Fair Housing Quotes
Shortly after WWII, he became the largest builder in the United States. See {634380} for more depth on his view about segregated housing.
He was the first FHA administrator to make statements saying that non-discriminatory housing services should be available to the American people. At the time the Southern states had laws allowing and protecting legal segregation especially in housing. The Southern field staff interpreted his instruction to be sure that both blacks and whites had access to FHA services, but they used the “separate but equal” doctrine: Provide services to both races but always in segregated housing projects. This was typical of the kinds of problems that motivated the Civil Rights Acts offered by President Kennedy in 1963 and passed by President Johnson in 1964. See {637272} for a similar Mason statement.
He maintained these policies even after President Eisenhower’s January 1954 speech calling for people who were displaced as the result of urban renewal projects to be provided with Federal assistance in housing regardless of race. It is not known whether Sherman Adams shared Cole’s position with the President. Adams himself was forced to resign in a corruption scandal.
FHA, in contrast to this administrator’s statement, was a major factor in increasing and maintaining housing discrimination in America. See {637259}, {637269} and {637260} for FHA official manuals which contradict Foley’s denial. He justified the inconsistency by pointing to the words “per se”. The agency never literally told FHA staff to discriminate he claimed. However, most people reading the two examples given above, would get the message that FHA was opposed to inter-racial, non-segregated housing.
