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This article examines attitudes toward property, government, access to housing, integration, and community identity as expressed in the discourse surrounding the struggle over fair housing in Westchester, New York surrounding the 2009 court-ordered settlement. Building on the 'new suburban history', this article argues that opposition to fair housing drew on long-term conservative trends in the national political culture after 1968, but also reflected the specific dynamics of the early Obama years. Fair housing opponents contend that housing 'choices,' rooted in the values of 'hard work,' meritocracy, private property, and the free market, exemplify the patriotic tradition of American individualism. But, in doing so, they ignore decades of state-sponsored housing discrimination that contradicted free market principles. Drawing heavily on what one scholar has called 'race-based neighborhood stereotyping', these ideas constitute an important starting point for understanding the crippling resistance to fair housing initiatives, since this discourse has proven remarkably durable and politically galvanizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on qualitative interviews and fieldwork, this paper examines the risk factors that lead families into mortgage default and foreclosure risk. While neoliberal ideology and policy recognize lower-income families as at greater risk, in this paper we argue that immigrants and women experience particular risks – separation and divorce, the expense of remittances, poorer treatment in rental markets, and conflicting experience of ownership between the United States and country of origin. When these differences are ignored, social policies cannot respond adequately to the disproportionate risk that women and immigrants face to homeownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines US fair housing policy from a critical perspective. We describe the impact of the expansion of neoliberal ideology on the fair housing assistance program (FHAP), the fair housing initiatives program (FHIP), and the scope of US Department of Justice activities. Prior findings from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and IRS Form 990 are summarized. We argue that neoliberalism has contributed to the underdevelopment, underfunding, and poor implementation of US fair housing policy. We offer three recommendations for fair housing reform. The first focuses on the need to remove fair housing activities from HUD and place them in an independent fair housing agency. The second focuses on the need for the federal government to mandate fair housing enforcement across all governmental programs and agencies. The third focuses on the need for increased lobbying, litigation, and activism by community-based advocacy organizations for reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]