BIAS STILL PREVALENT IN HOUSING.

Byline: EARL O. HUTCHINSON

I, like many people, assumed that housing discrimination was a shameful thing of the past in Los Angeles.

It's virtually impossible to go to any neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley, the Westside or Downtown Los Angeles and not see African-Americans, Asians and Latino renters and homeowners pulling out of driveways, watering lawns, shopping at their neighborhood supermarkets and malls, and their children walking to their neighborhood schools.

Yet, 30 years after the passage of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Bill of 1968 that outlawed discrimination in the sale and rental of apartments and homes, and 10 years after the Fair Housing Act of 1988 that put stronger enforcement teeth in the fair housing law, the ugly truth is that housing discrimination is still very much alive and well in Los Angeles.

In American Apartheid, a study of housing segregation in the United States in the 1990s, sociologist Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton rank Los Angeles as one of the 10 most racially ``hypersegregated'' cities in the country.

The Fair Housing Congress of Southern California, which has tracked housing discrimination in Los Angeles, has opened nearly 2,000 discrimination cases against property owners and real estate sellers since 1995.

A case is opened only after a discrimination complaint is subjected to a rigorous procedure of on-site inspections, sending testers to the property, and interviewing landlords and owners to determine if there is merit to the discrimination complaint. An attempt is then made to conciliate the case.

If that fails, it is referred either to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the state's Department of Fair Employment and Housing, or to private attorneys.

Not surprisingly, the biggest number of complaints are filed by African-Americans. This is another sad sign that racism, blatant and covert, is still pervasive.

This was confirmed in a 1990 National Opinion Research Center poll that found that nearly half of whites surveyed favored a law giving a white homeowner the right not to sell to a black, rather than favoring a law prohibiting such discrimination.

People are being discriminated against because they have disabilities, children, different gender preferences, a different religion, they are too old, are single or come from a foreign country.

Most apartment owners and real estate agents are well aware that it is illegal to refuse to show a home or an apartment to a potential renter or buyer because of race, gender, age or physical condition. But this hasn't stopped some from discriminating.

They have come up with an endless list of dodges to discourage prospective renters or home buyers they don't like. In some cases, the landlord or real estate agent is suddenly unavailable to show the apartment or house.

Despite their best efforts to mask discrimination, some owners have still been nailed. In the past five years, the Fair Housing Congress has collected more than $3 million in legal settlements.

In April 1996, in the largest housing discrimination lawsuit ever won in a private case by a private attorney, a Lakewood apartment owner shelled out $1.67 million to renters.

While lawsuits deter many landlords, many still flaunt the law. In 1996, HUD received more than 20,000 housing discrimination complaints nationally. The problem is not only that there are still a lot of bigoted or obstinate apartment owners and homeowners.

A HUD study of lending practices in Houston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and of other mortgage lenders, shows they still practice a disguised brand of redlining by either refusing to lend to black and Latino applicants, or they set ridiculously high requirements that make it almost impossible for the applicants to secure a loan.

What can be done to break the pattern?

The temptation is to pound the legal hammer of more lawsuits, tighter HUD enforcement regulations, and bigger fines and penalties on apartment owners and real estate agents who discriminate. This will frighten many and compel them to obey the law.

But the far better way is to convince homeowners and apartment owners that neighborhood diversity won't cause property values to decline, and it gives everyone a chance to share in and learn from the social and cultural experiences of other people.

Maybe then we'll all discover that good neighbors, like bad ones, come in different colors, genders and physical capacities.