Your elderly loved one is looking for the right senior living option. Your family surfs the web and scans newspaper ads, in hunt for something that could take the place of home sweet home.
Something inviting. Something that shows community.
What if nearly every website and newspaper ad showed only elderly white people, who had no disabilities?
That’s unacceptable and contrary to the Fair Housing Act’s advertising requirements, said representatives at the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council (EHOC).
An EHOC study, released September 25, examined the advertisements, websites and promotional materials of 64 senior housing providers and found that more than 90 percent of the models used in promotions were white – 15,795 out of 17,429.
Only 5.5 percent of the models portraying residents in the promotions were black, but blacks made up more than 14 percent of the employees.
Some of the housing providers used hundreds of pictures of white people and absolutely no pictures of black residents, the study showed.
“In some cases, the only African Americans portrayed were staff pushing wheelchairs, opening doors or cooking for white residents,” said Mira Tanner, EHOC’s assistant director and report author.
“Such advertising sends the message that African Americans and other minorities may be unwelcome or may be treated in an inferior manner compared with white applicants.”
The Fair Housing Act requires that the advertisements for housing represent the region’s demographic. For the St. Louis metropolitan statistical area, the racial makeup is 78.3 percent white, 18.3 percent black and 3.4 percent other, according to the U.S. Census 2000.
The EHOC is filing complaints on 14 senior housing providers, including: Brentmoor Retirement Community; Mari De Villa; Pacific Place; The Fountains Communities; The Fountains of West County; McKnight Place Assisted Living; National Healthcare Corporation; The Rockwood; Sycamore Village; Tesson Heights; Twin Oaks Estate; Fairwinds at River’s Edge, Park Place at Winghaven and Heritage of Hawk Ridge.
On Pacific Place’s website in Webster Groves, not one page has a picture of a black, minority or disabled person. Even in white-predominate Webster Groves, 10.3 percent of the population is black. Pacific Place did not return the phone calls placed by The American.
All of the housing providers have received letters stating the complaints. Now, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has 100 days to investigate the claims, or reach a settlement with the EHOC. If HUD finds that the housing providers have violated the law, EHOC will go through a series of steps to bring the providers up to speed with the law and demand compensation for court and attorney fees.
“I’m not sure senior housing providers understand that they are required to abide by the Fair Housing Act,” Tanner said. “But oftentimes, until it hits so hard in the pocket books, it’s not that important.”
Tanner said that the EHOC offers training for senior housing providers. After the study came out, a number of the providers that didn’t receive a complaint have asked for information about what they found and what they can do to improve, she said.
Tanner and the two other authors, Kim Naguit and Kevin Wilemon, spent two years looking through advertisements and other promotional material from 2004 to 2009. Washington University School of Law and Equal Justice Works also offered support in the project.
With a monumental demographic shift going on – the Baby Boomers heading into the Senior Boom – the EHOC wanted to evaluate the practices of senior living housing, and make sure providers and residents know their rights.
“The FHA was passed to integrate communities,” Tanner said. “Even if Webster Groves is only 8 percent African-American, if the entire region is 18.3 percent, wouldn’t you want to add a few more in Webster Groves?”
The EHOC board president, Sonja McClendon, herself was looking for senior housing for her father and was offended by these “whites only” advertisements, Tanner said.
The ads may not directly say “whites only,” but that feeling is a natural reaction when readers see only certain kind of people living in the apartment complexes, stated U.S. District Judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr. in the study.
“Conversely if the prospective tenant reading the brochure saw no models with whom he or she could identify with,” Merhige said, “the reader would obtain the message that ‘these apartments are not for me or my kind.’”
