JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – With fair housing being one of the biggest issues in Jacksonville, there are efforts underway to make sure everyone is treated the same when it comes to finding a place to live.
Maps of Jacksonville from the 1930s show the areas where blatant housing discrimination took place. It’s called redlining, and that’s because, on maps, it was a red area. One side was treated favorably and the other side of that red line, well, not so much.
Even though redlining is illegal now, the impact is still being felt today. For that reason, the city council is now set to try and make even more changes.
Ronnie Calhoon, who’s been a homeowner on the Northside for many years, said over the years he’s seen much of what’s been happening with housing in Jacksonville.
Calhoon also said he thinks there is discrimination when it comes to lending money to future homebuyers in certain areas. He doesn’t think the city is doing anything about it.
“Because they do not have anyone pushing them,” Calhoon said.
But that could soon be changing with a new resolution.
“The purpose of this is to kind of acknowledge the sins of the past,” City Councilman Jimmy Peluso said.
Peluso and others are pushing for a resolution to be passed by the full council on Tuesday that shows the damage redlining had in Jacksonville.
“One could argue that the practices of redlining in the past have certainly contributed to so many of the problems we still have to this day,” Peluso said.
In 2023, Ameris Bank agreed to pay $9 million after being accused by the Department of Justice of denying loans to Black and Hispanic residents in Jacksonville.
The bank still disagrees that it engaged in discriminatory conduct. As part of that settlement, Ameris is now offering a program where people buying or living in certain minority neighborhoods in and around Jacksonville can get a $20,000 grant to help with down payment or closing cost assistance, or a possible buydown for a cheaper mortgage rate.
But some are still waiting to see what will really happen with housing in Jacksonville.
“I just think that on this side of town, they call it the low area. And they don’t consider as a high priority,” Northside resident Deloris Melton said.
But with the resolution and new attention to the impacts of redlining, that might change.