq- uitable generational trajectory for residents in communi- ties across the United States. Public health practitioners are faced with the monumental challenge of addressing health disparities that were in part created by non– public health policies. The purpose of this article is to examine how federal housing policies historically con- tributed to creating the built environment and therefore establishing a foundation for health disparities. These pervasive, exclusionary policies and the generational stigma associated with this issue raise serious questions about the ethics of contemporary policies, practices, and research aimed at achieving health equity.

• “The Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Redlining, and the National Proliferation of Racial and Socioeconomic Lending Discrimination, 1921-1950,” Journal of Urban History, Volume 38, Issue 6 (November 2012): 1036-1059.

  Journal of Urban History

  By utilizing the annual reports of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) and its monthly journal, the Federal Home Loan Bank Review, this essay argues that the incorporation of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s appraisal scheme had several detrimental consequences. By mandating their appraisal analysis as a prerequisite for membership into the federal banking system, the FHLBB established unified national lending standards designed to evaluate neigh- borhood demographics as a factor far exceeding the condition of the appraised property itself. With the inclusion of these “scientific appraisal standards” into their uniform lending policies, FHLBB officials rated entire residential communities as hazardous bank investments whenever they were inhabited by undesirable occupants. Ultimately, the standardized lending policies of the FHLBB systematically disadvantaged low-income and minority city-dwelling residents from obtaining mortgage financing, and by midcentury they exacerbated the disproportionately sub- standard urban housing conditions endured by nonwhites in the United States.

• “Can Health Equity Co-Exist with Housing Inequalities? A Contemporary Issue in Historical Context,” Louis Lee Woods II, Mary Shaw-Ridley and Charlotte A. Woods Health Promotion Practice, July 2014, Volume 15, No. 4: 476-482.

  Health Promotion Practice

  The housing policies established by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Federal Housing Administration, and the Veterans Administration transformed the American housing market. However, these policies intentionally excluded communities of color from the postwar American housing boom by defining them as contami- nants eroding national property values. Hence, racially restrictive federal housing policies established an ineq- uitable generational trajectory for residents in communi- ties across the United States. Public health practitioners are faced with the monumental challenge of addressing health disparities that were in part created by non– public health policies. The purpose of this article is to examine how federal housing policies historically con- tributed to creating the built environment and therefore establishing a foundation for health disparities. These pervasive, exclusionary policies and the generational stigma associated with this issue raise serious questions about the ethics of contemporary policies, practices, and research aimed at achieving health equity.

• “The Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Redlining, and the National Proliferation of Racial and Socioeconomic Lending Discrimination, 1921-1950,” Journal of Urban History, Volume 38, Issue 6 (November 2012): 1036-1059.

  Journal of Urban History

  By utilizing the annual reports of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) and its monthly journal, the Federal Home Loan Bank Review, this essay argues that the incorporation of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s appraisal scheme had several detrimental consequences. By mandating their appraisal analysis as a prerequisite for membership into the federal banking system, the FHLBB established unified national lending standards designed to evaluate neigh- borhood demographics as a factor far exceeding the condition of the appraised property itself. With the inclusion of these “scientific appraisal standards” into their uniform lending policies, FHLBB officials rated entire residential communities as hazardous bank investments whenever they were inhabited by undesirable occupants. Ultimately, the standardized lending policies of the FHLBB systematically disadvantaged low-income and minority city-dwelling residents from obtaining mortgage financing, and by midcentury they exacerbated the disproportionately sub- standard urban housing conditions endured by nonwhites in the United States.

• “Virtually ‘No Negro Veteran…Could Get a Loan:’ African-American Veterans, the GI Bill, and the NAACP’s Relentless Campaign against Residential Segregation, 1914-1960,” Journal of African American History, Volume 98, No. 3 (Summer, 2013): 392-417.

  Journal of African American History

  A history of the racial impediments endured by African-American veterans when trying to access the housing component of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act. Had the GI Bill been equally administered between white and black World War II veterans, between nearly 400,000 and 500,000 additional black veterans would have been homeowners by 1955.