viewing this program, please search for it on the chapter website or contact the chapter staff to request a link. We look forward to continuing these important conversations and addressing these issues as a chapter in the years to come.
Aside from the necessity for these types of conversations generally in our society, these issues also have very topical implications for our community associations. Racism in the context of housing discrimination has existed for some time (and some would say forever). Restrictive covenants were widely used throughout the United States in the first half of the 20th century to prohibit racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups from buying, leasing, or occupying homes. Some covenants would generally bar “non-Caucasian” groups while others would specifically list races, nationalities, or individuals with disabilities. i
In 1948, the United States Supreme Court decision in Shelley v. Kraemer ruled that these restrictive covenants were unenforceable. Twenty years later, in 1968, the Fair Housing Act was enacted to prohibit discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, sex, religion, national origin or other protected classes. Like Shelley, it also made racially restrictive covenants illegal and unenforceable; however, many of those covenants still exist in documents that predate the Fair Housing Act. ii
Over the last few years, there has been a push, supported by CAI, to create a process by which community association boards can remove unenforceable discriminatory restrictions contained in their covenants without the necessity of a vote of the owners. Discriminatory restrictive covenant legislation has been passed or is pending in thirteen states, including New Jersey, where State Senator Troy Singleton introduced legislation in October 2020, which is currently pending.
While progress has been made over the last seventy plus years since the Shelley case, there is still a lot of work ahead of all of us. This is evident from what happened in Philadelphia on April 12, 2018. It is evident from what happened to George Floyd and to Breonna Taylor and to Ahmaud Arbery. It is evident from what happened to Travon Martin in a gated community in Florida (less than 10 years ago in February 2012). And it is evident from what happens every day to members of our communities and in our community associations.
In order to move forward, we need to address these issues head on. Change will not happen overnight, but by having meaningful conversations and educating our members, we can strive to make our communities
www.cai-padelval.org 9
more inclusive places where all races, cultures, and beliefs are welcome. Programs like the one at the Law Seminar and at the State of the Industry event are steps forward. In the words of Howard Zinn, “[w]e don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”
You can’t be neutral on a moving train.
So that’s it for this month. Thank you all for reading and thank you all for being members of the Keystone chapter. Here’s to Howard Zinn. Here’s to Layne Staley, Bob Probert, and the Oxford comma. And again, a huge thank you and job well done to both our chapter staff as well as our Conference & Expo Committee for their efforts on the 2021 Annual Conference & Expo.
FOOTNOTES i Dawn Bauman, CAE, “An Unfortunate Legacy: A Brief History of Racially Restrictive Covenants,”
https://advocacy.caionline.org/ history-of-racially-restrictive-covenants/
ii Laura Otto, “Overcoming Racism in Condominiums and HOAs,”
https://hoaresources.caionline.org/overcoming-racism-in- condominiums-and-hoas/
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
