When Jacqueline Smith Armstrong’s parents moved from Louisiana to Seattle in the mid-1940s, they bought a white two-story Craftsman-style home with a wide porch in the Central District. Armstrong, now 71, has resided in her childhood home for most of her life. As a little girl, Armstrong would ride her tricycle to houses owned by other Black families on her block. Now, most of those families are gone due to gentrification. Armstrong, who inherited her parents’ home in 2001, says she spots fewer and fewer familiar faces as she takes daily walks around the neighborhood.
The statistics reaffirm Armstrong’s observations. In the 1970s, the Central District was more than 70% Black, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, with an estimated 2,600 houses in the neighborhood owned by Black residents. As of 2018, according to census data, the Central District is roughly 15% Black, with an estimated 800 Black homeowners in the neighborhood.
These changes that have resulted from gentrification are hard to witness, Armstrong says.
“I’m sitting in the Central District watching the landscape of my neighborhood change right before my eyes,” recalled Armstrong. “I have seen the Black families disappear.”
Today, Armstrong’s yard features a prominent sign that depicts a house etched in Black behind a rising sun. The words “Black Legacy Homeowner” stand out boldly. Drive around many historically Black neighborhoods in Seattle or Tacoma, and you’ll see that same sign staked proudly in the lawns of homes owned by Black families — a symbol of solidarity and resistance. The message: Black homeowners will not be displaced.
“I’m a proud survivor of gentrification,” Armstrong says. “The Black legacy homeowners are standing strong.”
The solidarity signs were furnished to these homeowners by the nonprofit Black Legacy Homeowners Network, founded by executive director Chukundi Salisbury — himself a proud Black homeowner.
BLHN equips Black homeowners across the Puget Sound area with education, resources and support to help them build community, buy homes and keep their homes for future generations.
As we honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on MLK Day next week, Salisbury channels the late civil rights leader to help explain BLHN’s mission. King’s dream was to create housing equality for Black people by dismantling the economic and racial barriers to homeownership. His assassination in 1968 galvanized the passage of the Fair Housing Act, which banned housing discrimination based on race.
Yet, the number of homes owned by Black residents in Washington state today is lower than it was in 1968, when the Fair Housing Act was passed — in 1968, the Black homeownership rate was closer to 50%, as compared to 35% in 2021, according to U.S. census data.
King “had a dream that we would not be discriminated against when it comes to our accommodations, and we routinely find that we are targeted,” Salisbury said. “We’re preserving his dream by empowering our homeowners to let them know that they’re not alone and we’re standing with them.
“The sun is shining on us … And we’re not going anywhere.”
An uphill battle
BLHN has its work cut out for it. Even though it’s been more than half a century since the passage of the Fair Housing Act, Black residents continue to face outsized challenges in becoming homeowners and keeping their homes.
In Washington, 35% of Black households own their own homes, compared with 68% of white households. Last year, a King County study estimated that racist housing policies have cost Black families in King County between $5.4 billion and $15.8 billion in intergenerational wealth. Because of these housing disparities, about a third of Black households have zero net worth compared with about 12% of white households.
Much of this stems from a long history of redlining — a racist and discriminatory housing policy with roots in the early 1900s that restricted where people could buy homes in Seattle. Redlining pushed Black people into the Central District and Chinatown International District and severely limited where Black people could own homes.
Redlining forced homeowners of color into underinvested neighborhoods and “stripped Black folks of their homes [and] of their wealth building,” said Nicole Bascomb-Green, a core team member of the Black Home Initiative, another organization working to increase Black homeownership in the region.
“Homeownership loss is a widespread issue. That is insidious to the Black community,” said Bascomb-Green, who’s also president of Western Washington Realtist, the local board of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers.
As gentrification displaces Black homeowners, they also lose out on key health, social and cultural benefits of buying a home.
For many Black homeowners, the long-term effects of redlining still linger today. Salisbury says he frequently hears from Black families who come to him for help after receiving harassing calls and unsolicited requests to sell property that’s been in their families for decades, or from those who have fallen prey to predatory developers and racist home appraisals that significantly undervalue their homes based on whether they have Black art or pictures of relatives on the walls.
Purchasing a property, “isn’t just about owning those four walls,” said Bascomb-Green, whose family owned a home in the Central District for roughly 80 years. “We know that homeownership provides support, it provides an anchor.” Organizations like BLHN, Bascomb-Green said, “are doing the work to ensure that we can keep that historic presence.”
Flipping the narrative
A Black legacy homeowner is defined as someone who knows the value of their home and will not be exploited by property developers. The eponymous group aims to help Black residents access homeownership and educational resources to combat predatory offers, improve their property value and pass down a family home after a relative’s death.
“We make the worst decisions when we’re in the darkest place,” Salisbury said. “That’s when people are most susceptible to that door knock. When the bills are piling up and the foreclosure notices are there.”
BLHN wants to turn that narrative on its head. As Salisbury puts it, instead of receiving an unsolicited visit from a developer looking to buy their home, what if more Black homeowners received a door knock from someone touting resources to help them hold on to their home?
The group builds off the “This House Is Not For Sale” campaign Salisbury launched in 2020 to try and curb gentrification in the Central District and South Seattle by stopping developers from making unsolicited calls and offers on their properties. Salisbury launched the signage during his campaign to represent Washington’s 37th District in the state House. While he was not elected, the effort helped bring people together to protect Black homes in Seattle. A year later, Salisbury founded Black Legacy Homeowners Network as a grassroots group to stabilize Black homeowners and connect them to resources.
“We wanted Black people to be able to afford to stay in their homes. Oftentimes, that means the ability to develop their homes,” said Salisbury, whose organization also connects members to resources to improve their homes. “What we weren’t seeing [were] the resources to help those who are still here.”
Today, BLHN serves more than 500 members throughout the Puget Sound area. Members gather monthly at the Royal Esquire Club in Columbia City. The organization has brought Black homeowners together, and the goal is to try to increase the number of Black homeowners in the area by offering financial counseling and workshops on taxes and estate planning, including how to set up wills and trusts. The organization also provides access to guides on senior tax exemptions, foreclosure assistance programs, resources for homebuyers and no-cost home repair programs. Through BLHN, homeowners have access to a database of electricians, carpenters and plumbers who offer home repairs on a sliding fee scale.
Penny L. Scott inherited her home in Rainier Beach in 2020. She has used BLHN member benefits to turn away pesky developers pestering her to sell her home, and also to spruce up her yard at a reduced rate and make her home more accessible for her mother.
“It gives people hope,” said Scott, who has seen many Black neighbors forced out of their homes since her family bought their house in the 1980s. “When that last resort is, ‘Oh god, I don’t know what to do, I’ll just sell my home,’ Black Legacy Homeowners Network gives you other avenues you can take.”
After years of losing Black neighbors and businesses to predatory developers, Armstrong said “it’s healing” to again have access to a tight-knit group of Black homeowners.
“I’m seeing Black people whose parents knew my parents,” Armstrong said, referring to the Black Legacy Homeowners Network’s meetings. “It’s powerful to see people that are still here from 70 years ago.”
