correct the mistakes of the past? fresh off the anniversary of the iconic fill being i found myself wondering about those presis questions as i thought about correcting the mistakes of presidents who came before him. castro announced that the federal government would finally be fulfilling a past commitment and to enforce the dismantling of segregation in the creation of racially integrated communities as required by the fair housing act. the act was passed and signed by president lyndon johnson after the assassination of martin luther king jr. sparked riots in 125 cities. and when he charged with investigating the underlying causes the truth about residential segregation in america. what white americans have never fully understand but what the negro can never forget is that what so siciety is deeply integrated in the ghetto. white institutions created it maintain it, and white soeoociety condones it. reassembling with integrated mixed income communities the law banned racial discrimination and housing but it also required the government to play a proactive role in transforming america's segregated communities and affirmatively furthering fair housing. if they wanted housing dollars, the fair housing act said they had to show they deserved those numbers. however, as nicole jones reported in her 2012 deep dive decade after decade the federal government failed to enforce the law. president richard nixon set the precedent when he shut down the efforts to give the law some teeth and, according to jones, over the next four decades a succession of presidents democrat and republican alike, followed nixon's lead declining to use leverage of hud's billions to fight segregation. those billions hud didn't get much for its money because it doled out all those dollars this exchange for communities still as segregated today as 50 years ago. the new rules announced by the obama administration are designed to ensure the federal government gets what it pays for. local governments will now have to explain in detail how the federal housing money they receive will be used to reduce segregation and will get help from washington with finding previously hidden barriers in their communities and figuring out how best to move those barriers out of the way. housing advocates and civil rights groups welcome the new rules as a long overdue step to achieving the goals set by the fair housing act so many years ago but the promise of what that future could be leaves me wondering about what the present might have been. as "the new york times" wrote in a may editorial a growing body of evidence suggests that america would be a different country today had the government taken its responsibilities serious which brings me back to the question what if? how difficult if the government took its responsibilities seriously all those years ago? if hurricane katrina struck an area where people were in an area low to flooding. if it was an economically diverse cross section of the city. how might asthma rates be different for black children if they weren't so much more likely to live in communities where they are exposed to toxic chemicals and where they breathe polluted air. what if baltimore was a city where government actively worked to expand opportunity instead of as researcher richard rothstein said created policies that quarantine the black population in isolated slums. if chicago's gangs had not been dispersed by the breakup of housing projects meant to confine african americans to a segregated corridor of the city, what else might we be counting other than the tally of those killed? if people of color were not concentrated in communities where they are easy targets for predatory lenders peddling subprime mortgages, what if the social economic and health disadvantages compounded by living in the wrong zip code were diminished by a government deeply eliminated 50 years ago? what would our country look like now if we made those choices then? joining me now is lisa rice executive vice president of the national fair housing alliance the executive director of the new york state democratic party, james perry, community activist and advocate as the executive director of the fair housing center and is my husband, and professor of social and cultural analysis and history at new york university. so lisa, i want to start with you. can you answer that question? how would the world look different right now if this rule had been actively enforced at the beginning of this law? >> i can't answer that question. the world would look very differently. the united states would be a much more integrated society. if you remember if you look at the census historically america has always been integrated. it wasn't until governments and municipalities started implementing policies and rules and ordinances to drive segregation, to drive residential segregation that america became a segregated society. >> so we tend to think of it as segregation as the kind of natural state of being and somehow the notion of social engineering to create this new america but, james, let me ask you this. i have watched you over the years doing this work and i wonder is this enough especially given that there are now 50 more years of this inequality and sort of deepening of segregation? >> it's progress but is it enough? of course not. the issue is the rule as good as it is doesn't have enough teeth. when it comes to the money that we're talking about, some of the most flexible money you can get in the city. if you are married and have this money, you want to use it in a way that supports all of your political goals and it becomes difficult for the federal government to make them spend it in a way that desegregates a community. >> help me understand that more when you talk about the political goals. i want to come to you on this because here we have a late administration, we have a president within his last year of his second term making an announcement like this and maybe a policy with some teeth or not enough team. man, does this end up being a tool for, for example others to push back against it? >> they're certainly going to do that. we've seen with obama care the republicans talk about states' rights. a lot of republicans say we don't want the federal government telling us what to do, how to construct and plan our cities. going back to an earlier comment, this is an empowering thing. when you think about wealth in communities particularly among african-american households, there's a pugh research that says the average assets for the median white household is $142,000. i think it's an appropriate time for -- >> if we break that down for unmarried african-american women, we're down in the handful of dollars. single digits. >> and i think for the president, for this administration, if you want to tackle -- one of the things you want to tackle is trying to solve the wealth gap that i think the minimum wage laws can do but not do enough of. >> tom, walk with us more on that then this idea of wealth. i do think it can get a bit confused in our public conversations where we talk about jobs and economic development which matter greatly putting people back to work in the unemployment rate is our one measure, but this notion of housing is tied in so many other ways to economic well-being in a longer sense. >> absolutely. we hold most of our assets in the form of real estate in the united states. the house is the way that we accumulate wealth and pass it down from generation to generation. it's a way we help subsidize kids going to college. in form of inheritance. across metropolitan areas means wealth gaps we've seen gain progress over the last 50 years since the fair housing legislation of the 1960s but not in household wealth. there we've seen stagnation and decline. >> lisa it's been 50 years almost since the passage and i report over and over again on this show our communities are nearly as segregated today as 50 years ago and in some parts of the country more segregated than they were except for some small portion of african-americans, latinos who generated some portion of it. oprah can live wherever she wants but everybody else is in the other circumstances. >> and chris rock had to live next door. >> right, exactly. not that there's anything wrong with dentists. thank god. thank god for dentists. i wonder about that. is this whole notion how we're going about generating integrated communities, this just isn't the way to do it. >> i want to go back to a point james raised earlier and that is that the way that municipalities use their funds, in particular in this instance their federal funds, can help drive these issues you're talking about so, yes, we have made progress but we would have made much more progress had everybody been on the same page and had this particular provision which does not have a private right of action been effectively enforced. there are many examples of that. >> they were not allowed and you said -- i mean my whole brain went, what? who? >> you can sue someone. >> oh, right. okay. all right. we're talking about the capacity to use the law to sue somebody. >> exactly. >> and i'll give you a perfect example. the city of zanesville for over 50 years refused to give water to african-american residents. it's segregated like every other city in the country. there's a section african-americans had about pushed. the city of zanesville used in part federal funds to run water lines up to cold run, around cold run, and then back out refusing to give those residents water. so think of what that did to the property value of those african-american residents. it helped to keep those property values depressed. >> they had to use well water. >> oh, no dear they were catching water in huge cisterns catching rainwater in huge cisterns. yes. >> welcome back to the 18th century. >> we're going to pause on that because, wow. and then when we come back we're going to talk more about housing and who isn't being held accountable if these moments. and move, groove, wiggle giggle, swerve, curve. lift, shift, ride, glide hit your stride. only always discreet underwear has soft dual leak guard barriers to help stop leaks where they happen most and a discreet fit that hugs your curves you barely feel it. always discreet underwear so bladder leaks can feel like no big deal. because hey, pee happens. get your free pair and valuable coupons at always discreet.com [ male announcer ] we know they're out there. you can't always see them. but it's our job to find them. the answers. the solutions. the innovations. all waiting to help us build something better. something more amazing. a safer, cleaner brighter future. at boeing, that's what building something better is all about. ♪ ♪ staying in rhythm... it's how i try to live... how i stay active. so i need nutrition... that won't weigh me down. for the nutrition you want without the calories you don't... introducing boost 100 calories. each delicious snack size drink gives you... 25 vitamins and minerals and 10 grams of protein. so it's big in nutrition and small in calories. i'm not about to swim in the slow lane. stay strong. stay active with boost®. on wednesday when hud secretary castro announced the new rule used to enforce the fair housing act, that it could literally save lives. >> st. louis can expect to live 18 fewer years than a child ten miles away in the clayton area. in baltimore a child born in the seton hill community has a life expectancy that's 19 years less than one from the upscale neighborhood of roland park. a zip code should never prevent any person from reaching their aspirations. >> i want to circle back on we have him saying a zip code shouldn't prevent a person from reaching their aspirations. >> i want to make clear this is a big deal. this is so brave of the obama administration to put forth this rule and brave not just because of how it challenges republicans but black democrats in particular. this idea you might be elected in a black district you're an african-american candidate. you have no incentives to want to integrate that community because those black people elected you. >> oh, right. or to integrate it beyond a certain level because you have your base. >> you have a vested interest if you want to keep your job, you want to keep the district the way it is. you may want to keep it as an african-american district. this is a very brave step for the obama administration. >> it's a point and question i was in a conversation yesterday about this idea of integration and i heard that response which actually attempts to desegregate is bad for the black community because they undermine the existing constitutions whether they were schools or hospitals. it's a golden age of segregation narrative, right? and i guess part of what i want to do is undermine that by saying, no it generates vulabilities. >> i think the most important way to think about it is the allocation of resources across space. segregated communities concentrate poverty, concentrate poor or underfunded education. mediocre housing. they concentrate assess gaps between blacks and whites. these are devastating for health outcome, jobs and economic opportunity. it's not about somehow the magic of whites rubbing off. >> magical integration. >> it's really about how we distribute resources and power. >> and the distribution of resources, i can't help but think about banks. as we're holding local communities, state governments accountable, the other thing is lenders. we think about wells fargo and the big settlement but, you know the democrats have been a little bit cozy with the banks. they've been rubbing shoulders a fair bit. >> governor cuomo when he was hud second talked about public housing. in our recent session with respect to rent regulations this issue came up in a way because there was an issue of poor doors which is incredible right? you had segregated housing within complexes and so the point being that i think democrats now led by a few are starting to push back quite a bit. there is a groundswell of support. >> it's also true that as much as banks can be the bad guys they pump money into your community. you have to partner with them. they have assets. >> and sometimes they invest bad capital. >> that's true. one of the things they camouflaged the fact we have always had mainstream lending redlining in america. had it never gone away. subprime lenders with but, unsustainable credit came into communities of color and they were able to do that because those communities were hyper segregated, came in with bad capital, gave people mort gamgsgages they could never sustain, were designed to refinance, not designed for the long term. when the economy went down people could not get refinancing and lost their houses wholesale. now communities of color are foreclosed on 50% foreclosure rates. >> i feel like i have seen and heard those subprime commercials are re-emerging. stay with us everybody. up next a supreme court decision that is part of all of this because it was part of determining and protecting a key tool in the fight against housing discrimination. ♪ ♪ ♪ it took tim morehouse years to master the perfect lunge. but only one attempt to master depositing checks at chase atms. technology designed for you. so you can easily master the way you bank. this is my body of proof. proof of less joint pain. and clearer skin. this is my body of proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis from the inside out ...with humira. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain stop further joint damage and clear skin in many adults. doctors have been prescribing humira for nearly 10 years. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis serious,sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. visit humira.com and talk to your rheumatologist. humira. this is a body of proof! are you moving forward fast enough? 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>> good to see you. help us to understand how the security decision is part of -- and the decision to uphold is related to the effort to affirmatively further fair housing. >> the decision and the rule coming out ran on two separate tracks but at the end of the day both deal with fairness and breaking up segregation, right? and so with the disparate impact tool you're able to use some of the data and some of the information that you have to show the patterns that have existed way back to let's say 1937 overlaying that with maps of what's going on today. these municipalities taking hud rundz to take data maps and those kinds of things to see what's going on. as they make their planning their decisions on how to use that money. so in both instances it's critical to see what's going on historically, today, and on the ground. the real exciting piece about this new rule is that they'll be able to better use with ease the hud data online and be able to tell folks, hey, this is what's going on. you need to connected what's going on with how you're going to use it. >> stick with us. i want to ask you on this in part because my understanding is it was a fairly big risk to bring the case and some if the housing community were nervous about this supreme court ever weighing in on disparate impact and it's been a pretty good year. >> it is a very good year. the reason people were nervous is because there had been no split at the appellate level whether or not you could use this doctrine. all appellate courts agree, yes, the technical term so people surprised why would the supreme court take it up? it's clear from the congressional level that congress intended for it to be covered. pem thought they want to undo disparate impact. it only takes four justices to agree to take up a particular question. >> it may have been those four on the wrong side of it. how important is that role of litigation? we've seen a supreme court decision and a new administrative rule. what other pieces are necessary? >> it comes together to change communities. the thing lisa didn't get to someone we know lit gitigate litigated that case. they'll have water from the city and not a cistern. you have po