Hamtramck builds homes to atone for discrimination

Source: Yahoo News

HAMTRAMCK, Mich. – More than 40 years after her family was forced from their home because they were black, Sallie Sanders received the keys to a new house built to settle one of the longest-running cases of housing discrimination in the United States.

"My parents would be ecstatic that their offspring would be able to enjoy the things they couldn't," the 60-year-old Sanders said Monday before a ceremony to celebrate the milestone on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Hamtramck agreed in 1980 to develop 200 family housing units to make up for violating the civil rights of blacks whose neighborhoods were targeted by white officials to make way for urban renewal projects in the 1960s.

Hamtramck still hasn't met that goal, although officials predict it will by next year. The city of 23,000 is now extremely diverse, with immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and Bangladesh passing by a statue of Pope John Paul II in the historically Polish community.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/ap_on_bi_ge/us_michigan_housing_discrimination

---

After 40 years, I think they owe some serious back money for making people wait.

Hamtramck needs more than new housing. I was just there a few weeks back. It's sad to see how the city looks today. That being said, I had the best Polish food I've had in a long time.

Funny how working class whites have to make reparations for discrimination, while the rich whites in Grosse Point can keep their segregated all white communities intact.