Commission Against Discrimination v. Colangelo Brief for Petitioner

    C O M M O N W E A L T H  OF M A S S A C H U S E T T S .

SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT
FOR T H E  C O M M O N W E A L T H .

M iddlesex C o u n ty . J an u ary  S ittin g , 1962.

I n  E quity , N o. 6108.

COMMISSION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION
v.

A. J. COLANGELO et al.

BRIEF FOR PETITIONER.



SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT
FOR T H E  C O M M O N W E A L T H .

M iddlesex Co u n ty . J anuary  S ittin g , 1962.

I n E quity , N o. 6108.

C O M M O N W E A L T H  OF M A S S A C H U S E T TS .

COMMISSION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION
v.

A. J. COLANGELO et al.

BRIEF FOR PETITIONER,

CONCISE STATEMENT OF FACTS AND PRIOR 

PROCEEDINGS.

This case arises out of a petition brought in the Middle­
sex Superior Court pursuant to section 6 of G.L. c. 151B 
(R. 2-6), by the Massachusetts Commission Against Dis­
crimination for enforcement of its order (R. 18-22) entered 
against the respondents under section 5 of said chapter, 
following its findings (R. 16-18), after a hearing held Jan­
uary 9, 1961 (R. 3, 22), that the respondents are in viola­
tion of chapter 239 of the Acts of 1959, known as the Fair 
Housing Practices Law. The sole issue raised by the re­
spondent Colangelo in his answer to the petition is the

Tables of contents and of authorities are printed at end of brief.



2

constitutionality of the statute. The respondent Nahigian, 
in addition to raising the constitutional issue, challenges 
the applicability of the statute to him, the reasonableness 
of the findings, and the propriety of the order. The case 
was reserved and reported without decision to this Court 
for determination upon the pleadings, an agreed statement 
of facts, and the transcript of the hearing (E. 1).

The complainant, Maurice Fowler, is a Negro employed 
as a Contract Negotiator for the Electronics System Center 
of the United States Air Force at Waltham. He holds top- 
secret government security clearance (E. 16). He is seek­
ing to rent an apartment in a new 120-unit development 
in Waltham owned by the respondent Colangelo and called 
“ Glenmeadow Apartments”  (E. 16). The rental applica­
tions for Gflenmeadow are handled for Colangelo by the 
respondent Nahigian (E. 17). Glenmeadow’s financing is 
in no way government assisted (E. 17, 92).

The Commission conducted a preliminary investigation, 
followed by an unsuccessful attempt at conference, concilia­
tion and negotiation (E. 3). It then held the formal hear­
ing required by section 5 of the statute (E. 3, 22). The 
respondents each filed an answer to the complaint (E. 11- 
14), and counsel for Colangelo introduced for the record 
a statement in Colangelo’s behalf (E. 25-26). Neither re­
spondent conducted a cross-examination of witnesses testi­
fying in support of the complaint, nor did either introduce 
testimony in his own behalf. They professed to withdraw 
from the hearing before testimony was taken, but nonethe­
less both counsel as well as Nahigian himself remained in 
the hearing room throughout, and both counsel to some 
extent participated in the proceedings (E. 47, 50, 67, 77, 78, 
84).

The Commission found that both respondents had, solely 
on account of color, refused to rent Fowler an apartment 
at Glenmeadow, and that in doing so they had engaged in



3

a course of deliberate misrepresentation and delay (R. 17- 
18). It also found that Fowler obtained comparable hous­
ing accommodations in Cambridge at an additional rental 
of $30 per month (R. 16). The record further shows that 
he incurred certain other expenses because of the denial 
of accommodations at Glenmeadow, and that he was likely 
to incur yet other expenses on account of this denial if and 
when allowed to rent there (R. 44, 85).

The Commission, pursuant to its findings, thereupon is­
sued an order directing the respondents to make an apart­
ment available to Fowler, to compensate him for the 
monetary losses suffered on account of the discrimination, 
and to cease and desist their discrimination in the renting 
of Glenmeadow apartments, as well as to take certain minor 
auxiliary measures designed to implement the cease and 
desist order (R. 18-22).

The respondents both failing to comply with the order, 
the Commission brought a petition for enforcement in the 
Middlesex Superior Court, where Fowler petitioned and 
was allowed to intervene as a party plaintiff (R. 86-87).

(Relevant constitutional provisions and statutes are 
printed in Appendix A, pp. 83-93.)

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT.

I. The Fair Housing Practices Law represents no sud­
den shift in legislative policy or direction, but is rather a 
natural development growing out of a long tradition of 
legislation banning discriminatory practices based on race, 
creed, color or national origin. Though the Massachusetts 
Legislature has been a leader in this legislative evolution, 
many States have now enacted such legislation. Beginning 
with public accommodations, antidiscrimination legisla­



4

tion has been extended to education, employment and hous­
ing. In housing it has evolved from public housing to urban 
renewal housing, to publicly assisted housing, and finally 
to non-publicly assisted housing. This development is pre­
sented in section I of this brief, pp. 6-19.

II. The existing case law on Fair Housing Laws, while 
it includes no square holding directly in point by a Court 
of last resort, strongly supports the constitutionality of 
the Massachusetts Law. And the decisions relating to pub­
lic accommodations and employment discrimination, both 
in Massachusetts and elsewhere, overwhelmingly establish 
the validity of that Law. These cases are presented in 
section II of this brief, pp. 19-36.

III. The constitutionality of the Fair Housing Law, 
under the police power and the clue-process clauses of the 
Massachusetts and United States Constitutions, depends 
on whether the Law seeks to achieve legitimate public pur­
poses by reasonable means. In applying these standards, 
this Court must start with its traditionally strong presump­
tions of validity.

A. The Law serves legitimate public purposes. It car­
ries out fundamental state and national policies reflected 
by the constitutional ban on government-imposed discrimi­
nation based on race, creed, color or national origin. And 
it deals with practical consequences of discrimination, such 
as slums and the crime and disease they breed, all of which 
are within the traditional police power. Less tangible con­
sequences, such as racial tensions and economic and educa­
tional handicaps thereby imposed, are also properly for 
the Legislature to consider. These points are supported in 
section III A of the brief, pp. 38-53.

B. The means utilized by the Fair Housing Law are com­
pletely reasonable. They are rationally related to the ob­
jectives of the Law; indeed, they are required if its pur­



5

poses are to be achieved. The prohibition is imposed on 
those who are in the business of selling or renting housing, 
and it is limited to discriminatory practices based on race, 
creed, color or national origin. Those subject to the Law 
remain free to impose any other criteria for desirable 
tenants or purchasers. Respondents have produced no evi­
dence that they will suffer any financial or other hardship, 
and such general evidence as is available demonstrates the 
contrary. The contention that owners of land and housing 
must be free of all regulation in sale or rental is refuted 
by a broad and varied body of housing regulation sustained 
in many decisions of this Court and the United States 
Supreme Court. These points are supported in section III 
B of the brief, pp. 53-66.

IV . The application of the Fair Housing Law to mul­
tiple dwellings of three or more units and to projects of 
ten or more contiguous homes represents a reasonable 
classification that affords equal protection. The Law deals 
with those who are in the business of sale or rental of 
housing, and this is a plainly reasonable distinction, in 
light of the nature of the evil as the Legislature could view 
it, and of the administrative problems of enforcement. 
That the Legislature drew its line by use of a numerical 
standard is no basis for objection. These points are sup­
ported in section IV of the brief, pp. 66-69.

V. Respondent Nahigian was a proper party to this 
proceeding, first, because he aided and abetted in the viola­
tion of the law, Gr.L. c. 151B, § 4 (5 ); secondly, because he is 
a “ managing agent”  covered by chapter 151B, § 6; and 
third, beeause he had a “ right to rent or lease”  within 
chapter 151B, § 6. In any event, he could be joined under 
general equity principles. These points are supported in 
section V  of the brief, pp. 70-72.

VI. Respondent Nahigian’s challenge of the findings and 
order comes too late, in that it was not made to the Com­



6

mission, but appeared for the first time in his response to 
the petition for enforcement in the Superior Court. G.L. 
c. 151B, § 6, compels a waiver of this defense in the absence 
of “ extraordinary circumstances,”  which have not been 
shown. NLRB v. Cheney, 327 U.S. 385 (1946). Holland v. 
Edwards, 307 N.Y. 38 (1954). This point is supported in 
section VI of the brief, pp. 72-75.

VII. In any event, the Commission’s findings are war­
ranted and its order is reasonable. The findings are based 
on uncontroverted evidence. The order requires respond­
ents (1) to make an apartment available to complainant 
when one is available, (2) to compensate complainant for 
pecuniary losses actually caused by their discriminatory 
acts, and (3) to cease and desist from discriminating hence­
forth in the renting of Glenmeadow apartments. These 
requirements are carefully tailored to the violations found, 
and are well within the authority of the Commission con­
ferred by the statute. These points are supported in sec­
tion V II of the brief, pp. 75-82.

ARGUMENT.

I. The Fair Housing Practices Law is Part of a Tradition 
Pioneered by Massachusetts Legislatures for Almost a 
Century and Followed by Many States.

The Massachusetts Fair Housing Practices Law, now a 
part of G.L. c. 151B, especially section 1, suhsecs. 9-12, and 
section 4, subsec. 6, is the result of enactments by the Gen­
eral Court in 1957,1959, and 1961. St. 1957, c. 426; St. 19o9, 
c. 239; St. 1961, c. 128.

The 1957 enactment prohibited discrimination, in sale or 
rental, based on race, creed, color or national origin, in 
“ publicly assisted”  housing, provided that such housing



7

was either (1) a “ multiple dwelling” —i.e., a dwelling- 
rented out to be occupied by three or more families other 
than the landlord’s, living independently of each other— 
or (2) ten or more housing accommodations owned or con­
trolled by one person located on land that is contiguous ex­
clusive of streets. Thus the 1957 law covered certain land­
lords and project developers—persons in the business of 
selling or renting housing, provided they had “ public as­
sistance,”  which meant principally an FHA or VA mort­
gage loan guaranty.

The 1959 enactment extended the prohibition of discri­
minatory sale or rental to non-publicly assisted housing, 
but retained the requirements of “ multiple dwelling”  and 
“ contiguously located housing.”  The latter was defined to 
include housing “ which at any time was one of ten or more 
lots of a tract whose plan has been submitted to a planning- 
board, as required by the subdivision control law,”  prin­
cipally in order to prevent evasion of the standard of ten 
or more contiguous units through spurious fragmentation 
of ownership.

The 1961 law made some perfecting amendments, but 
it is not relevant to this case, since the acts of respondents 
found to be unlawful by the Commission took place in 1960.

The particular sections of the law applicable to respon­
dents are G.L. c. 151B, § 1, subdiv. 11, as added by St. 1957, 
c, 426, § 1, and c. 151B, § 4, subdiv. 6, as amended by St. 
1959, c. 239, § 2. The former defines “ multiple dwelling,”  
and the latter makes it unlawful for “ the owner . . .  or 
managing agent of . . . multiple dwelling . . . housing ac­
commodations or other person having the . . . right to rent 
or lease such accommodations:—“ (a) to refuse to rent or 
lease or otherwise to deny to or withhold from any person 
or group of persons such accommodations because of the 
race, creed, color or national origin of such person or per­
sons . . . ”



8

Though the Fair Housing Prat-ices Law is of relatively 
recent origin, it represents no novel or sharp break with 
the past. It reflects, rather, a tradition going back almost 
a century, both in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the na­
tion. Because the statute here in question can be better 
understood in relation to the prior development, this sec­
tion of the brief seeks to describe the evolution of anti- 
discrimination legislation in Massachusetts and in other 
States.

The Civil Bights Act of 1875, 18 Stat. 335, enacted by the 
Congress, went beyond other civil rights legislation of that 
era in that it dealt with activities carried on by non-gov­
ernmental units. In brief, it declared that all persons were 
to be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accom­
modations and privileges of inns, public conveyances, 
theaters and other places of public amusement, subject only 
to those legal limitations applicable alike to all citizens of 
every race and color, and regardless of any previous condi­
tion of servitude.

In the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), the United 
States Supreme Court held that these provisions were not 
within the power conferred upon Congress by the Four­
teenth Amendment, because the latter was concerned only 
with State action. But the Court made it perfectly clear 
that private discrimination was not beyond the prohibitory 
power of government; it was simply a matter of State, 
rather than Federal, power and responsibility. On the other 
hand, the Fourteenth Amendment did take from the States 
the power to require private discrimination. Thus the 
Court said (109 U.S. at 24):

“ Now, conceding, for the sake of the argument, that 
the admission to an inn, a public conveyance, or a place 
of public amusement, on equal terms with all other 
citizens, is the right of every man and all classes of



9

men, is it any more than one of those rights which the 
states by the Fourteenth Amendment are forbidden 
to deny to any person? And is the Constitution vio­
lated until the denial of the right has some State sanc­
tion or authority? Can the act of a mere individual, 
the owner of the inn, the public conveyance or place of 
amusement, refusing the accommodation, be justly 
regarded as imposing any badge of slavery or servitude 
upon the applicant, or only as inflicting an ordinary 
civil injury, properly cognizable by the laws of the 
State, and presumably subject to redress by those 
laws until the contrary appears f  

“ After giving to these questions all the considera­
tion which their importance demands, we are forced to 
the conclusion that such an act of refusal has nothing 
to do with slavery or involuntary servitude, and that 
if it is violative of any right of the party, his redress 
is to be sought under the laws of the State; or if those 
laws are adverse to his rights and do not protect him, 
his remedy will be found in the corrective legislation 
which Congress has adopted, or may adopt, for coun­
teracting the effect of State laws, or State action, pro­
hibited by the Fourteenth Amendment.”  (Emphasis 
supplied.)

The Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 
directed the victim of discriminatory acts by private per­
sons to resort to the laws of the State for redress. As of 
1883, except for temporary reconstruction in the South, 
very few State legislatures had acted with respect to civil 
rights legislation, but it is the fact that the Massachusetts 
General Court had, and indeed it had been the first to do so, 
on May 16, 1865. See St. 1865, e. 277, imposing a fine of up



10

to $50 on anyone making a “ distinction, discrimination, or 
restriction on account of color or race . . .  in any licensed 
inn, in any public place of amusement, public conveyance 
or public meeting in this commonwealth.”

Thus Massachusetts was the leader among the States. 
New York and Kansas followed before 1883. Thereafter 
the States acted in swift succession. By 1900, eighteen 
Northern, Eastern and Western States had statutes. As 
of today, twenty-eight States forbid discrimination for 
reasons of race or color in places of public accommodation.1 1

1 Alaska Comp. Laws Ann. §§ 20— 1 -3 -4  (Supp. 1958); Cali­
fornia Pen. Code, § 365, Civ. Code, §§ 51-52; Colorado Rev. Stat. 
Ann §§ 25— 1—1, 25— 2— 1-5 (1953); Connecticut Gen. Stat. Rev. 
§§ 53— 35-36 (Snpp. 1959) ; District of Columbia Code Ann. §§ 
47— 2901-04 (Supp. 1960) ; Idaho Code Ann. §§ 18-7201-03 (Supp. 
1961) ; Illinois Ann. Stat. c. 38, §§ 125-29 ( Smith-Hurd Supp. 
1961) ; Indiana Ann. Stat. §§ 10— 901-02 (Supp. 1960) ; Iowa Code 
Ann. §§ 735.1-.02 (1950) ; Kansas Gen. Stat. Ann. § 21-2424 
(1949); Maine Rev. Stat. Ann. e. 137, § 50 (Supp. 1959) ; Massa­
chusetts G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 272, §§ 92A, 98 (1959), c. 151B, §§ 1-10; 
Michigan Comp. Laws §§ 750.146-.147 (1948) ; Minnesota Stat. 
Ann. § 327.09 (1947) ; Montana Rev. Codes Ann. § 64— 211 (Supp. 
1961); Nebraska Rev. Stat. 20— 101-02 (1954); New Hampshire 
Rev. Stat. Ann. c. 354, as amended by L. 1961, e. 219; New Jersey 
Stat. Ann. §§ 10:1— 2-7, § 18:25— 5 (Supp. 1960); New Mexico 
Stat. Ann. §§ 4 9 -8 — 1-6 (Supp. 1961) ; New York Civ. Rights 
Law, § 40-41, Executive Law, §§ 292(9), 296(2) ; North Dakota 
Cent. Code, § 12— 22— 30 (Supp. 1961); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 
§ 2901.35 (Page, 1954); Oregon Rev. Stat. §§ 30.670-.680 (1959); 
Pennsylvania Stat. Ann. tit. 18, § 4654 (1945) ; Rhode Island Gen. 
Laws Ann. §§ 11—24— 1-6 (1956) ; Vermont Stat. Ann. tit. 13, 
§§ 1451-52 (1958); Washington Rev. Code §§ 49.60.040 (1958), 
49.60.215 (1959) ; Wisconsin Stat. Ann. § 942.04 (1958) ; Wyoming 
Laws 1961, e. 103; Puerto Rico Laws. Ann. tit. 1, § 13 (1954) ; 
Virgin Islands, tit. 10, § 3 (1957).

In addition, a number of States, including Massachusetts, have 
banned discrimination by educational institutions. G.L. c. 151C; 
New York Educational Law, § 313; New Jersey Stat. Ann. § 18 :14-2 
(Cum'. Supp. 1960) ; Oregon Rev. Stat. §§ 345.240-.250 (1957) ; 
Washington Rev. Code'§ 9.91.010 (1957).



11

The next major line of development began at the end of 
World War II in 194o, and again the States acted when 
Federal action failed. During World War II there was 
considerable agitation for fair employment practices legis­
lation, and President Roosevelt established a Fair Employ­
ment Practices Commission to police clauses in government 
contracts barring employment discrimination by contrac­
tors on grounds of race, creed, color or national origin. 
This Commission had no enforcement powers, however, 
and Congress failed to pass legislation creating a commis­
sion that did. A  major reason appears to have been the 
variety of views in the several States, with major opposi­
tion from the Southern States. For a brief description, 
with references to fuller studies, see Robison, “ The New 
Fair Employment Law,”  20 Ohio St. L.J. 570, 571 (1959). 
The stage was set for State action.

The first State to act was New York in 1915, followed 
within a year by New Jersey and Massachusetts, and 
through 1961 by 19 other States, making a total of 22.2 And

2 Alaska Comp. Laws Ann. §§ 43-5— 1-10 (Supp. 1958) ; Call 
forma Labor Code, §§ 1410-32; Colorado Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 80— 
24— 1-8 (Supp. 1960) ; Connecticut Gen. Stat. Rev. §§ 31— 122-28 
(Supp. 1959) ; Delaware Code Ann. tit. 19,'§§ 710-13 (Supp. I960) • 
Idaho Code Ann. §§ 18— 7201-03 (Supp. 1961); Illinois L. 1961 ’ 
c. 48; Indiana Ann. Stat. §§ 40— 2307-17 (Supp. 1961); Kansas 
Laws,-1961, c. 248; Massachusetts G.L. e. 151B, §§ 1-10 (Supp. 
1961) ; Michigan Stat. Ann. §§ 17.458(1)-(11) (I960) ; Minnesota 
Stat. Ann. §§ 363.01-.13 (1957) ; Missouri Ann. Stat. §§ 296.010-
.070 (Supp. Sept. 1961); New Jersey Stat. Ann. §§ 18:25__4-6
(Supp. 1960); New Mexico Stat. Ann. §§ 59—4—1-14 (I960) • 
New York Executive Law, §§ 290-301; Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 
4112-01-.08, 4112.99 (Supp. 1961) et seq. (Page 19); Oregon Rev. 
Stat. §§ 659.010-.990 (1959); Pennsylvania Stat. Ann. tit. 43,
951-63 (Supp. 1960); Rhode Island Gen. Laws Ann. §§ 28__5__1-39
(1956) ; Washington Rev. Code §§ 49.60.010-.320 (1959) • Wiscon 
sin Stat. Ann. §§ 111.31-.37 (Supp. 1959).



12

in this legislation a new mode of enforcement was initiated 
quite different from that found in the then-existing public 
accommodations laws. In 19 of these 22 States,3 an ad­
ministrative agency, either new or existing, was given re­
sponsibility to enforce the law, and in addition in most 
instances to carry out a program of education. The shift 
to administrative enforcement resulted largely from the 
defects in the criminal and civil remedies afforded by the 
public accommodations laws. Prosecutors were reluctant 
to seek criminal sanctions, and individuals were often hesi­
tant because of the expense and effort of a lawsuit. More­
over, in employment discrimination neither sanction was 
adequate to bring the relief the victim sought—an equal 
chance to get a job. Experience under the National Labor 
Relations Act and similar State acts showed that an ad­
ministrative body could act against discrimination, though 
of a different form.4

Experience with administrative enforcement was suffi­
ciently satisfactory to lead a number of States to confer 
on their commissions power to enforce the public accommo­
dations laws. By 1959 8 States had so acted,5 Massachu­
setts in 1950, at which time its Fair Employment Practice 
Commission became the Commission Against Discrimina­
tion. St. 1950, c. 479.

8 Delaware and Idaho impose criminal sanctions. Indiana has 
no sanctions, relying on suasion.

4 See Bamberger and Lewin, “ The Right to Equal Treatment: 
Administrative Enforcement of Antidiscrimination Legislation,”  
74 Harv. L. Rev. 526, 526-528 (1961).

8 Colorado Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 2 5 -3 —1-6 (Supp. 1960) ; Con­
necticut Gen. Stat. Rev. §§ 53-35-36 (Supp. 1959); Massachusetts 
G.L. c. 151B, § 5 (Supp.1961) ; New Jersey Stat. Ann. §§ 18:25— 
1-28 (1960) ; New York Executive Law, §§ 290-301; Oregon Rev. 
Stat. § 659.100(3) (1959) ; Rhode Island Gen. Laws Ann. §§ 11— 
24— 1-6 (1956); Washington Rev. Code §§ 49.60.010-.310 (1959).



13

Prior to 1939 State statutes dealing with housing dis­
crimination followed no clear pattern.6 New York began 
the first movement in 1939, when it banned discrimination 
in housing built under the State housing laws, which meant 
principally public housing.7 Public housing discrimination 
was prohibited by Massachusetts in 1948, Connecticut and 
Wisconsin in 1949, New Jersey in 1950, Rhode Island and 
Michigan in 1952, and most recently Indiana in 1961.8 The 
falling off of statutes on public housing is undoubtedly 
traceable to the conclusion, formed after the United States 
Supreme Court’s school segregation case in 1954 {S town v. 
Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483), that neither discrimina­
tion nor segregation is constitutionally permissible in pub­
lic housing. See, e.g., Detroit Housing Commission v. 
Lewis, 226 P. 2d 180 (6th Cir. 1955).

Constitutional and statutory prohibitions are one thing, 
and effective enforcement is another. Massachusetts, which 
had in 1948 banned discrimination in public housing, in 
1950 assigned enforcement responsibility to its Commission 
Against Discrimination. St. 1950, c. 479, § 4. Other States 
have done the same.

As public housing programs gave way to housing that 
was privately built but given public assistance through tax

6 A Kansas law of 1921 prohibited discrimination by planning 
commissions. Kansas Gen. Stat. Ann. § 12.713 (1949). A Colorado 
law of 1923 barred racial zoning restrictions. Colorado Rev. Stat. 
Ann. § 139.60.10 (1953). Minnesota in 1919 banned restrictive 
covenants based on religion, and in 1953 amended it to cover race. 
Minnesota Stat. Ann. § 507.18 (Supp. 1960).

7 New York Pub. Housing Law, § 223.
8 Massachusetts G.L. c. 121, § 26FF(e) (Supp. 1961), added by 

St. 1948, c. 51; Connecticut Gen. Stat, Rev. § 53-35 (Supp. 1959) - 
Wisconsin Stat. Ann. § 66.40(2m) (1957) ; New Jersey Stat. Ann’ 
§§ 55:14A-7.5, 55:14B-5.1, 55.-14C-7.1; Rhode Island Gen. Laws 
Ann. § 11-24-3 (1956) ; Michigan Stat. Ann. § 28-343 (Supp. 1959) • 
Indiana Ann. Stat. § 10-901-02 (Supp. 1961).



14

exemption, land write-down and power of condemnation, so 
too were statutes extended. Following tlie decision in Dor­
sey v. Stuyvesant Town Corp., 299 N.Y. 512 (1949); cert, 
den. 339 U.8. 981 (1950), in which it was held that such 
housing was not subject to constitutional restrictions on 
States, and that equal opportunity must be guaranteed 
through “ political processes”  (299 N.Y. at 534), New York, 
New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and Wisconsin passed 
laws banning discrimination in these projects.9. When 
Montana enacted an urban renewal law in 1959, it included 
a similar ban.10 11

These statutes, however, extended to only a small frac­
tion of the housing that was receiving government assist­
ance. In 1954 New York City passed an ordinance covering 
rental housing that received new FHA or VA mortgage 
insurance,11 and in 1955 New York State banned discrim­
ination in new apartment housing and also in new projects 
of ten or more housing units, if they were aided by govern­
ment-insured mortgages.12 In 1957 four states followed 
this lead—Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Wash­
ington.13 California acted in the same fashion in 1959.14

In 1957 New York City adopted an ordinance prohibiting 
discrimination in all housing, whether publicly assisted or

9 New York Civ. Rights Law, §§ 18—a-e; New Jersey Stat. Ann 
§§ 55:14A-39.1, 55 :14D-6.1, 55:14E-7.1, 55:16-8.1 (Supp. I960); 
Connecticut G-en. Stat. Rev. § 53-35 (Supp. 1959) ; Illinois Ann. 
Stat. e. 67%, §§ 26Q(12)-(13) (Smith-Ilurd, 1958); Wisconsin 
Stat. Ann. § 66.405(2m) (1957).

10 Montana Rev. Codes Ann. § 11-3917 (Supp. 1961).
11 New York City Admin. Code, § W41-1.0(b).
12 New York Civ. Rights Law, § 18-b (3).
13Massachusetts G.L. c. 151B, §§ 1, 4, 6 (Supp. 1961); New 

Jersey Stat. Ann. §§ 18:25-1-28 (Supp. 1960); Oregon L. 1957, 
e. 725, <§§ 1-4; Washington Rev. Code, §<§ 49.60.030, 49.60.040 
(1958).

14 California Health and Safety Code, §§ 357000-740.



15

not, consisting of multiple dwellings of three or more units 
and one- and two-family homes in projects of 10 or more 
units.15 A year later Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, adopted a 
similar ordinance.16

In 1959 Massachusetts and three other States— Colorado, 
Connecticut and Oregon—adopted fair-housing laws ex­
tending to non-publicly assisted housing.17 And in 1961 
five additional States acted—Minnesota, New Hampshire, 
New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.18

In summary, seventeen States have thus far enacted laws 
relating to housing. Of these, the laws of nine States ex­
tend to housing, whether publicly assisted or not.19 The 
laws of two extended to publicly assisted housing,20 and the 
laws of six extend only to public housing or housing erected 
through urban renewal, or both.21 Moreover, eight of the 
nine states in the first group, and one of the two in the 
second, have administrative agencies akin to the Massachu­

15 New York City Administrative Code, § X41-1.0. This was 
amended by 1961 Local Law No. 642.

18 Pittsburgh, Pa. Ordinance No. 523, Dec. 15, 1958, recorded 
in vol. 62, p. 303, office of City Clerk.

17 Colorado Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 69—7—1-7 (Supp. I960); Con­
necticut Gen. Stat. Rev. §§ 53-35-36 (Supp. 1959); Massachusetts 
G.L. c. 151B, §§ 1-10 (Supp. 1961), amended again by St. 1961, 
cc. 128, 570) ; Oregon Rev. Stat. §§ 659.010-115 (1959).

18 Minnesota Stat. Ann. §§ 363.01-.13 (1957), as amended by 
L. 1961, c. 428 (becomes effective 12/31/62); New Hampshire Rev. 
Stat. Ann. §§ 354.1-.4 (1955), as amended by L. 1961, c. 219; New 
Jersey Stat. Ann. §§ 18:25— 1-28 (Supp. 1960), as amended by 
L. 1961, c. 414; New York Executive Law, §§ 290-99, as amended 
by L. 1961, c. 414; Pennsylvania Stat. Ann. tit. 43, §§ 951-63 
(Supp. 1960), as amended by Acts 1961, No. 19.

19 See footnotes 17 and 18, supra, for names and citations.
20 California and Washington. See footnotes 13 and 14, supra, 

for citations.
21 Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Rhode Island, and Wis­

consin. See footnotes 8, 9 and 10, supra, for citations.



16

setts Commission Against Discrimination which exercise 
principal enforcement responsibility.

It should be added that a great many cities and towns in 
the nation have adopted either resolutions or ordinances 
in relation to discrimination in housing based on race, 
creed, color or national origin. The United States Commis­
sion on Civil Rights lists about fifty such municipalities 
taking such action, mostly in relation to public or urban 
redevelopment housing, in the last few years. See Report, 
1959, pp. 411-412; Report, 1961, Book 4 on Housing, pp. 200- 
201.

As might be expected, the various State statutes and local 
ordinances differ in the extent of their coverage. The 
broadest law is the ordinance of New York City which, as 
amended in 1961, applies to all housing except the rental 
of one of the apartments in a two-family home where the 
other is occupied by the owner. The new Minnesota law 
applies to all housing except rental of an apartment in an 
owner-occupied two-family home and sale or rental of an 
owner-occupied one-family home. The Colorado law ap­
plies to all housing except “ places maintained by the owner 
or lessee as the household of his family.”  The Pennsyl­
vania law excepts only owner-occupied one- and two-family 
homes. Oregon, on the other hand, has applied its law only 
to one who sells or leases real property “ as a business en­
terprise”  or “ in connection with or as an incident to his 
business enterprise. ’ ’ Most of the remaining States have 
followed the lead of Massachusetts by setting numerical 
minimnms. The New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts 
statutes are quite similar in coverage. A  tabular presenta­
tion of the laws of the seventeen States is given in the 1961 
Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, 
Book 4 on Housing, pp. 198-199.

The evolutionary development of anti-discrimination 
legislation in the United States over the course of a cen­



17

tury, presented here in capsule form, has several significant 
implications:

First, apart from the restrictions that flow from the Fed­
eral Constitution, discrimination has been dealt with mainly 
as a State rather than a Federal responsibility. In part, 
this reflects the varying views of the people of different 
States, particularly as between North and South. In greater 
part, Federal inaction may reflect the effective response of 
State Legislatures to the views of their own citizenry.

Second, the development has been evolutionary in every 
sense. In terms of facilities, the movement has been from 
public accommodations to employment to housing. Even 
within the housing field, we see a progression from public 
to urban redevelopment housing, then to publicly assisted 
housing, and finally to housing without regard to its financ­
ing. The Massachusetts law, though it now comprehends 
housing whether publicly assisted or not, does not go as 
far as some States have. In requiring three or more apart­
ment units in a “ multiple dwelling”  and ten or more homes 
contiguously located, it deals with those whom the Legis­
lature could fairly consider to be in the business of selling 
or renting housing.

Though the pace of anti-discrimination legislation has ob­
viously quickened in the last decade or so in response to 
public need, the process of careful building on experience 
has not changed. Each State has learned from its own 
prior experience, and State has learned from State. In 
Massachusetts the jurisdiction of the Commission Against 
Discrimination has been broadened a step at a time: em­
ployment ; educational institutions; public accommodations 
and public housing; publicly assisted housing; and hous­
ing. The ban on discrimination in public housing has now 
been in effect for thirteen years and has been enforced by 
the Commission for eleven. We must assume that the Legis­



18

lature evaluated past performance each time that it gave 
the Commission new duties for the future.

Third, the fact that a large number of States have enacted 
anti-discrimination legislation, including Fair Housing- 
Practices Laws, is in itself significant. Such legislation is 
not a temporary aberration or a merely spasmodic phe­
nomenon. It reflects social needs that are deeply as well 
as widely felt.

Widespread adoption of such legislation cannot of course 
be binding on the issue of its constitutionality, but it is 
persuasive evidence of reasonableness. In Simon v. Need­
ham, 311 Mass. 560 (1942), this Court, in upholding a zon­
ing by-law that imposed a 1-acre lot requirement, noted 
that fourteen nearby towns had similar restrictions, and 
said (311 Mass, at 564):

“ Such evidence is not decisive that the imposition 
of a restriction of an area of an acre is reasonable and 
proper, but it is persuasive that many other communi­
ties when faced with an apparently similar problem 
have determined that the public interest was best 
served by the adoption of a restriction in some in­
stances identical and in others nearly identical with 
that imposed by the respondent town.”

This observation applies a fortiori to statutes. In the 
very recent decision of Hoyt v. Florida, 30 U.S. Law Week 
4013, decided on November 30, 1961, the United States Su­
preme Court upheld a Florida statute concerned with 
women serving on juries and cited in support the seventeen 
other States that had similar though not identical statutes. 
And in Petition of Goldman, 331 Mass. 647 (1954), this 
Court upheld a statute dealing with child adoption. The 
Court said, in part (331 Mass, at 653):



19

“ The principle that children should, in general, be 
adopted within the faith of their natural parents has 
received widespread approval, as is attested not only 
by such decisions as Purinton v. Jamrock but also by 
the fact that most of the States now have statutes more 
or less similar to § 5B. See 54 Colum. L. Eev. 376 
(March, 1954). We are not prepared to hold either 
such decisions or the statute unconstitutional.”

The same is true of the case at bar.

II. Statutes Forbidding Discrimination Based on Race, 
Creed, Color or National Origin have been Repeatedly 
Upheld by This and Other State Courts and by the United 
States Supreme Court as within the Police Power and 
Affording Due Process of Law.

The decision of this Court in the present case will have 
special importance, for no Court of last resort has squarely 
confronted the precise questions posed. But recent de­
cisions on closely related issues strongly support the valid­
ity of the Massachusetts Fair Housing Practices Law. And 
the case law in the related fields of public accommodations 
and employment overwhelmingly establishes its constitu­
tionality.

Both the New Jersey and the Washington Supreme 
Courts have recently decided cases concerning the validity 
of statutes forbidding discrimination in the sale of pub­
licly assisted housing, i.e., houses financed by FIIA-guar- 
anteed mortgages.

In Levitt & Sons, Inc., v. Division Against Discrimina­
tion, 31 N.J. 514, 158 A. 2d 177 (1960), the Court unani­
mously held the NewT Jersey Fair Housing Law constitu­
tional. It rejected the argument that the selection of



20

publicly assisted bousing for regulation was an arbitrary 
classification, and it held also that there was neither Fed­
eral pre-emption nor any conflict with Federal law.

The New Jersey Court found it unnecessary to decide 
whether the Legislature was acting within the police power 
and in accordance with the due-process clause, because no 
argument had been presented to the contrary. It is most 
significant that the Court nevertheless went out of its way 
to discuss this question in a separately numbered part of 
its opinion, as follows (31 N.J. at 531):

“ The plaintiffs do not argue, and hence we do not 
decide, whether by restricting their ability to dispose 
of their property as they choose the statute in question 
violates due process. See O’Meara v. Washington 
State Bd. Against Discrimination, No. 535996 (Super. 
Ct. King Cty., Washington State 1959) (not officially 
reported); Avins, Trade Begulations, Survey of the 
Law of New Jersey, 1956-1957, 12 Rutgers L. Rev. 149, 
150-160 (19o7). But see New York State Commission 
Against Discrimination v. Pelham Hall Apartments, 10 
Misc. 2d 334,170 N. Y. S. 2d 750 (Sup. Ct. 1958); Note, 
107 U. Pa. L. Rev. 515, 525-530 (1959); Note, 12 Rut­
gers L. Rev. 557, 558-567 (1958). There is ample sup­
port for a conclusion that lack of adequate housing for 
minority groups, an effect of discrimination in housing, 
causes crime-and disease-breeding slums. See Berman 
v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26, 33-34, 75 S. Ct. 98, 99 L. Ed. 27 
(1954); Crommett v. City of Portland, 150 Me. 217, 
107 A. 2d 841, 850 (Sup. Jud. Ct. 1953); New York City 
Housing Authority v. Muller, 270 N. Y. 333, 1 N. E. 2d 
153, 154, 105 A. L. R. 905 (Ct. App. 1936); City of 
Newark v. Charles Realty Co., 9 N. J. Super. 442, 453- 
456 (Cty. Ct. 1950). Freedom with regard to property 
is not inviolable; it is subject to the reasonable exercise



21

of the Legislature’s police power. Village of Euclid, 
Ohio v. Ambler Really Co., 272 ZJ.S. 365, 47 S. Ct. 114, 
71 L. Ed. 303 (1926); Block v. Hirsh, 256 U. S. 135, 41 
S. Ct. 458, 65 L. Ed. 865 (1921). The presumption is 
in favor of constitutionality, Gibraltar Factors Cory. 
v. Slapo, 23 N. J. 459, 463 (1957), and the burden of 
proof and persuasion is heavy on the party con­
testing the statute. In the absence of a showing of 
clear abuse of the police power, the tendency is to leave 
the wisdom, of the statute as a political rather than 
judicial question. We may pass this question without 
decision, however, and proceed to consider matters 
briefed and argued by the parties.”

The United States Supreme Court dismissed the appeal 
for want of a substantial Federal question. 363 U.S. 418 
(1960).

In O’Meara v. Washington State Board Against Discrimi­
nation, 365 P. 2d 1 (1961), the Washington Supreme Court 
held its State’s statute unconstitutional by a vote of five 
to four, in a case involving a private owner’s refusal to 
sell a single-family dwelling, on grounds of color. The FHA 
financing had taken place prior to the effective date of the 
Washington law. Analysis of the grounds of decision dis­
closes that, in regard to the issues before this Court in 
the present case, the ruling supports the validity of the 
Massachusetts law.

The minority of four judges voted to hold the statute con­
stitutional on all counts. It was within the police power 
because addressed to evils which the Legislature could prop­
erly deal with and because the means selected were reason­
ably related to the ends sought. And the classification based 
on public assistance was thought reasonable.

Three judges of the majority of five limited their deci­
sion to a single ground, holding that the statute was un­



22

constitutionally discriminatory and thus violative of equal 
protection in singling out FHA-financed homeowners from 
among all homeowners. The Levitt case, supra, at pp. 19-21, 
and the Pelham Hall case, discussed infra, at p. 24, were 
distinguished on the ground that they related, not to a 
single homeowner, but to a large project of homes and a 
multiple-dwelling apartment. It is to he noted that the 
Massachusetts law, unlike the Washington statute, is not 
limited to FHA-financed housing, and the present case, un­
like the Washington case, is concerned with a multiple- 
dwelling landlord.

These three judges not only limited their vote for in­
validity on a ground irrelevant to the present case, but 
quoted from the trial judge’s opinion the following state­
ment of the evils of housing discrimination (365 P. 2d, 
at 3) :

‘ ‘ ‘ This court is fully cognizant of the evils which flow 
from discrimination because of race, creed, or color in 
a free democratic society. The practice of discrimina­
tion is utterly inconsistent with the political philosophy 
upon which our institutions are based and with the 
moral principles which we inherit from our Judeo- 
Christian tradition. Its effects, in terms of social, eco­
nomic and psychological damage to the community, are 
well known. Segregated housing, in particular, is 
linked intimately with substandard, unhealthy, unsafe 
living conditions with resultant fire and health haz­
ards. It undoubtedly contributes to instability in fam­
ily life, moral laxity, and delinquency. It can and must 
be eliminated, not only in order that the members of 
our minority groups may reach their full potential but 
also in order that the majority may be brought to act 
in a manner consistent with the principles which they 
profess. It may be noted also that elimination of dis­



23

crimination is necessary for the sake of America’s re­
lations with the rest of the world. Our standing with 
the so-called uncommitted peoples of the world suffers 
seriously because of the continued discrimination and 
segregation practiced in America.’ ”

It is submitted that, on the issue of police power to deal 
with the evils so well set forth, the Washington Court is 
divided seven to two in favor. And this is the issue to be 
decided in the case before this Court.

The remaining two of the nine judges, with but one ex­
ception, voted to hold the statute invalid on grounds irrele­
vant to our case.1 The exception was their conclusion that 
there had been a taking of private property for private 
purposes. It is submitted that this conclusion is unsound, 
for reasons set forth later in this brief, particularly if it 
was meant to cover the cases of the multiple-dwelling land­
lord—with which the present case deals—or the project 
developer of numerous single but contiguous units.

1 Some grounds were based on peculiar provisions of the Wash­
ington Constitution, e.g., the original jurisdiction of its Superior 
Court over cases involving real property. In addition, these two 
judges found the procedure followed by the Washington Board un­
constitutional in that the Board represented a combination of legis­
lative, administrative and judicial powers, and the chairman of 
the Board was said to have the power to select the hearing tribunal 
in each case. Neither defect is relevant to the Massachusetts stat­
ute. The powers of the Massachusetts Commission Against Dis­
crimination are not significantly different, in terms of separation of 
powers, from many other agencies of the Commonwealth whose rules 
and orders have been repeatedly upheld. See e.g., G.L. c. 23, § 90, 
c. 150A, Labor Relations Commission; e. 6, §§ 17, 43-45, c. 138, 
Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission; c. 20, §§ 7-9, e. 94A, Milk 
Control Commission. And, of course, in Massachusetts the law 
specifies that the two Commissioners who did not participate in the 
investigation shall adjudicate. Chapter 151B, § 5.



24

All other eases on laws prohibiting housing discrimina­
tion have been decided by lower State Courts, and with 
one exception they unequivocally support the validity of 
these laws.

In State Commission Against Discrimination v. Pelham 
Ball Apartments, 10 .'disc. 2d 334,170 N.Y.S. 2d 750 (1958), 
the Supreme Court of Westchester County held the New 
York statute valid as applied to a multiple-dwelling land­
lord. Although the statute related to publicly assisted 
housing, the decision went on grounds equally applicable 
to private housing. The Court rejected the argument that 
there was involved simply a conflict of private rights (10 
Misc. 2d, at 341) :

‘ ‘ Involved here, it is said, is an apparent collision 
of rights, namely, a clash between the right on the 
one hand of the private owner of property to enjoy 
and use it in the manner most desirable and/or profit­
able to him, and the right on the other hand of all 
individuals here to be treated equally and free of all 
discrimination on account of race, color or religion. 
In the final analysis, however what is here involved is a 
conflict between the rights of the private property 
owner and the inherent power of the State to regulate 
the use and enjoyment of private property in the in­
terest of public welfare; and, as hereinafter noted, the 
power of the State, when reasonably exercised, is su­
preme.”

In Martin v. City of New York, 22 Misc. 2d 389, 201 
N.Y.S. 2d 111 (1960), the Supreme Court of New York 
County upheld on substantially similar reasoning the New 
York City ordinance which banned discrimination in pri­
vate multiple-dwelling housing. After noting that govern­
mental power to regulate rental housing was broad and



25

necessarily expanding to meet new problems, tbe Court 
added (22 Misc. 2d, at 391):

“ Statutes now forbid racial discrimination in hiring. 
These have been found constitutionally unobjection­
able (Matter of Holland v. Edwards, 307 N. Y. 38, 42). 
The interference with private business is just as great 
but it has had to yield to changing concepts of what 
the State can and should do.”

In Swanson v. Commission on Civil Rights of Connecti­
cut, No. 94802, July 11, 1961, the Superior Court of New 
Haven County, Connecticut, reviewed a cease and desist 
order issued under the housing discrimination law. While 
the Court found that the facts of the case did not bring it 
under the law, it first gave a fully-considered opinion up­
holding the constitutionality of the law (pp. 3-4 of mimeo­
graphed cop y ):

“ Under the common law no person has the ‘ civil 
right’ to purchase or lease any property he desires if 
the owner does not wish to sell or lease to him. 14 
A.L.R. 2d 154. The amendment under consideration 
is not an enactment that directs all property owners 
to sell or rent to anyone who offers to buy or rent. 
It is directed to owners and so-called developers of land 
whose business is to build, sell and rent numerous 
houses in a so-called building development and to own­
ers and builders of multiple dwellings who make it a 
business to engage in the selling or leasing of housing 
accommodations. It is these individuals who domi­
nate and set the pattern of the housing market as a 
whole. The prohibition of discrimination in housing 
developments and in multiple dwellings may well go 
a long way to help eradicate bias and foster equal



26

rights to all persons regardless of race, creed or color, 
in the whole community. Although such developments 
and multiple dwellings may be private enterprises, the 
building, selling and renting of the units in these de­
velopments and multiple dwellings are businesses 
which have a substantial impact upon a community. 
Such being the case, they are subject to reasonable 
regulations which will serve the public welfare. This 
is so even if it can be shown that such regulations will 
result in some financial loss to the owner without pro­
vision for compensation therefor. . . . ”

In but one lower Court case has a law forbidding dis­
crimination in housing been invalidated, and this on facts 
different from the facts of the present case and on a ground 
peculiar to the State statute and to the particular adminis­
trative order issued. In Case v. Colorado Anti-Discrimi­
nation Commission, Civ. No. 39682, June 2, 1961, the Dis­
trict Court for El Paso County, Colorado, held uncon­
stitutional that section of the Colorado Pair Housing Act 
of 1959 which conferred power on the administrative agency 
to issue cease and desist orders, on the ground that it was 
unduly vague. The case involved the sale of a single home, 
which would, on the facts set forth in the opinion, ap­
parently come within the Colorado law, hut would not he 
covered by the Massachusetts statute. The El Paso Court 
expressed some doubt of the State’s power in these cir­
cumstances, but came to no firm conclusion and certainly 
no holding.

It is not contended, of course, that these housing cases, 
just reviewed, constitute binding precedent in the Supreme 
Judicial Court. All are from other jurisdictions, only two 
are by Courts of last resort, and they vary in the extent of 
correspondence of their facts with the one at bar. Never­



27

theless, these cases should he given that weight which takes 
account of their power to persuade, even though they lack 
the power to control.

If these housing cases stood alone, they would strongly 
support the validity of the Massachusetts Fair Housing 
Law as applied here. In all instances wherein the Court 
squarely confronted the issues of police power and due 
process it concluded that the Legislature had the requisite 
power and that due process had been accorded. In the 
two decisions of invalidation the grounds were irrelevant. 
It may or may not be significant that those two cases, and 
only those, presented cases of sale of a single single-unit 
dwelling. In any event, the laws tested differ from our 
law, which applies to persons engaged in the business of 
sale or lease of housing, and from our case, which involves 
rental by a large multiple-unit apartment house owner.

The housing cases, however, do not stand alone. They 
represent, rather, the most recent examples of a line of 
judicial development on anti-discrimination laws which, 
when viewed as a whole, overwhelmingly establishes the 
constitutionality of the Massachusetts Fair Housing Law.

Just as the public accommodations laws were enacted 
earliest, so the judicial decisions validating them were 
handed down first. As early as 1888 the New York law 
was upheld in People v. King, 110 N.Y. 418, 428, where the 
Court said:

“ The statute does not interfere with private enter­
tainments or prevent persons not engaged in the busi­
ness of keeping a place of public amusement, from regu­
lating admission to social, public or private entertain­
ments given by them as they may deem best, nor does 
it seek to compel social equality. It was, we think, a 
valid exercise of the police power of the state over a 
subject within the cognizance of the legislature.”



28

Ten years later, the highest Court in Minnesota stated, 
in Rhone v. Loomis, 74 Minn. 200, 203, 77 N.W. 31 (1898): 
“ The power of the legislature to enact such laws . . .  is 
no longer open to discussion.”  The Courts of five other 
States, in addition to Massachusetts, have sustained the 
use of the police power to prohibit discriminatory practices 
by places of public accommodation. Jones v. Kehrlein, 49 
Cal. App. 646, 194 P. 55 (1920). Darius v. Apostolos, 68 
Colo. 323, 330, 190 P. 510 (1920). Pickett v. Kuchau, 323 
111. 138, 153 N.E. 667 (1926). Bolden v. Grand Rapids 
Operating Corp., 239 Mich. 318 (1927). Messenger v. State, 
25 Neb. 674, 41 N.W. 638 (1889).

In 1914, in Bryant v. Rich’s Grill, 216 Mass. 344, this 
Court simply assumed the constitutionality of the appli­
cable public accommodations law. And ten years later, in 
Opinion of the Justices, 247 Mass. 589, 595 (1924), this 
Court said:

‘ ‘ There can be no doubt as to the validity of a statute 
denouncing under penalty discrimination on account 
of race or color in admission to theatres and other 
places of amusement. G. L. c. 272, § 98. Bryant v. 
Rich’s Grill, 216 Mass. 344.”

The most recent reported instance of judicial enforce­
ment of this statute is Crawford v. Kent, 341 Mass. 125 
(1960).

When this issue reached the United States Supreme 
Court in 1953 it was disposed of briefly and conclusively. 
In District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., 346 U.S. 
100 (1953), the Court affirmed the conviction of a restau­
rant proprietor for refusing to serve a Negro in violation 
of a District of Columbia ordinance enacted in 1872 during 
a brief period of home rule in the District. The Court put



29

to rest any doubt about the constitutionality of this kind 
of legislation in these words (at page 109) :

“ And certainly so far as the Federal Constitution is 
concerned there is no doubt that legislation which pro­
hibits discrimination on the basis of race in the use of 
facilities serving a public function is within the police 
power of the states. See Railway Mail Assn. v. Cor si, 
326 U. S. 88, 93-94; Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. Michigan, 
333 IT. S. 28, 34.”

These cases govern the case at bar. Public accommoda­
tions laws cannot be distinguished from a law which bans 
discrimination by those in the business of selling or rent­
ing housing. Both laws serve the same public purposes 
and entail similar restrictions on liberty of contract or 
other property rights.

The fact that we call them “ places of public accommo­
dation”  should not obscure the fact that these enterprises 
are private rather than governmental, and are not “ quasi­
public”  in the sense that they have lost their power to ex­
clude people from the premises. In Foster v. Shubert Hold­
ing Co., 316 Mass. 470, 473 (1944), this Court in speaking of 
a theater owner said that “ the proprietor is not bound 
to admit everybody who presents a ticket—-apart from dis­
crimination on account of race or color forbidden by G. L. 
(Ter. Ed.) c. 272, § 98, . . .”  See also Madden v. Queens 
County Jockey Club, 296 N.Y. 249 (1947) (race track).

Consistent with this understanding, the General Court 
has not limited chapter 272, § 92A (to which section 98 
refers) to inns, restaurants and places of amusement, but 
has extended it far beyond what used to be viewed as 
“ quasi-public”  businesses. Thus, for example, it now in­
cludes any “ retail store or establishment, including those



30

dispensing personal services.”  Most of tlie other States 
with public-accommodation laws have followed suit.

So far as these decisions are sought to be justified on 
the ground that they are limited to activities ‘ ‘ affected with 
a public interest,”  it should be noted that this conception 
was laid to rest by the United States Supreme Court as 
long ago as 1934, in Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502, in 
which governmental price-fixing of milk sold by a store­
keeper was constitutionally upheld. The dissenting opinion 
in that case makes it clear that the Court had indeed at 
times applied the test of whether an activity was “ affected 
with a public interest.”  See also the review of the prior 
cases in Hale, “ The Constitution and the Price System: 
Some Reflections on Nebbia v. New York,”  34 Col. L. Rev. 
401 (1934).

Mr. Justice Roberts, speaking for the Court in Nebbia, 
reframed the doctrine in a fashion followed ever since (291 
U.S. at 536-537) :

“ It is clear that there is no closed class or category 
of businesses affected with a public interest, and the 
function of courts in the application of the Fifth and 
Fourteenth Amendments is to determine in each case 
whether circumstances vindicate the challenged regu­
lation as a reasonable exertion of governmental au­
thority or condemn it as arbitrary or discriminatory. 
Wolff Packing Co. v. Industrial Court, 262 U.S. 522, 
535. The phrase ‘ affected with a public interest’ can, 
in the nature of things, mean no more than that an 
industry, for adequate reason, is subject to control 
for the public good. In several of the decisions of 
this court wherein the expressions ‘ affected with a 
public interest-,’ and ‘ clothed with a public use,’ have 
been brought forward as the criteria of the validity 
of price control, it has been admitted that they are



31

not susceptible of definition and form an unsatisfac­
tory test of the constitutionality of legislation directed 
at business practices or prices. These decisions must 
rest, finally, upon the basis that the requirements of 
due process were not met because the laws were found 
arbitrary in their operation and effect. [The Court 
in a footnote at this point cited cases which had pre­
viously been understood to apply the test of ‘ businesses 
affected with a public interest.’ ] But there can be no 
doubt that upon proper occasion and by appropriate 
measures the state may regulate a business in any of 
its aspects, including the prices to be charged for the 
products or commodities it sells.

“ So far as the requirement of due process is con­
cerned, and in the absence of other constitutional re­
striction, a state is free to adopt whatever economic 
policy may reasonably be deemed to promote public 
welfare, and to enforce that policy by legislation 
adapted to its purpose. The courts are without au­
thority either to declare such policy, or, when it is 
declared by the legislature, to override it. If the laws 
passed are seen to have a reasonable relation to a 
proper legislative purpose, and are neither arbitrary 
nor discriminatory, the requirements of due process 
are satisfied, and judicial determination to that effect 
renders a court functus officio.”

In any case, the “ quasi-public”  concept cannot be the 
foundation of laws prohibiting discrimination in employ­
ment, since such laws make no classification by type of 
business activity. As we have seen, these laws have been 
enacted by twenty-two States, including Massachusetts. 
Some of these States, including New York and Massachu­
setts, have likewise banned discrimination by labor unions.



32

Although administrative agencies in most of these States 
have been active for periods ranging from a short time 
to sixteen years (fifteen years in Massachusetts), no liti­
gant before them has challenged the constitutionality of 
these employment laws. Although Commission orders 
have been reviewed in the Courts in a number of reported 
cases, the issue of constitutionality has not been raised and 
the Courts have uniformly assumed the validity of the laws. 
Holland v. Edwards, 307 N.Y. 38 (1954). Ivory v. Ed­
wards, 278 App. Div. 359; affd. without opinion, 304 N.Y. 
949 (1953). Ross v. Arbury, 206 Misc. 74; affd. without 
opinion, 285 App. Div. 886 (1955). Draper v. Clark Dairy, 
17 Conn. Supp. 93 (1950). Local 35, In t’l Brotherhood v. 
Commission on Civil Rights, 18 Conn. Supp. 125 (1952). 
The explanation for this uniform failure to challenge the 
employment laws over a substantial time period lies in the 
numerous and compelling precedents and reasons which 
can be marshaled in support of these laws, of which liti­
gants before the agencies have no doubt been cognizant.

There are no reported instances of judicial review of 
orders by the Massachusetts Commission Against Dis­
crimination in relation to employment—and thus no occa­
sion for the Courts to consider its validity. But Massa­
chusetts has also on its books a State Labor Relations 
Act, Gr.L. c. 150A, enacted initially in 1937, by St. 1937, c. 
436, and modeled largely on the National Labor Relations 
Act, 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. The latter law was upheld by 
the United States Supreme Court in NLRB v. Jones do 
Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937), and the State law 
has been for so long enforced and so often reviewed in 
this Court that there can surely be no question of its con­
stitutionality at this time. See, e.g., J or dan Marsh Co. v. 
Labor Relations Commission, 312 Mass. 597 (1942).

Accepting the labor relations law, prohibiting discrimi­
nation in employment because of union status, as consti­



33

tutional, then surely the law prohibiting discrimination in 
employment because of race, creed, color or national origin 
is likewise valid. For the evil of racial or other like dis­
crimination is surely on no lower plane than that of union 
discrimination. Each may lead to other evils which the 
Legislature is competent to deal with. Union discrimina­
tion may lead to industrial strife, causing interference with 
interstate commerce. See 301 U.S. at 41-43. Racial dis­
crimination in employment may lead to racial strife, or 
alternatively to submerged economic groups who present 
problems of crime, delinquency, slums and welfare needs. 
Cf. New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 U.S. 
552, 561 (1938): “ Race discrimination by an employer may 
reasonably be deemed more unfair and less excusable than 
discrimination against workers on the ground of union af­
filiation.”  On the other hand, the restrictions imposed 
upon employers by the two statutes are not significantly 
different. For a careful comparison of the two laws, lead­
ing to the conclusion that the Massachusetts Fair Employ­
ment Practice Act of 1946 is constitutional, see the short 
but penetrating note by Professor E. Merrick Dodd in 
17 Bar Bulletin of the Bar Association of the City of Bos­
ton, 201-207 (1946).

In employment, as with public accommodations, the 
United States Supreme Court has disposed of all possible 
contentions under the Fourteenth Amendment. In the first 
and only time the issue was presented, the Court unani­
mously affirmed a decision by the New York Court of Ap­
peals holding that a New York statute prohibiting discrimi­
nation by unions (Civil Rights Law, § 43) was constitu­
tional. Railway Mail Association v. Corsi, 326 U.S. 88 
(1945).

The New York law had been attacked by an association 
of railway workers as constituting a denial of due process 
in that it interfered with the union’s right to select its own



34

members and further that it abridged the association’s 
property rights and liberty of contract. The Court said 
(326 U.S. at 93-94):

‘ ‘ Appellant first contends that § 43 and related §§ 41 
and 45 of the New York Civil Rights Law, as applied 
to appellant, offends the due process clause of the Four­
teenth Amendment as an interference with its right of 
selection to membership and abridgement of its prop­
erty rights and liberty of contract. We have here a 
prohibition of discrimination in membership or union 
services on account of race, creed or color. A judicial 
determination that such legislation violated the Four­
teenth Amendment would be a distortion of the policy 
manifested in that amendment, which was adopted to 
prevent state legislation designed to perpetuate dis­
crimination on the basis of race or color. We see no 
constitutional basis for the contention that a state can­
not protect workers from exclusion solely on the basis 
of race, color or creed by an organization, functioning 
under the protection of the state, which holds itself out 
to represent the general business needs of employees.”  
(Emphasis supplied.) (Footnotes omitted.)

Concurring in the opinion of the Court, Mr. Justice Frank­
furter eloquently demolished the sole argument that can 
be adduced against anti-discrimination legislation (326 U.S. 
at 98):

“ Apart from other objections, which are too unsub­
stantial to require consideration, it is urged that the 
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment 
precludes the State of New York from prohibiting ra­
cial and religious discrimination against those seeking 
employment. Elaborately to argue against this con­
tention is to dignify a claim devoid of constitutional



35

substance. Of course a State may leave abstention 
from such discrimination to the conscience of indi­
viduals. On the other hand, a State may choose to 
put its authority behind one of the cherished aims of 
American feeling by forbidding indulgence in racial 
or religious prejudice to another’s hurt. To use the 
Fourteenth Amendment as a sword against such State 
power would stultify that Amendment. Certainly the 
insistence by individuals on their private prejudices 
as to race, color or creed, in relations like those now 
before us, ought not to have a higher constitutional 
sanction than the determination of a State to extend 
the area of non-discrimination beyond that which the 
Constitution itself exacts.”  (Emphasis supplied.)

The Fourteenth Amendment prevents Government, how­
ever local in scope its activity may be, from imposing dis­
crimination in housing or other basic facilities, based on 
race, creed, color or national origin. It expresses funda­
mental national policy. See Mitchell v. United States, 313 
U.S. 80, 94 (1941); Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. Michigan, 333 
U.S. 28 (1948). To read the same amendment as disabling 
Government from enacting legislation designed to effectuate 
its underlying policy would sterilize and distort it. That 
is the holding of the Cor si case, and it explains why the 
relevant authorities have so uniformly upheld the power of 
the State to enact anti-discrimination legislation.

Similarly, when respondents rely on the language of 
article I of the Declaration of Rights in the Massachusetts 
Constitution, that men have rights of “ acquiring, possess­
ing, and protecting property,”  they overlook the fact that 
these rights only illustrate the basic principle of the article: 
“ All men are born free and equal . . . ”  The illustration 
may not be used to vitiate the premise.



36

Of course, the State’s legislation must be addressed to 
problems of public concern and must aim at appropriate 
public objectives. And the means used must be reasonable. 
Statutes dealing with public accommodations and employ­
ment have uniformly met these tests, and in the next section 
we shall show that the Massachusetts Fair Housing Prac­
tices Law satisfies them beyond any question.

III. The Fair Housing Practices Law Represents a Consti­
tutional Exercise of Legislative Power.

The present controversy confronts this Court once again 
with the need to reconcile the interests of the public, re­
flected in legislation enacted under the police power, with 
the claim of an individual against deprivation of his prop­
erty without due process of law. These two conceptions 
—police power and due process—are but two sides of the 
same coin, and it is impossible to consider the one without 
taking account of the other.

Particularly because these two standards are very broad 
in scope, and uncertain at their edges, the principles gov­
erning constitutional adjudication have special importance. 
Both this Court and the United States Supreme Court ap­
proach constitutional questions of the kind here presented 
in the same spirit, with careful attention to the appropriate 
roles of Legislature and Court.

Not only does a legislative enactment carry a presump­
tion of validity, but that presumption is of compelling force. 
See Druzik v. Board of Health of Haverhill, 324 Mass. 129, 
138-139 (1949):

“ All rational presumptions are made in favor of the 
validity of every legislative enactment. Enforcement 
is to be refused only when it is in manifest excess of



37

legislative power. Perkins v. Westwood, 226 Mass. 
268, 271. Lowell Co-operative Bank v. Co-operative 
Central Bank, 287 Mass. 338, 343. Howes Brothers Co. 
v. Unemployment Compensation Commission, 296 
Mass. 275, 284. Moore v. Election Commissioners of 
Cambridge, 309 Mass. 303, 311. It is only when a legis­
lative finding cannot be supported upon any rational 
basis of fact that reasonably can be conceived to sus­
tain it that a court is empowered to strike it down. 
Slome v. Chief of Police of Fitchburg, 304 Mass. 187, 
189. If the question is fairly debatable, courts cannot 
substitute their judgment for that of the Legislature. 
Simon v. Needham, 311 Mass. 560, 564. Foster v. 
Mayor of Beverly, 315 Mass. 567, 572. 122 Main Street 
Corp. v. Brockton, 323 Mass. 646, 649.”

See also Delaivare & Hudson Co. v. Boston Railroad Hold­
ing Co., 323 Mass. 282, 291 (1948); United States v. Caro­
tene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152 (1938).

Of course, the Court does not review the wisdom or ex­
pedience of the law. “ We are concerned not with the pol­
icy or efficacy of the method which the Legislature has 
adopted but only with its constitutionality.”  Russell v. 
Treasurer & Receiver General, 331 Mass. 501, 507-508 
(1954). See also Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 IT.S. 
483, 488 (1955); Day-Brite Lighting, Inc., v. Missouri, 342 
U.S. 421, 423, 425 (1952).

In so far as the validity of a law depends on a state of 
facts, the Court will assume the existence of that state of 
facts unless other facts judicially known or proved preclude 
the possibility of its existence. See Merit Oil Co. v. Di­
rector, 319 Mass. 301, 304-305 (1946), in which this Court, 
having no knowledge of the actual legislative findings, as­
sumed such facts as would sustain the act in question, and



38

then noted that the record before it did “ not negative the 
existence of any of the possible findings that have been 
mentioned.”  See also South Carolina State Highway De­
partment v. Barnwell Bros., 303 U.S. 177, 191 (1938).

It is in the light of this background that the Law here in 
question is to be appraised. Whether one puts verbal em­
phasis on the concept of police power, or of due process, 
the appraisal must be in terms of the statute’s ends and 
means. So long as the objectives of the Law lie within the 
broad scope of legislative power, and the means adopted 
bear a reasonable relationship to those objectives, without 
restricting individual rights more than is reasonable and 
necessary to attain the objectives, the Law is constitutional. 
The Fair Housing Practices Law easily satisfies these cri­
teria, as the following material demonstrates.

A. T he Objectives or th e  S tatute  are P ermissible and 
W ell w it h in  th e  P olice P ower oe th e  C o m m o n w ealth .

It has recently been said that ‘ ‘ of all the powers of local 
government, the police power is ‘ one of the least limit- 
able. ’ ”  Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225, 228 (1957). 
Obviously this does not mean that it is limitless; the Legis­
lature does not have the last word on its own power. What 
is meant, rather, is that, apart from presumptions of valid­
ity, the problems that may impinge upon the public interest 
are infinitely varied in description, and the powers of gov­
ernment to cope with them must be equal to the problems 
and are therefore incapable of definitive cataloguing. As 
this Court said in Delaware & Hudson Co. v. Boston Rail­
road Holding Co., 323 Mass. 282, 290-291 (1948):

“ All property is held subject to the power and duty 
of the Legislature, from time to time, to make, ordain, 
and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable



39

laws, not contrary to the Constitution, as they shall 
judge to he for the good and welfare of the Common­
wealth. Constitution of Massachusetts, c. 1, § 1, art. 4. 
This power, which resides in every sovereign state, has, 
unfortunately we think, come to be called the police 
power. It is manifest that the necessary and proper 
exercise of this power will frequently limit, and restrict 
the freedom of action which particular persons and 
corporations would otherwise enjoy in the manage­
ment and control of their property, and that such 
limitation and restriction do not constitute a taking 
of property for which compensation must be allowed. 
. . . ”  (Emphasis supplied.)

In what ways might the Legislature “ judge [the Massa­
chusetts Fair Housing Law] to be for the good and welfare 
of the Commonwealth” ? There are a good many. 1

1. Equal Opportunity to Secure Shelter, without Regard 
to Race, Creed, Color or National Origin.

First, the Legislature had the simple but fundamental 
purpose of ending or at least curtailing discriminatory 
practices which limit access by American citizens and 
Massachusetts inhabitants to one of the basic needs for liv­
ing in our society. Having previously dealt with food and 
clothing through the public accommodations laws, it has 
now concerned itself with shelter.

It is important to note that the Law deals with discrim­
inatory practices, and not with mental attitudes or psy­
chological prejudices. There is no basis here for an argu­
ment that the thoughts or beliefs of the landlord are the 
target, or that his civil liberties are at stake. And when 
the Legislature classifies the practices as discriminatory



40

it is declaring that the criteria of race, creed, color or na­
tional origin are deemed by the society to be irrelevant to 
whether people shall have the opportunity to secure the 
basic necessities of present-day life.

In so declaring itself, the Legislature is reflecting a heri­
tage more than a century and a half old, embodied both in 
the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution 
and in the much older Declaration of Eights of the Massa­
chusetts Constitution, part 1, arts. I, X. It is not disputed 
that these provisions operate of their own force only on 
governmental action, and not on private conduct, as is 
normal with constitutional clauses, but surely they may be 
taken to express the most basic long-run values of our so­
ciety.

Moreover, these constitutional provisions have not stood 
alone. As we have already shown, a vast number of States 
— an overwhelming majority of all States north of the 
Mason-Dixon line and in the West—have in one way or 
another dealt with unequal access to one or more of the 
basic goods or services, brought about by discrimination. 
And as we have also seen, in no instance has any Court 
held that the police power does not encompass the objective 
of equal opportunity, without regard to race, creed, color 
or national origin.

Is it that shelter is to be distinguished from food and 
clothing! Can equal access to a home be seen differently 
from equal access to a job, or to a school, or to recreational 
opportunity! The power of the State to control rents in 
order to afford reasonable opportunity to keep or obtain 
shelter, when it was temporarily threatened by a shortage, 
has been recognized both by this Court (Russell v. Treas­
urer & Receiver General, 331 Mass. 501 (1954)) and the 
United States Supreme Court (Block v. Hirsh, 256 U.S. 135 
(1921) (“ Housing is a necessary of life,”  id. at 156, per



41

Holmes, J .)) even though a severe restriction on private 
property rights resulted. The rent controls were tempo­
rary, but that was because the shortages were temporary 
too.

In many ways housing that is adequately constructed and 
reasonably located is more basic than other facilities that 
are protected by older laws. Housing is often the key to 
many other opportunities that should be equally available to 
all members of our society: education on a non-discrimina- 
tory and unsegregated basis; access to jobs not so far dis­
tant as to be beyond the limits of daily travel; recreational 
and other public facilities. The United States Commission 
on Civil Eights, in a comprehensive study of discrimination 
in voting, education and housing, found that “ The funda­
mental interrelationships among the subjects of voting, edu­
cation, and housing make it impossible for the problem to 
be solved by the improvement of any one factor alone. ’ ’ 1

Thus, we do not have in this case a question of “ social 
mixing,”  of private clubs or other private organizations. 
These remain matters of private conscience. We are deal­
ing with a basic necessity of daily existence, whose availa­
bility conditions many other necessities.

There can be no contention here that the Legislature was 
tilting at windmills; that equal opportunity exists to secure 
housing without discrimination on racial or similar grounds. 
The evidence seems so plain that we believe this Court 
might well take judicial notice of it. Cardinal Cushing, in 
a foreword to a recent work, “ A  Catholic Case Against 
Segregation”  (O ’Neill Ed. 1961), stated: “ We are now, 
surely, a long way past the time when we have to document

1 Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, 1959, 
p. 545 (submitted to the President pursuant to Public Law 85-315, 
Eighty-fifth Congress). (This report is available at the Social Law 
Library.)



42

the facts of discrimination or when we can question its un­
happy effects on the American society. ’ ’ 2

But the facts have been documented. In 1961 the United 
States Commission on Civil Rights made the following de­
termination : 3

“ In 1959 the Commission found that ‘housing . . . 
seems to he the one commodity in the American market 
that is not freely available on equal terms to everyone 
who can afford to pay. ’ Today, 2 years later, the situa­
tion is not noticeably better.

‘ ‘ Throughout the country large groups of American 
citizens—mainly Negroes, but other minorities too—■ 
are denied an equal opportunity to choose where they 
will live. Much of the housing market is closed to them 
for reasons unrelated to their personal worth or ability 
to pay. New housing, by and large, is available only 
to whites. And in the restricted market that is open to 
them, Negroes generally must pay more for equivalent 
housing than do the favored majority. ‘ The dollar in 
a dark hand’ does not ‘have the same purchasing power 
as a dollar in a white hand.’ ”  (Footnotes omitted.)

In the comprehensive work of McEntire, “ Residence and 
Race”  (U. Cal. Press, I960),4 the facts of racial segrega­

2 As quoted in Boston Sunday Globe, Nov. 19, 1961, p. A l, eols. 
1-3.

3 1961 Commission on Civil Rights Report: Book 4 on Housing, 
p. 1. (Available at the Social Law Library.)

4 This work “ is the final report of a broad study of housing prob­
lems involving minority racial and ethnic groups, conducted for 
the Commission on Race and Housing, under the direction of Davis 
McEntire. . . . The Commission is an independent, private citi­
zens’ group, not a part of any other organization”  (foreword to 
the work, p. v.). The membership is given at pages v-vii, and con­



43

tion in twelve large metropolitan areas are given in chapter 
III, pp. o2~66. That the racial segregation found elsewhere 
in the nation also exists here is shown by a study of hous­
ing by whites and nonwhites in Massachusetts prepared 
especially for this case by Helen B. Kistin, Economic Con­
sultant, and set forth in Appendix B to this brief. See 
Appendix B, pp. 94-128. Other data of this Study will be re­
ferred to as they are pertinent.8

As McEntire points out, not all segregation is caused by 
discriminatory practices (p. 67):

‘ ‘ The segregation of a group may be voluntary or im­
posed or it may result from economic weakness. Fre­
quently all three factors are combined. Some groups, 
notably religious communities, insist on segregating 
themselves in order to pursue their particular way of 
life without interference. At the other extreme are 
many Negroes who would much prefer a nonracial sta­
tus but are set apart by others. The desire for volun­
tary segregation by members of a group may be strong 
or weak; so also may be the forces for imposed segre­
gation. Shared poverty may reinforce the other pres- 5

sists of well-known and outstanding figures of our time, including 
bank and business executives, lawyers and educators. (Available 
at the Social Law Library.)

5 In presenting this Study and in citing social and economic data 
contained in the reports of other studies and investigations—what 
is now known as a “ Brandeis brief” —we do not offer them for 
the Court to ascertain the truth of the facts asserted, but only to 
establish that the Legislature could reasonably conclude that con­
ditions were as portrayed by these data. Petitioner thus does more 
than is required of it, for under the presumption of constitutional­
ity it is respondents’ task to disprove any reasonably conceivable 
state of facts that will support the legislation in question. Pro­
fessor Paul Freund has fully discussed these points in The Supreme 
Court of the United States (Meridian Books by World Pub Co 
1961), at pp. 150-152.



44

sures for segregation, but a degree of economic power 
usually neutralizes them. Consequently, the segrega­
tion of a particular group may be relatively complete 
or merely a tendency. ’ ’

The Massachusetts Legislature was not concerned with 
voluntary segregation nor directly with that which results 
from economic disability. Voluntary segregation is an ex­
ercise of individual choice; segregation caused by economic 
disability can be met by improving one’s economic condi­
tion. But racial segregation imposed from without is a 
denial of freedom which the individual cannot alter. Thus 
the Legislature dealt with racial segregation imposed by 
the discriminatory practices of certain key groups land­
lords of multiple-dwelling units, developers of projects of 
10 units or more, real-estate brokers dealing with these 
units,6 and financial institutions which finance real-estate 
transactions.7 The Legislature directed the law to those 
who greatly influence access to housing of large numbers 
of people. Respondent Colangelo, owner and lessor of a 
120 unit apartment house, is a prime example.

2. The Social and Economic Consequences of Housing
Discrimination.

The Legislature was not limited to the establishment of 
equality of opportunity to secure housing as an abstract 
proposition, important as that is. The Legislature did, and 
was entitled to, consider the social and economic conse­
quences that flow from housing discrimination and segrega­
tion. And it did, and was entitled to, conclude that it should 
strike at the cause rather than deal only with the symptoms.

6 Real-estate brokers were specifically included in G.L. c. 151B, 
§ 6, by St. 1961, c. 128.

7 G.L. c. 151B, § 4(3B), as added by St. 1960, c. 163, § 2.



45

(1) There are, first, the economic disabilities suffered by 
minority groups. As the United States Commission on 
Civil Rights reported in the passage quoted above at page 
42, the discriminatory practices that hold down the supply 
of housing available to Negroes inevitably raise the price 
or rent which they must pay. McEntire, “ Residence and 
Race,”  c. IX, reviews all past studies as well as the study 
conducted for the Commission on Race and Housing, and 
concludes (p. 155):

“ Racial differences in the relation of housing quality 
and space to rent or value can be briefly summarized. 
As of 1950, nonwhite households, both renters and 
owners, obtained a poorer quality of housing than did 
whites at all levels of rent or value, in all regions of 
the country. Nonwhite homeowners had better quality 
dwellings than renters and approached more closely 
to the white standard, but a significant differential per­
sisted, nevertheless, in most metropolitan areas and 
value classes. . . . ”

The data for Massachusetts are in accord. See Appendix 
B, pp. 100-102, 106-109.

Economic disability imposed upon large human segments 
of the society, especially when done without any fault on 
the part of the disabled, is of legitimate concern to the 
public and therefore to the Legislature. Cf. Howes Broth­
ers Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Commission, 296 
Mass. 275 (1936), which upheld the unemployment in­
surance law, on the ground that unemployment was no fault 
of the persons concerned, and caused “ harm to the com­
mon weal”  through its many consequences. 2

(2) The Legislature could properly consider a second 
consequence of housing discrimination, a consequence of



46

great magnitude. Discrimination, particularly against 
Negroes, exerts pressure on them to live in the restricted 
areas available to them. The excessive density of popula­
tion resulting from artificially limited supply is a classic 
cause of slums, which in turn breed delinquency, vice, crime 
and disease.

These facts are widely known, and the Court might sim­
ply take judicial notice of them, or the Court might 
assume them as facts which support the validity of legis­
lative action in the absence of contradictory evidence. See 
the discussion of Merit Oil Co. v. Director, 319 Mass. 301 
(1946), at page 37, supra. But if documentary support is 
needed, it is available from both official and responsible 
private sources. The United States Commission on Civil 
Bights has reported that racial discrimination produces 
slums, with a consequent loss of tax revenue, and adds:
‘ 1 These problems are not limited to any one region of the 
country. They are nationwide and their implications are 
manifold. . . .8

When New York City first adopted an ordinance directed 
to discriminatory practices in housing, Local Law No. 80 
for the year 1957, it included a legislative declaration which 
reads in part as follows :

“ In the city of New York, with its great cosmopolitan 
population consisting of large numbers of people of 
every race, color, religion, national origin and ancestry, 
many persons have been compelled to live in circum­
scribed sections under substandard, unhealthful, un­
sanitary and crowded living conditions because of dis­
crimination and segregation in housing. These condi­

8 1961 Report, Book 4 on Housing, p. 1. See also McEntire, 
“ Residence and Race,”  pp. 93-94 (1960). For the data on Negro 
slums in Boston and the resultant delinquency, disease and death 
rates, see Appendix B, pp. 106-111.



47

tions have caused increased mortality, morbidity, 
delinquency, risk of fire, intergroup tension, loss of 
tax revenue and other evils. As a result, the peace, 
health, safety and general welfare of the entire city 
and all its inhabitants are threatened. . . . ”

Under the normal presumption of constitutionality, this 
Court must assume that the Massachusetts Legislature had 
similar evils in mind when it enacted the Fair Housing Law.

Racial discrimination is not the sole cause of slums. Eco­
nomic, social and cultural factors all play a role. But on 
the data available the Legislature was not only reasonable 
but realistic in concluding that discrimination is a signifi­
cant factor. And the Legislature, which has adopted or 
authorized health and safety measures to combat the effects 
of slum conditions, and which has adopted programs of 
slum clearance and urban renewal, properly concluded that 
it should also combat discrimination as a key cause of slums.

Legislative programs to deal with slum conditions have 
been repeatedly upheld by this Court as within the tradi­
tional power to promote the public health, welfare, safety 
and morals. In Allydonn Realty Corf.  v. HolyoJce Housing 
Authority, 304 Mass. 288 (1939), this Court recognized the 
Legislature’s power in classic terms, per Qua, C.J. One 
question in the case was whether slum clearance had a 
“ public purpose”  which justified public expenditure. In 
upholding the expenditure, this Court had the following 
to say on the existence of slums, and their social and eco­
nomic consequences (304 Mass, at 293-294) :

“ The statute contains legislative findings in sub­
stance that slums exist in this Commonwealth, and 
that they tend to increase crime and to menace the 
health and comfort of the inhabitants. These findings 
are entitled to weight in this court. Howes Brothers



48

Go. v. Unemployment Compensation Commission, 296 
Mass. 275, 283. In any event we should be blind to the 
obvious, if we did not know that they are true.”

To the argument that the Legislature should deal with 
slums by existing methods, the Court responded (304 Mass, 
at 294) :

“ Whatever good may have been accomplished by 
means of existing regulatory laws and ordinances en­
acted in pursuance of the police power, neither those 
means nor the operation of private enterprise has thus 
far abolished the evil. I f the Legislature now believes 
that an entirely different method of attack is demanded 
we cannot say that that belief is unfounded in reason. 
WTe cannot say that expenditures directed in a rational 
manner toward the elimination of slums are not ex­
penditures for a public purpose. It is unnecessary to 
dilate at length upon the pernicious influence of slums, 
upon the manner in which that influence may be found 
to reach out and to affect an entire community, lower­
ing moral standards, and increasing the cost to all of 
police, fire and health protection.”

(3) Housing discrimination not only helps to create 
slums, but also seriously interferes with programs of slum 
clearance and urban renewal. Urban renewal may take the 
form of rehabilitation of existing housing through enforce­
ment of a housing code of the type upheld by this Court 
in Paquette v. Fall River, 338 Mass. 368 (1959), or the form 
of land assembly through condemnation along with a com­
prehensive redevelopment program for re-use of the land, 
upheld by this Court in Bowlcer v. Worcester, 334 Mass. 
422 (1956).



49

The Legislature might reasonably conclude that the suc­
cess of every one of these programs is jeopardized by the 
existence of discriminatory practices. Because discrimina­
tion tends to breed slums, racial or other minorities are 
frequently the principal inhabitants of the areas selected 
for slum clearance or urban renewal. But each of those 
programs depends for its success on the ability to relocate 
some or all of the slum dwellers. The housing code upheld 
in the Paquette case seeks to eliminate excessive popula­
tion density by imposing minimum living space require­
ments. If it is enforced, people must move. Urban renewal 
obviously contemplates the destruction of obsolete slum 
buildings, and these residents must of course move.

The problems thus created are practical and difficult. 
The necessity of relocation imposes additional burdens on 
minorities, faced as they are with a housing supply limited 
by discrimination. At the same time, the renewal program 
is stopped in its tracks if it cannot relocate the residents 
concerned. And if these residents are simply moved to 
another segregated area, adding to its population densi­
ties, and a new slum is created, then the renewal program 
represents much motion but little movement. These diffi­
culties are fully described and explained in the 1961 Report 
of the Commission on Civil Rights.9 The Massachusetts 
problems are set forth in Appendix B, pp. 112-128.

As Albert M. Cole, former Federal Housing and Home 
Finance Administrator, has said :10

“ Regardless of what measures are provided or de­
veloped to clear slums and meet low-income housing

9 Book 4 on Housing, c. 4 on Urban Renewal, especially pp. 82-83.
10 “ What is the Federal Government’s Role in Housing?”  Ad­

dress to the Economic Club of Detroit, Feb. 8, 1954, quoted in Re­
port of the Commission on Race and Housing, “ Where Shall We 
Live?”  p. 40 (U. Cal. Press, 1958).



50

needs, the critical factor in the situation which must 
he met is the fact of racial exclusion from the greater 
and better part of our housing supply. . . .  No program 
of housing or urban improvement, however well con­
ceived, well financed, or comprehensive, can hope to 
make more than indifferent progress until we open up 
adequate opportunities to minority families for decent 
housing. ’ ’

The Legislature is entitled to meet these threats to its 
urban renewal programs, and, of equal importance, to give 
special consideration to the minorities directly and criti­
cally hurt by relocation. This Court in Allydonn noted that 
the provision of low-rent housing, divorced from slum 
clearance, would create serious constitutional difficulties. 
But the low-rent housing was related to slum clearance, 
because it was intended “ to prevent hardship to those 
whose homes would be razed and to give permanent assur­
ance that such persons would not crowd into other sub­
standard areas or create new slums.”  304 Mass, at 295. 
So, too, in the present case the Legislature can act.

(4) Housing discrimination based on race, creed, color 
or national origin has ramifications beyond bricks and mor­
tar and beyond bodily needs. It extends also to the minds 
and hearts of men of all races and nationalities, and to their 
modes of living together in one society. To many, these 
intangibles are the more important, and the Legislature 
ought not to be precluded from giving them heed.

True, the Legislature cannot coerce prejudice out of in­
dividual minds; but then it has not sought to do that. It 
has banned practices which create racial discord and bit­
terness, and which perpetuate a physical and social en­



51

vironment in which, race confronts race, instead of indivi­
dual dealing with individual.

Of course, education which changes attitudes is essential 
to the development of racial harmony. Indeed, a rather 
dramatic change in attitudes is reported by McEntire, 
“ Residence and Race,”  pp. 79-80 (1960). He presents the 
results of national polls among white persons concerning 
their willingness to live in the same neighborhood with 
Negroes with the same education and income as they have. 
The percentage so willing changed from 20 per cent in 1939 
to 51 or 52 per cent in 1956 (two figures of two separate 
polls— one done for the Catholic Digest and the other by 
the National Opinion Research Center). As might be ex­
pected, the two 1956 polls show a distinct difference be­
tween North and South. The figures for Northern whites 
are 58 per cent and 59 per cent.

This Court would be the first to declare that it is the 
Legislature’s function, and not the Court’s, to decide 
whether racial harmony is furthered by a ban on discrimina­
tory practices. The Legislature must take account of social 
attitudes, the potential of education, the crippling effect 
that discrimination has on educational process and social 
attitudes, and like factors. Its judgment, reached in light 
of all the other reasons for the housing law, is within the 
proper scope of the legislative power.

(5) The effect that discriminatory practices have on the 
victims ’ minds has been dramatically revealed recently in 
relation to the role which this nation plays and seeks to 
play in the present-day world. The United States confronts 
problems of extraordinary difficulty and delicacy in coun­
tries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. As leading Fed­
eral officials have warned us, the success of United States 
foreign relations will depend to a considerable extent on



52

our ability to solve our domestic problem of harmonizing 
the aspirations of our people of different color, religion, and 
national origin.

Particular incidents are dramatic and only illustrative. 
The United States Mission to the United Nations has 
struggled to find housing for African envoys to the United 
Nations;11 State Department officials have sought equal 
treatment at places of public accommodation along Route 
40 in Maryland;11 12 again, State Department officials have 
sought housing in the District of Columbia for African 
envoys accredited to the United States.13 In the recent 
hearing before the Interstate Commerce Commission, which 
resulted in issuance of an order to desegregate bus ter­
minals, the Secretaries of State and Defense were repre­
sented, one to present the problems of foreign relations and 
the other the problems of American Negro soldiers.14

Massachusetts, with its great universities, confronts an 
ever larger influx of foreign students and doctors of all 
races and creeds. And Massachusetts has its share of 
United States Government personnel, both military and 
civilian. This very case involves an Air Force employee 
who has come to Massachusetts because his duties place 
him here.

May not a State Legislature take national problems into 
account in enacting legislation! Just as the Congress takes 
State needs into account in its legislation—most notably in 
Federal grants-in-aid legislation, but in many other enact­
ments as well—so may the State reciprocate. This is in the 
best tradition of our federalism, and much to be preferred

11 See N.Y. Post, Sept. 15, 1961, Mag. p. 5, col. 2.
12 Lukas, Trouble on Route 40, in The Reporter, Oct. 26, 1961.
13 N.Y. Times, July 11, 1961, p. 19, col. 2.
14 Discrimination in Operations of Interstate Kotor Carriers of 

Passengers, I.C.C. No. MC-C-3358, September 22, 1961.



53

to Federal displacement of State law to meet Federal 
needs, when the area as a whole is of predominantly State 
concern.

We have considered the various objectives which the 
Legislature may have sought to achieve through the Fair 
Housing Law. Most of them, taken alone, would be suffi­
cient to validate the Law, if its means are reasonable. 
Taken together, they establish an unimpeachable title to 
constitutionality.

B . T he  M eans E mployed by tile M assachusetts F aib

H ousing L aw  and  th e  R estrictions on R espondents are

W h olly  R easonable and in  A ccord w it h  D ue P rocess.

There remain for consideration the questions whether 
the means employed by the Fair Housing Law are reason­
able or capricious, and whether they unduly harm respond­
ents’ private rights. In short, are respondents being de­
prived of property without due process of law! 1

1. Relationship of the Means to the Statutory Objectives.

Are the means rationally related to the statutory ends, 
which have just been canvassed? It is difficult to see how 
means can be more scrupulously tailored to ends than in 
the Housing Lawr. The landlord or project developer is 
told that he may not discriminate on grounds of race, creed, 
color or national origin. He is left free to set any other 
standards—of financial responsibility, of moral character, 
of familial status, or of whatever else he sees fit. He deals 
at arm’s length with the tenant, and may impose whatever 
landlord-tenant arrangement is otherwise legal. But he 
may not discriminate, because that is the practice the Law 
seeks to eliminate.



54

Legitimate debate about the wisdom of tlie means se­
lected may not be distorted into a charge that they are un­
reasonable. It is sometimes argued that discrimination 
cannot be successfully solved by coercive means, but must 
be met by education. But this Court is not concerned with 
the potential success of a law; that is plainly a question 
of its wisdom. Moreover, the argument tenders a false 
issue. No one proposes to use coercive means alone; of 
course, education is an essential ingredient. The Legisla­
ture, however, might rationally conclude that educational 
and legal processes should go hand in hand, one supporting 
the other. The Housing Law itself emphasizes this mutual 
re-enforcement, in providing for educational programs and 
for conciliation as major steps in the administrative 
process.

Every annual report of the Commission Against Dis­
crimination (Public Document No. 163 in each successive 
year) shows that the Commission, acting pursuant to the 
law, Gr.L. c. 151B, § 3 (8) and (9), has actively combined 
educational programs with its enforcement activities. These 
educational activities are set forth in detail at the end of 
each report. Then, too, each annual report sets forth the 
cumulative statistics, from 1946 to date, on investigations, 
complaints and dispositions. The Fourteenth Annual Re­
port, which would have been the latest available to the 
Legislature when it extended the Housing Law in 1959 to 
private housing in multiple -dwelling or project develop­
ment form, shows that the Commission had in fourteen 
years processed over 2,400 investigations and complaints, 
apart from its program on age discrimination.

Of these, about 35 per cent had been dismissed because 
of lack of jurisdiction, or probable cause, or withdrawal. 
Virtually all of the others, about 65 per cent, had been 
“ closed after investigation and conference,’ ’ which means



55

that the Commission’s conciliation processes had succeeded. 
A  few cases were still pending, and only three cases out 
of 2,400 had gone to formal hearing. The percentages for 
other years are not significantly different. As of today, 
five cases have gone to formal hearing, and the present 
case is the first one to reach the Courts. We have here a 
remarkable blending of the educational with the legal, pro­
ceeding with a minimum of the type of friction that is re­
flected by formal litigation.

More narrowly focused is the Commission’s experience 
with Public Housing, which is now understood to be under 
a constitutional ban against discrimination, but which was 
in any event placed under a statutory ban in Massachu­
setts in 1950. Gf.L. c. 121, § 26FF; c. 151B, § 5, added by 
Acts of 1950, c. 479, § 4. Each annual report of the Com­
mission reports its activities and gives data on white and 
nonwhite occupancy in public housing projects, listed by 
project. The data show that over the past decade Negroes 
have been admitted in varying numbers to almost all proj­
ects, without serious difficulties or consequences. In its 
Fourteenth Annual Report for 1959 the Commission was 
able to state (p. 10):

“ The MCAD has been powerless in the past to grant 
relief to those citizens who have complained to it of 
discriminatory practices in the field of private hous­
ing. Its enforcement jurisdiction was limited to public 
and publicly assisted housing accommodations. When, 
in 1950, the Commission was authorized to enforce the 
anti-segregation provisions of the public housing law, 
it encountered a pattern of almost total segregation 
in public housing units in the Commonwealth. Today 
there is no such development from which Negroes are 
barred. It is to be hoped that a similar pattern of 
change in private housing developments may be re­



56

ported in our subsequent annual reports as a result 
of the new private housing law passed this year.”

The Legislature was plainly entitled to examine this and 
other data on the past effect of anti-discrimination laws in 
other areas. It could reasonably conclude that such laws 
have curtailed discriminatory practices with respect to 
public accommodations, private educational institutions, 
employment, and public housing. Moreover, it could decide 
that persons required to obey these laws had not suffered 
significant financial or other loss, if indeed any loss had 
been incurred. And it could best judge the timing of the 
association between law and education. These are the judg­
ments it made when it enacted the Housing Law.

2. The Harm Suffered by Respondents.

As against the important purposes served by the Fair 
Housing Law and the carefully circumscribed means it 
employs, what harms can respondents show to themselves 
individually or to landlords and project developers gen­
erally ? Respondents have made absolutely no showing that 
they will suffer any financial loss if constrained to obey 
the law. Before the Commission, they purported to with­
draw from the hearing (R. 25-26). In their responses to 
the petition for enforcement in the Superior Court they 
made no mention of financial loss (R. 88-92). The agreed 
statement of facts is equally barren (R. 92-93). At this 
stage of the case we can do no more than speculate, and 
on this record the Court must conclude that respondents 
will not sustain any financial loss.

Even if we were to assume that there will in the future 
be instances of financial hardship traceable to the law—



57

indeed, even if respondents had shown one now—this by 
no means renders the law invalid, as is shown by the zon­
ing and other cases hereafter reviewed. But there is no 
persuasive evidence that the Fair Housing Law inflicts 
financial loss on the businesses it regulates. By far the 
most comprehensive study is that of Laurenti, Property 
Values and Pace (IT. Cal. Press 1960) (available in Social 
Law Library), a special research report to the Commission 
on Pace and Housing. The author reviews all prior litera­
ture on the subject and presents the results of field inves­
tigations in seven major cities of the nation, none in Massa­
chusetts. He addresses himself to the effect on property 
values of entry by nonwhites into white neighborhoods— 
surely a testing case—and his general conclusions are as 
follows (p. 47) :

“ The major statistical finding of the present study 
is that during the time period and for the cases studied 
the entry of nonwhites into previously all-white neigh­
borhoods was much more often associated with price 
improvement or stability than with price weakening. 
A  corollary and possibly more significant finding is 
that no single or uniform pattern of nonwhite influ­
ence on property prices could be detected. Rather, 
what happens to prices when nonwhites enter a neigh­
borhood seems to depend on a variety of circumstances 
which, on balance, may influence prices upward or 
downward or leave them unaffected.

“ These conclusions are at variance with the belief 
that nonwhite entry always provokes a fall in property 
values. Instances of such decline have been observed. 
But so have cases of rising values—and, as noted, 
these have appeared in the data of the present study 
much more frequently than the cases of decline.”



58

3. Amenability to Regulation of Property Interests in 
Land and Housing.

Respondents are thus reduced to asserting that the Hous­
ing Law’s narrowly drawn restriction on the freedom of 
the property owner engaged in housing as a business—here 
a landlord—to dispose of his land and housing as he sees 
fit is in and of itself a deprivation of his property without 
due process of law.

Respondents ’ precise argument is hard to make out. The 
restriction here imposed is so narrow in scope that re­
spondents seem in effect to be asserting that no restriction 
on their freedom to choose tenants or purchasers is con­
stitutionally allowed. Yet this is inconceivable, for this 
Court has again and again held that property rights must 
be subject to the fair exercise of the police power. As one 
of many cases that might be quoted, see Merit Oil Co. v. 
Director, 319 Mass. 301, 302-303 (1946):

“ The right of every citizen to enjoy liberty and to 
acquire and possess property, including the right to 
engage in any lawful private business or occupation, 
is protected by arts. 1 and 10 of the Declaration of 
Rights of the Constitution of Massachusetts and by the 
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States. . . . But one cannot conduct his busi­
ness or pursue his occupation in any way he may de­
sire. He is subject to reasonable regulations designed 
to protect the public interest. A  reasonable regulation 
governing the sales of property does not deprive the 
owner of his property without due process of law.”

Thus respondents must argue that realty and housing 
have special qualities entitling them to extraordinary pro­
tection. As Mr. Justice Holmes observed in Bloch v. Hirsh,



59

256 U.S. 135, 155 (1921): “ The fact that tangible property 
is also visible tends to give a rigidity to our conception of 
our rights in it that we do not attach to others less con­
cretely clothed.”  He quickly added that this did not mean 
realty was exempt from the police power, and he went on 
to sustain the validity of a rent-control law.

The interest of the public in the use of land and housing, 
especially on the part of those who engage in the business 
of selling or renting realty, has been repeatedly declared 
by all Courts, including the United States Supreme Court 
and this Court. And these Courts have sustained restric­
tions far more onerous than those in the Housing Law, for 
public purposes indistinguishable from those in the Law, 
as we shall now show.

The public interest in housing is seen, first, in govern­
mental programs outside the exercise of the police power. 
The Federal Government has made billions available in 
credit to help finance new housing. That respondent did 
not utilize such credit does not change the fact of public 
concern; of course, his ability to secure private financing 
may well have been eased by the availability of government- 
guaranteed credit in the money market.

Federal, State and local governments have united on 
slum clearance and urban renewal programs which require 
public funds and the exercise of eminent domain powers. 
These have been upheld on the explicit determination that 
they serve “ public purposes.”  Ally down Realty Cory. v. 
Holyoke Housing Authority, 304 Mass. 288 (1939). Bowker 
v. Worcester, 334 Mass. 422 (1956).

In Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26 (1954), the United 
States Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, described 
the public interest in adequate housing and proper use 
of land in categorical terms that brook little if any qualifi­
cation. While the case concerned the exercise of eminent 
domain in a redevelopment program, the Court viewed the



60

police power as equally broad in its relation to bousing 
(348 U.S. at 32-33):

“ Public safety, public bealtb, morality, peace and 
quiet, law and order—these are some of tbe more con­
spicuous examples of the traditional application of the 
police power to municipal affairs. Yet they merely 
illustrate the scope of the power and do not delimit it. 
See Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U.S. 104, 111. 
Miserable and disreputable housing conditions may do 
more than spread disease and crime and immorality. 
They may also suffocate the spirit by reducing the 
people who live there to the status of cattle. They may 
indeed make living an almost insufferable burden. 
They may also be an ugly sore, a blight on the com­
munity which robs it of charm, which makes it a place 
from which men turn. The misery of housing may 
despoil a community as an open sewer may ruin a 
river. ’ ’

The cases upholding regulation of land and housing are 
too varied to be placed under one heading. There are those 
in which a Legislature has forbidden businesses at a given 
location because of their effect on surrounding land and 
neighbors, even though they are not nuisances. Hadacheck 
v. Sebastian, 239 U.S. 394 (1915). Reinman v. Little Rock, 
237 U.S. 171 (1915). Then, there are restrictions on the 
physical structures of buildings and on living conditions in­
side homes, both new and old. Welch v. Swasey, 193 Mass. 
364 (1909); affd. 214 U.S. 91 (1909) (height of buildings). 
Paquette v. Fall River, 338 Mass. 368 (1959) (facilities and 
living space in existing housing). Queenside Hills Realty 
Co. v. Saxl. 328 U.S. 80 (1946) (existing lodging-house 
worth $25,000 required to spend $7,500 on new sprinkler).



61

Gorieb v. Fox, 274 U.S. 603 (1927) (building line of new 
buildings must be set back from street).

These property restrictions are simple in character when 
compared to present-day zoning laws. Zoning was upheld 
by this Court in Opinion of the Justices, 234 Mass. 597 
(1920), and again in Inspector of Buildings of Lowell v. 
StoMosa, 250 Mass. 52 (1924), and Spector v. Building In­
spector of Milton, 250 Mass. 63 (1924), though in the latter 
case serious financial loss was suffered. As Chief Justice 
Rugg said: ‘ ‘ Every exercise of the police power in respect 
to the use of land is likely to affect adversely the property 
interests of somebody.”  250 Mass, at 70. Zoning was up­
held by the United States Supreme Court in Euclid v. Am­
bler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926). The Court recognized 
the changing content of the police power in its relation to 
land and housing (pp. 386-387):

“ Building zone laws are of modern origin. They be­
gan in this country about twenty-five years ago. Until 
recent years, urban life was comparatively simple; 
but with the great increase and concentration of popu­
lation, problems have developed, and constantly are 
developing, which require, and will continue to require, 
additional restrictions in respect of the use and occu­
pation of private lands in urban communities. Regu­
lations, the wisdom, necessity and validity of which, as 
applied to existing conditions, are so apparent that 
they are now uniformly sustained, a century ago, or 
even half a century ago, probably would have been 
rejected as arbitrary and oppressive. . . . ”

This Court is entirely familiar with the almost endless 
variety of regulations imposed on land and housing through 
zoning ordinances, and no purpose would be served by 
parading them here. A few cases are especially in point.



62

This Court has recognized that the power to zone does 
extend beyond article 60 of the Amendments to the Con­
stitution of the Commonwealth, so that zoning does not 
rest solely on that provision. Burlington v. Dunn, 318 Mass. 
216, 220 (1945).

In Simon v. Needham, 311 Mass. 560 (1942), this Court 
upheld a requirement that building lots in a single-residence 
district should have an area of at least 1 acre, and in so 
doing pointed out the following objectives which a legis­
lative body might properly pursue through restrictions on 
home owners (p. 563):

“ The establishment of a neighborhood of homes in 
such a way as to avoid congestion in the streets, to 
secure safety from fire and other dangers, to prevent 
overcrowding of land, to obtain adequate light, air and 
sunshine, and to enable it to be furnished with trans­
portation, water, light, sewer and other public neces­
sities, which when established would tend to improve 
and beautify the town and would harmonize with the 
natural characteristics of the locality, could be mate­
rially facilitated by a regulation that prescribed a 
reasonable minimum area for house lots. . . . ”

In prohibiting, through the Fair Housing Law, discrimina­
tory practices by persons in the business of selling or rent­
ing houses, the Legislature pursues similar objectives for 
the victims of those practices. See also Lamarre v. Com­
missioner of Public Works of Fall River, 324 Mass. 542 
(1949), upholding a zoning change which created a mul­
tiple-family-residence district on the ground that it was de­
signed to relieve a housing shortage, and thus to prevent 
overcrowding of land and an undue concentration of popu­
lation.



63

Perhaps closest to the present ease are those decisions 
which have sustained the control of rents charged by land­
lords in times of housing shortage. These have been upheld 
both by this Court and by the United States Supreme Court. 
Russell v. Treasurer & Receiver General, 331 Mass. 501, 507 
(1954). Bloch v. Hirsh, 256 U.S. 135 (1921). Marcus Brown 
Holding Co. v. Feldman, 256 U.S. 170 (1921). Levy Leasing 
Co. v. Siegel, 258 U.S. 242 (1922). Bowles v. Willingham, 
321 U.S. 503. See also Lincoln Building Associates v. Barr, 
1 N.Y. 2d 413 (1956); appeal dismissed for want of a sub­
stantial Federal question, 355 U.S. 12 (1957).

In the Siegel case, 258 U.S. 242, the landlord urged, as 
respondents do here, that his relationship to his tenants 
was of no concern to the public and beyond the power of 
Government. The Court’s response is appropriate to the 
present case (pp. 246-247):

“ It is strenuously argued, as it was in Bloch v. Hirsh, 
256 U.S. 135, and in the Marcus Brown Case, that the 
relation of landlord and tenant is a private one and is 
not so affected by a public interest as to render it sub­
ject to regulation by the exercise of the police power.

“ It is not necessary to discuss this contention at 
length, for so early as 1906, when the Tenement House 
Act of New York, enacted in 1901, was assailed as an 
unconstitutional interference with the right of prop­
erty in land, on substantially all of the grounds now 
urged against the Emergency Housing Laws, this 
court, in a per curiam opinion affirmed a decree of the 
Court of Appeals of New York (179 N.Y. 325), sus­
taining regulations requiring large expenditures by 
landlords as a valid exercise of the police power. Moes- 
chen v. Tenement House Department, 203 U.S. 583. To 
require uncompensated expenditures very certainly 
affects the right of property in land as definitely, and



64

often as seriously, as regulation of the amount of rent 
that may be charged for it can do. Many decisions of 
this court were cited as sufficient to justify the sum­
mary disposition there made of the question, as one 
even then so settled by authority as not to be longer 
open to discussion.”

The cases just reviewed, taken as a whole, refute beyond 
any question the assertion that land and housing are out­
side the scope of the public interest or the police power. In 
truth, such an assertion has never been the law, as is shown 
by the classic opinion of Chief Justice Shaw in Common­
wealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53 (1851). Based upon a compre­
hensive analysis of the prior cases, he set forth the guiding- 
law (7 Cush, at 84-85):

“ We think it is a settled principle, growing out of 
the nature of well ordered civil society, that every 
holder of property, however absolute and unqualified 
may be his title, holds it under the implied liability 
that his use of it may be so regulated, that it shall not 
be injurious to the equal enjoyment of others having 
an equal right to the enjoyment of their property, nor 
injurious to the rights of the community. . . . ”  [Em­
phasis supplied.]

Just as this Court has never declared that land and hous­
ing are immune from public regulation, so it has never sug­
gested that any and every regulation will be sustained. The 
test of validity, rather, is in terms of the particular case 
and involves the considerations to which we have addressed 
ourselves in this brief. Are the goals sought to be achieved 
by the statute within the scope of public concern? Are the 
means used by the statute reasonable in relation to those 
objectives?



65

With respect to these questions, the decided cases on regu­
lation of land and housing shed additional light in several 
important respects:

(1) As the United States Supreme Court pointed out in 
Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926), as quoted 
above at p. 61, supra, regulations which might once have 
been regarded as arbitrary are today accepted as entirely 
reasonable. Changing social conditions or our changing 
awareness of existing social conditions create new public 
needs and justify new public concern.

(2) In the past half century we have become far more 
aware that private use of land and housing may fashion 
our community environment—physically, socially and eco­
nomically—into molds in which the public must take an 
interest. We now see clearly that, while the acts of one 
person taken alone seem innocuous, when combined with 
the actions of many others they create problems of com­
munity concern. This recognition is an important basis for 
the zoning laws. It is an equally important basis for the 
Fair Housing Practices Law. Though speaking in a dif­
ferent context, Mr. Justice Frankfurter made this point in 
East New York Savings Bank v. Hahn, 326 U.S. 230, 232 
(1945):

“ . . . when a widely diffused public interest has be­
come enmeshed in a network of multitudinous private 
arrangements, the authority of the State ‘ to safeguard 
the vital interests of its people,’ 290 U. S. at 434, is 
not to be gainsaid by abstracting one such arrange­
ment from its public context and treating it as though 
it were an isolated private contract constitutionally 
immune from impairment.”

(3) With this understanding has come recognition that 
the public often has an interest in what superficially appear



66

to be clashes of private interests. Respondents would like 
to represent this case as simply a private matter between 
themselves and complainant. What distinguishes it is that 
the public has an interest in the problems, and the Legis­
lature, acting for the people as is its duty, has decided the 
issues in favor of the public, rather than of any private 
person or group. See Massachusetts Society for the Pre­
vention of Cruelty to Animals v. Commissioner of Public 
Health, 339 Mass. 216, 228 (1959); Miller v. Schoene, 276 
U.S. 272, 279-280 (1928). The Legislature’s decision is 
plainly constitutional.

IV. The Fair Housing Practices Law Establishes Reason­
able Classifications Affording Equal Protection.

It is not clear whether respondents contend that the Fair 
Housing Practices Law fails to afford equal protection be­
cause its classifications are arbitrary. We are referred by 
one respondent to “ the Articles of the Constitution of the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ ’ (R. 90) and by the other 
to articles I and X  (R. 92). Both refer to the Fourteenth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution (R. 90, 92). 
These may refer only to problems of police power and due 
process, which have already been briefed. Since the mat­
ter is left uncertain, this section of the brief will show that 
a charge of arbitrary classification or lack of equal protec­
tion is without substance.

We do not here confront the problem of a distinction 
between publicly assisted and non-publicly assisted hous­
ing, on which the New Jersey and Washington Courts are 
in disagreement. Compare Levitt & Sons v. Division 
Against Discrimination, 31 N.J. 514 (1960); appeal dis­
missed for want of a substantial Federal question, 363 U.S. 
418 (1960) (classification upheld), with O’Meara v. Wash­
ington State Board Against Discrimination, 365 P. 2d 1



67

(Wash. 1961) (classification held invalid 5-4). The Massa­
chusetts statute does not make this distinction.

This Court has repeatedly ruled that a legislative classi­
fication gives equal protection “ so long as any basis of 
fact can be reasonably conceived showing that the distinc­
tion upon which it rests has a fair and rational relation to 
the object sought to be accomplished by the enactment 
. . . ”  Old Colony Railroad v. Assessors of Boston, 309 
Mass. 439, 446 (1941). See also Maher v. Brookline, 339 
Mass. 209, 213 (1959), with cases cited. Under this test 
the Fair Housing Practices Law is wholly reasonable and 
valid.

As previously shown, the Fair Housing Law does not 
cover all housing, but extends rather to multiple dwellings 
with three or more units rented to persons or families other 
than the landlord or his family, and to projects of ten or 
more contiguous homes. That is, the Legislature was con­
cerned with those who deal in housing as a business, and 
not with those who sell or rent because they are moving, 
permanently or temporarily, from one residence to another, 
or those whose rental is merely incidental to ownership of 
their own home.

Regulation of those who are in a continuing business ac­
tivity, without sweeping in all who may engage in that ac­
tivity sporadically and only incidentally, is reasonable on 
its face. This distinction underlies many of our laws li­
censing various occupations and businesses. See, e.g., G.L. 
(Ter. Ed.) c. 112, § 24 (pharmacists); c. 112, § 37 (“ drug 
business” ) ; c. 112, §§ 82, 87 (“ funeral directing” ) ; c. 141, 
§ 1 (electricians); c. 142, § 1 (plumbers).

The Legislature might reasonably conclude that the core 
of the problem lay in the practices of commercial dealers 
in housing, whether as landlords or project developers, and 
especially the large ones. Certainly, it has been found that 
these persons set the pattern for entire neighborhoods,



68

which is then followed by individual residents. Report of 
the Commission on Race and Housing, “ Where Shall We 
Live?”  22-29 (1958). See also 1961 Commission on Civil 
Rights Report, Book 4 on Housing 3. Certainly, these com­
mercial operators can make no claim to privacy that the 
Legislature might think attached to owners and residents 
of dwellings grouped in smaller units. “ Size need not be 
disregarded when it furnishes a fair index to a situation ad­
versely affecting the public interest. ’ ’ Old Colony Railroad 
v. Assessors of Boston, 309 Mass. 439, 448 (1941).

In Russell v. Treasurer & Receiver General, 331 Mass. 
501 (1954), this Court upheld a rent-control law which dis­
tinguished between housing accommodations with a rental 
value of $150 or less and those which were over that amount 
(331 Mass, at 509) :

“ The Legislature could find that the housing short­
age existed principally in housing of relatively low 
rental value, and determine that control of housing with 
a rental value of over $150 was unnecessary. ’ ’

Moreover, there are important administrative reasons for 
limiting the statute to the larger, regularly operating deal­
ers in housing. Enforcement may become impossible if the 
enforcing agency is given the job of policing thousands of 
minor, isolated activities. Proof of discrimination may re­
quire a showing of a pattern of conduct, which is more cer­
tainly available in the case of those who sell or rent regu­
larly. And effective relief is far more difficult to administer 
against the small owner or renter who has no other units 
to sell or rent.

Thus the Legislature was entitled to set the line at mul­
tiple dwellings of three or more units, and projects of ten 
or more contiguous homes. That it used numerical criteria 
to establish classes that are otherwise reasonable is no basis



69

for objection, as this Court lias again and again held. In 
addition to the Russell case on rent control just quoted, see 
Howes Brothers Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Com­
mission, 296 Mass. 275, 287-288 (1936), upholding the un­
employment compensation law applicable to firms of eight 
or more employees, and citing many similar classifications; 
and Maher v. Brookline, 339 Mass. 209, 215-216 (1959), up­
holding a town’s regulation of lodging houses ‘ ‘ where lodg­
ings are let to five or more persons not within the second 
degree of kindred to the person conducting it, ’ ’ which defi­
nition was taken by the town Selectmen from G-.L. (Ter. 
Ed.) c. 140, § 22. See also section 33, defining a “ public 
lodging house”  as any building in cities of over 50,000 in 
which ten or more persons are lodged free or for a charge 
of 25 cents or less per day.

It is submitted that a charge of arbitrary classification 
against the Fair Housing Law has no basis on the decisions 
of this Court. It is equally groundless under the decisions 
of the United States Supreme Court. For principles ap­
plied by that Court in weighing the question of equal pro­
tection see Heath & Milligan Manufacturing Co. v. Worst, 
207 U.S. 338, 355-357 (1907); Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic 
Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, 78-81 (1911); Railway Express Agency 
v. New York, 336 U.S. 106, 109-110 (1949); Williamson v. 
Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483, 489 (1955). For cases up­
holding numerical criteria see Engel v. O’Malley, 219 U.S. 
128, 138 (1911) (regulation only where average deposit is 
under $500) ; Miller v. Strahl, 239 U.S. 426, 434-435 (1915) 
(exception of hotels with fewer than fifty rooms from stat­
ute requiring fire precautions); and the many Federal cases 
dealing with statutes applying only to those with a certain 
number of employees, cited by this Court in Howes Broth­
ers Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Commission, 296 
Mass. 275, 287 (1936).



70

V. The Respondent Nahigian was a Proper Party to This
Proceeding.

Section 4 of G.L. c. 151B, as amended by section 2 of 
chapter 426 of the Acts of 1957, reads:

‘ ‘ It shall be an unlawful practice :x
“ 5. For any person, whether an employer or an em­

ployee or not, to aid, abet, incite, compel or coerce the 
doing of any of the acts forbidden under this chapter 
or to attempt to do so.”

Section 4 of G.L. c. 151B, as amended by chapter 239 of 
the Acts of 1959, forbade real-estate discrimination by—

“ 6. . . .  the owner, lessee, sublessee, assignee or 
managing agent of publicly assisted or multiple dwell­
ing or contiguously located housing accommodations 
or other person having the right of ownership or pos­
session or right to rent or lease such accommodations

Nevertheless, the respondent Nahigian, first in his an­
swer to the Commission’s complaint (R. 14) and subse­
quently in his answer to its enforcement petition (R. 
89-90), denies that he is subject to the 1959 Fair Housing 
Practices Law.1 2 Presumably the gravamen of this con­
tention is set out in the 3d and 4th paragraphs of his 
answer to the complaint (R. 14), where he alleges that he

1 1957, the year of the first Pair Housing Practices Law, wit­
nessed the change in section 4 from “ unlawful employment prac­
tice”  to “ unlawful practice.”  (Emphasis supplied.)

2 The long-term significance of the issue raised by this subsection 
of this brief, of course, has become almost completely muted by the 
enactment of chapter 128 of the Acts of 1961, wherein licensed real- 
estate brokers and agents or employees of owners were explicitly 
brought within the ambit of the Pair Housing Practices Law.



71

is a mere rental agent who hands applications on to the 
owner without authority to pass on them. The Commis­
sion found, however, in paragraphs 9 and 10 of its findings 
(E. 17), that Nahigian’s functions considerably exceeded 
that. These and the evidence at the hearing amply confirm 
that Nahigian is subject to the law in a number of respects.

First, the findings of his discrimination and deliberate 
misrepresentation (R. 17-18), fully supported by the un­
disputed testimony of the complainant himself (E. 38-42) 
and of the witnesses Cramer (R. 47-50), Gardner (R. 52- 
53), Mann (R. 57), Carrington (R. 76) and Fellman (E. 
82), unmistakably demonstrate that he aided and abetted 
Colangelo within the meaning of section 5 in carrying out 
the policy of excluding Negroes on account of color, even 
if it were true that his reason was to be kind to Negro ap­
plicants by saving them time and trouble (E. 57-58).

Secondly, Nahigian is a “ managing agent”  within the 
meaning of section 6. Unless these are words of art, they 
must connote a general power to conduct the business of 
the principal, which at this stage was primarily renting. 
To require that the agent have absolute power in the lease 
determination would severely hamper the administration 
of the law, for it would allow owners to escape from com­
pliance simply by allowing the agents to discriminate with 
impunity.

Thirdly, the foregoing witnesses’ testimony shows that 
part of Nahigian’s duties was to screen out Negro appli­
cants for Glenmeadow apartments. Even if Colangelo was 
the sole party who executed the leases and finally passed 
upon the rental applications, in giving Nahigian thus the 
power to reject Negroes Colangelo delegated to him to 
that extent his “ right to rent or lease”  and thereby 
brought him also within that portion of the class of those 
persons covered by section 6.



72

In any event, under general equity principles and irre­
spective of the statute, it would seem that the Commission 
could initially join Nahigian as agent of the owner {Bill­
ings v. Mann, 156 Mass. 203, 205. Lawrence v. Smith, 201 
Mass. 214, 215), or, had it not elected to join him, could by 
its order bind him in that capacity. Elm Farm Foods Co. 
v. Cifrino, 328 Mass. 549, 557.

V I. The Respondents have Waived their Right to Attack 
the Commission Findings and Order.

The respondent Colangelo, neither in his answer to the 
Commission’s enforcement petition (R. 90-92) nor else­
where, has challenged the findings and order. His sole 
contention is the inapplicability and unconstitutionality of 
“ the statute in question”  (R. 12, 25-26, 92). He has in 
effect agreed, then, that, if the statute is found constitu­
tional and applicable to him, he is bound by the order.

The respondent Nahigian, on the other hand, in addition 
to constitutional objections, sweepingiy alleges by way of 
affirmative defense to the enforcement petition that the 
findings and order are “ in their entirety . . . in excess of 
the statutory authority or jurisdiction of the Commis­
sion” ; that the order “ in its entirety grossly exceeds any 
authority or jurisdiction ’ ’ granted under chapter 151B; 
and that it “ constitutes an abuse of discretion and is other­
wise not in accordance with”  the statute (R. 89).

This language, of course, has simply been plucked bodily 
out of certain of the paragraphs setting forth the standards 
for judicial review in the State Administrative Procedure 
Act. See Gr.L. c. 30A, § 14(8) (b) and {g).  The plead­
ings furnish no particulars or specifications in support of 
these allegations, and the record reveals no other point at 
which Nahigian challenges the finding and order.



73

We note at the outset that this Court has indicated that 
it does not look with favor upon this catch-all type of plead­
ing. See Despatchers’ Cafe Inc. v. Somerville Housing 
Authority, 332 Mass. 259, at page 261, quoting Stockus v. 
Boston Housing Authority, 304 Mass. 507, 509-512. See 
also Mathew son’s case, 227 Mass. 470, at page 474.

But there is a statutory mandate which in any case com­
pels a waiver of this defense. Section 6 of Gr.L. c. 151B, 
reads in part:

“ No objection that has not been urged before the 
commission shall be considered by the court, unless the 
failure or neglect to urge such objection shall be ex­
cused because of extraordinary circumstances.”

This condition, whose wording is identical to that set out 
in the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U.S.C. 
§ 151, at § 160, whence in large measure the enforcement 
procedures of chapter 151B derive, obviously was imposed 
in order for the Commission to have opportunity to pass 
upon the questions concerning its order which would be 
raised on review. The applicability of this language was 
considered in NLRB v. Cheney California Lumber Co., 327 
U.S. 385 (1946), which deals with the appeal of the Na­
tional Labor Relations Board from the denial by the Cir­
cuit Court of Appeals of part of enforcement of its cease 
and desist order. In reversing the lower Court the Supreme 
Court said, at page 389:

“ . . . Justification of such an order, which neces­
sarily involves consideration of the facts which are the 
foundation of the order, is not open for review by a 
court if no prior objection has been urged before the 
case gets into court and there is a total want of extraor­
dinary circumstances to excuse ‘ the failure or neglect



74

to urge such, objection . . Congress desired that all 
controversies of fact, and the allowable inferences from 
the facts, be threshed out, certainly in the first instance, 
before the Board. That is what the Board is for.”

Subsequently, the effect of this clause on enforcement 
provisions nearly identical to those in chapter 151B was 
considered by the New York Court of Appeals in Holland v. 
Edwards, 307 N.Y. 38 (1954), in the first high Court test 
of that state’s Fair Employment Practices Law. The facts 
concerning the conduct of the hearing and the details of 
the order are extraordinarily similar to those in the instant 
case. As here, respondent made a statement in her behalf 
in the preliminary investigation and filed an answer to the 
complaint, but at the hearing withdrew before any evidence 
was taken, electing to make no defense and to conduct no 
cross-examination of the witnesses who testified in support 
of the complaint. To enforce its determination the Com­
mission issued a cease and desist order and orders com­
parable to those in the instant case for affirmative relief. 
Noting that “ no objection was urged before the commis­
sion as to any finding of fact, conclusion of law or require­
ment of the order, and no change or modification of such 
order was sought of the commission,”  the Court held (307 
N.Y. at 46):

“ The only other objection urged by appellant in 
this court concerns particular directives contained in 
the order issued by the commission. . . .  As already 
noted, the objection, not having been made until after 
the commission had gone into court to secure enforce­
ment of its order, came too late.”

T o  the sam e effect, see the con cu rrin g  opin ion , at page 47.



75

There are excellent reasons for the requirement that re­
spondents in a Commission proceeding must make known 
to the Commission their objections to its findings and order 
in order to save their rights. Otherwise, they can simply 
sit back, silently letting the administrative agency make a 
mistake, and then imposing the expense and delay of a 
court proceeding that might otherwise have been needless.

The respondent Nahigian has given no reason for his 
failure to object, much less shown the “ extraordinary cir­
cumstances”  required in the Cheney case. Obviously, he 
would not have lost his constitutional arguments by ob­
jecting to the order. Had Nahigian acted, the Commission 
could have considered his objections and determined 
whether the order should be revised in any particular. If 
additional evidence was necessary, it could have been taken. 
We would not now be speculating—in the writing of this 
brief—as to what his grounds for complaint are. VII.

VII. The Commission’s Findings were Warranted and its 
Order Reasonable.

The authority conferred upon the Commission to enable 
it to implement its findings is broad and commensurate with 
the complicated, specialized nature of the task imposed on 
it by G.L. c. 151B.

By section 5, where the Commission after hearing finds 
that a respondent has engaged in a prohibited practice, it 
must—

“ . . . cause to be served on such respondent an or­
der requiring such respondent to cease and desist from 
such unlawful practice . . . and to take such affirma­
tive action . . .  as, in the judgment of the commission, 
will effectuate the purposes of this chapter . . .  in­
cluding a requirement for report of the manner of 
compliance.”



76

By section 9:

“ The provisions of this chapter shall be construed 
liberally for the accomplishment of the purposes there­
of, . .

By G.L. c, 30A, § 14, the reviewing Court is directed to—

. give due weight to the experience, technical 
competence, and specialized knowledge of the agency, 
as well as to the discretionary authority conferred up­
on it.”

The findings here (R. 16-18) were based on uncontro­
verted facts reasonably drawn from extensive testimony 
taken from several witnesses. This Court held that, under 
such circumstances, the reviewing Court is not entitled to 
make independent findings. McCarthy v. Contributory Re­
tirement Appeeal Board, 1961 Adv. Sh. 221, 224. Barry v. 
Civil Service Commission, 323 Mass. 431, 434. Maniscalco 
v. Director of Division of Employment Security, 327 Mass. 
211, 214. Despatchers’ Cafe, Inc., v. Somerville Housing 
Authority, 332 Mass. 259, 261.

This leaves us, then, only with the question of the reason­
ableness of the order. The classic case establishing the 
adaptability of orders whereby agencies of this type may 
effectuate their statutory mandate is NLRB v. Seven-Up 
Co., 344 U.8. 344 (1953). There it was said:

“ In fashioning remedies to undo the effects of vio­
lations of the Act, the Board must draw on enlighten­
ment gained from experience.”  (At page 346.)

‘ ‘ Surely it may so fashion one remedy that it comple­
ments, rather than conflicts with, another. It is the 
business of the Board to give coordinated effect to the 
policies of the Act. ”  (At page 348.)



77

“ . . . if Congress had been more than satisfied with 
the Board’s practice, if it had wanted to be certain 
that the Board would not in future profit by its ex­
perience, it would have had to do more than it d id; it 
would have had to change the language of the statute 
so as to take from the Board the discretionary power 
to mould remedies suited to practical needs which we 
had declared the Board to have and which the Board 
was asserting and exercising.”  (At page 351.)

Certainly the power of the Commission cannot be limited 
to the grant of a remedy to the injured party only. If the 
Commission were prohibited from enjoining a type of ac­
tivity which prior events indicate is likely, the Act would 
become a dead letter. The principle has been stated in 
International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U.S. 392, 400 
(1947), as follows:

“ When the purpose to restrain trade [discriminate] 
appears from a clear violation of law, it is not neces­
sary that all of the untraveled roads to that end be 
left open and that only the worn one be closed.”

See NLRB v. United Mine Workers (6th Cir. 1952), 195 F. 
2d 961; cert. den. 344 U.S. 920; International Brotherhood 
of Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 341 U.S. 694 (1951). The 
Supreme Court has generalized that “ courts will not inter­
fere except with a remedy selected that has no reasonable 
relation to the unlawful practices found to exist.”  Jacob 
Siegel v. FTC, 327 U.S. 608 (1946). FTC  v. National Lead 
Co., 352 U.S. 419 (1957). FTC v. Ruberoid Co., 343 U.S. 
470, 473-474 (1952).

What about the instant order? Limited to activities of 
the respondents in connection with the rental of Glen- 
meadow apartments and nowhere else, it seeks to remedy



78

the discrimination found to have been perpetrated against 
the complainant by the respondents and to prevent similar 
discrimination by them against others attempting to rent 
there. Essentially the order contains three main elements : 
the first, to make an apartment available to the complain­
ant, when one is available; 1 the second, to compensate the 
complainant for pecuniary losses actually occasioned by 
the discriminatory acts; the third, to cease and desist from 
discriminating henceforth in the renting of Glenmeadow 
apartments. The balance of the order is purely ancillary 
to the three main elements and plainly a reasonable imple­
mentation thereof.

In general and in almost every one of its elements it is 
of a kind that commissions issue in proceedings of this type, 
where, as here, the findings reveal a pattern of violation 
destined to continue into the future unless restrained 
through legal redress. It is, except for monetary damages, 
almost on all fours with the order entered in the New York 
Commission case of Shervington v. Pelham Hall Apart­
ments, Inc., Pompa, Coconato and Markoly, CH-4466-56, 
which was enforced in New York State Commission v. Pel­
ham Hall Apartments, Inc., 10 Misc. 2d 334, 170 N.Y.S. 2d 
750. In respect to the objections to the order in that case 
the Court said, at page 761:

“ The objections on the part of respondents to cer­
tain provisions of the Commission’s order sought to be 
enforced are overruled. The commission has a broad 
discretion with respect to the rendering of ail order 
deemed adequate and necessary to secure full compli­
ance with the provisions of the law, including provi­

1 The order does not say so in so many words, but obviously the 
complainant cannot require the eviction of a present occupant of 
a Glenmeadow apartment in order to make an apartment available 
to him.



79

sions for such record keeping and reports by respon­
dents as are reasonably necessary to enable the 
Commission to see to it that the law is being complied 
with. It does not appear that the provisions of the 
order objected to are arbitrary or unreasonable, and, 
this being so, the court should not change or redraft 
the same.”

A copy of the order is on file at the Social Law Library.
For examples of comparable orders, see those set out 

in “ Report of Progress,”  a Review of the Program for 
1959 of the State Commission Against Discrimination 
(N.Y.), pp. 96-99; pp. 106-109 (available at Social Law Li­
brary). See also order dated August 27, 1960, of the Mas­
sachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in matter 
of Marshall v. Middlesex Homes, Inc., Pr. H. II-9-c (order 
complied with; no enforcement sought).

As to the monetary award, administrative agency orders 
for payment of money are not novel in discrimination mat­
ters where pecuniary harm has been suffered. In employ­
ment violation cases, of course, back-pay awards are 
expressly authorized. Chapter 151B, in part, empowers the 
Commission—

. . to take such affirmative action, including (but 
not limited to) hiring, reinstatement or upgrading of 
employees, with or without back pay . . . ”

That the award of remedial monetary damages going be­
yond back pay in employment discrimination cases may 
be implied from such statutory language was clearly estab­
lished in Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. NLRB (1943), 
319 U.S. 533. Section 10c of the National Labor Relations 
Act authorized the NLRB to require persons found en­
gaged or engaging in unfair labor practices “ to take such



80

affirmative action, including reinstatement of employees 
with or without back pay, as will effectuate the policies of 
this Act.”  (Note the absence of the parenthetical clause 
that is in section 5 of Gr.L. c. 151B.) The Court said, at 
page 539:

“ Within this limit (the ‘ affirmative action’ clause) 
the Board has wide discretion in ordering affirmative 
action; its power is not limited to the illustrative ex­
ample of one type of permissible affirmative order, 
namely reinstatement with or without back pay. . . . 
The particular means by which the effects of unfair 
labor practices are to be expunged are matters ‘ for 
the Board not the courts to determine’ [citing cases]. 
Here the Board, in the exercise of its informed discre­
tion, has expressly determined that reimbursement in 
full of the checked-off dues is necessary to accomplish 
the purposes of the Act. We give considerable weight 
to that administrative determination. It should stand 
unless it can be shown that the order is a patent at­
tempt to achieve ends other than those which can fairly 
be said to effectuate the policies of the Act. There is 
no such showing here.”

Actually, the case for wider latitude for monetary awards 
other than back pay is much stronger under chapter 151B, 
§ 5, than under the National Labor Relations Act, because, 
as has been noted, our clause in question contains the sig­
nificant additional language: “ but not limited to.”

The policy arguments are even stronger. As the Legisla­
ture enlarged the scope of the anti-discrimination laws from 
employment to educational admissions, age, public accom­
modations, public housing, certain publicly assisted hous­
ing, and finally certain housing not publicly assisted, it 
can only have intended that the affirmative remedies avail­



81

able to the Commission to effectuate the laws should he 
commensurate with its widened jurisdiction. Surely, if 
the Legislature had intended to qualify the Commission’s 
effectuation of the purposes of the Act to the extent of 
denying to it the right to reimburse a complainant in a 
real-estate discrimination case from calculable losses oc­
casioned by a respondent’s wrongdoing, it would have said 
so explicitly. See NLRB v. Seven-Up Co., 344 U.S. 344 
(1952), at pages 351-352.

Concededly, a monetary award that was by its nature a 
criminal sanction or a civil penalty or in any other way 
punitive would be beyond the Commission’s power to im­
pose. 1 Davis, Administrative Law, 134 (1958 Ed.). So 
would an order of a payment of a sum to a third person or 
of a sum which would make the complainant in the admin­
istrative proceeding more than whole. Virginia Electric S 
Poiuer Co. v. NLRB, 319 U.S. 533 (1943), at page 544.

In the present proceeding, however, there was no puni­
tive aspect. The award was simply an effort to make the 
aggrieved party whole (R. 21).2 The evidence shows that 
the complainant was obliged to pay (a) an additional $30 
per month rent for comparable accommodations (R. 16, 
43-44), and (b) $200 for moving and storage (R. 44), and 
(c) in addition, stood likely to incur additional expenses 
(R. 44, 85) on account of the discrimination practiced upon 
him by the respondents. The amounts in the order in ques­
tion being easily computable, the award more than meets 
the specificity required of equity court orders. FTC  v.

2 Money orders have been issued by the New York Commission 
Against Discrimination in public accommodation discrimination 
cases. See Feliciano v. Fishman, pp. 38-95, 55; Lee v. D ufy, 
CP-4830-57 (both reported in part in pp. 60-61 and 98-99 respec­
tively in the 1955 and 1958 “ Reports of Progress” ). N.Y. State 
.Commission Against Discrimination (available in Social Law 
Library).



82

Beech-Nut Packing Co., 257 IT.S. 441, 455 (1922); FTC  v. 
Morton Salt Co., 334 U.S. 37, 52-53 (1948).

CONCLUSION.

For the reasons stated herein, the Massachusetts Com­
mission Against Discrimination urges this Honorable 
Court to enter a decree requiring the respondents to com­
ply with its order dated January 24, 1961, and filed March 
21, 1961.

Respectfully submitted,
EDWARD J. McCORMACK, JR.,

Attorney General,
By A lbert M. S acks,

Special Assistant Attorney General, 
G erald A. B erlin ,

Special Assistant Attorney General.

Of Counsel:
Lee H. Kozol.



83

APPENDIX A.

Constitutional Provisions and Statutes Involved.

Constitutional Provisions.

U nited  S tates Constitution , A m endm ent  XIV.

Sect . 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United 
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens 
of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. 
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge 
the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 
nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or 
property, without due process of law, nor deny to any per­
son within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

M assachusetts C onstitution , P art the  F irst, A rticle I.

A rticle I. All men are born free and equal, and have 
certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among 
which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending 
their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and 
protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining 
their safety and happiness.

M assachusetts C onstitution , P art th e  F irst, A rticle X 
(First Paragraph).

X. Each individual of the society has a right to be pro­
tected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty and prop­
erty, according to standing laws. He is obliged, conse­
quently, to contribute his share to the expense of this pro­
tection ; to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when 
necessary; but no part of the property of any individual



84

can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public 
uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative 
body of the people. In fine, the people of this common­
wealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to 
which their constitutional representative body have given 
their consent. And whenever the public exigencies require 
that the property of any individual should be appropriated 
to public uses, he shall receive a reasonable compensation 
therefor.

Statutes Involved.

L enebal L aw s , C hapteb  30A, S ection  14.

S ection  14. Except so far as any provision of law ex­
pressly precludes judicial review, any person or appoint­
ing authority aggrieved by a final decision of any agency in 
an adjudicatory proceeding, whether such decision is affir­
mative or negative in form, shall be entitled to a judicial re­
view thereof, as follows:—-

Where a statutory form of judicial review or appeal is 
provided, other than by extraordinary writ, such statutory 
form shall govern in all respects, except as to standards for 
review. The standards for review shall be those set forth 
in paragraph (8) of this section, . . .

(8) The court may affirm the decision of the agency, or 
remand the matter for further proceedings before the 
agency; or the court may set aside or modify the decision, 
or compel any action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably 
delayed, if it determines that the substantial rights of any 
party may have been prejudiced because the agency deci­
sion is-—

(a) In violation of constitutional provisions; or



85

(ft) In excess of the statutory authority or jurisdiction 
of the agency; or

(e) Unsupported by substantial evidence; or

(g) Arbitrary or capricious, an abuse of discretion, or 
otherwise not in accordance with law.

The court shall make the foregoing determinations upon 
consideration of the entire record, or such portions of the 
record as may be cited by the parties. The court shall give 
due weight to the experience, technical competence, and 
specialized knowledge of the agency, as well as to the dis­
cretionary authority conferred upon it.

[As inserted by St. 1954, c. 681, § 1.]

General L aw s , Ch apter  151B (as in Effect at Time of Fil­
ing of Complaint).

U n law fu l  D iscrim ination  against R ace, C olor, R eligious 
Creed, N ational Origin  or A ncestry.

S ection  1. As used in this chapter

4. The term “ unlawful practice”  includes only those 
unlawful practices specified in section four.

9. The term “ housing accommodation”  includes any 
building, structure or portion thereof which is used or oc­
cupied or is intended, arranged or designed to be used or 
occupied, as the home, residence or sleeping place of one 
or more human beings.



86

10. The term “ publicly assisted housing accommoda­
tions”  includes all housing accommodations in

(a) housing constructed after July first, nineteen hun­
dred and fifty, and

(1) which is exempt in whole or in part from taxes levied 
by the commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions;

(2) which is constructed on land sold below cost by the 
commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions or any 
agency thereof, pursuant to the federal housing act of nine­
teen hundred and forty-nine;

(3) which is constructed in whole or in part on property 
acquired or assembled by the commonwealth or any of its 
political subdivisions or any agency thereof through the 
power of condemnation or otherwise for the purpose of 
such construction; or

(4) for the acquisition, construction, repair or mainte­
nance of which the commonwealth or any of its political sub­
divisions or any agency thereof supplies funds or other 
financial assistance;

(b) housing which is located in a multiple dwelling, the 
acquisition, construction, rehabilitation, repair or mainte­
nance of which is, after October first, nineteen hundred and 
fifty-seven, financed in whole or in part by a loan, whether 
or not secured by a mortgage, the repayment of which is 
guaranteed or insured by the federal government or any 
agency thereof; provided, that such a housing accommoda­
tion shall be deemed to be publicly assisted only during the 
life of such loan and such guaranty or insurance; and

(c) housing which is offered for sale, lease or rental by a 
person who owns or otherwise controls the sale of the same, 
and which is part of a parcel of ten or more housing accom­
modations located on land that is contiguous, exclusive of 
public streets, if (1) the acquisition, construction, rehabili­
tation, repair or maintenance of such housing accommoda­



87

tions is after October first, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven, 
financed in whole or in part by a loan whether or not secured 
by a mortgage, the repayment of which is guaranteed or in­
sured by the federal government or any agency thereof; 
provided, that such a housing accommodation shall be 
deemed to be publicly assisted only during the life of such 
loan and guaranty or insurance; or (2) a commitment is­
sued by a government agency after October first, nineteen 
hundred and fifty-seven, is outstanding that acquisition of 
such housing accommodations may be financed in whole or 
in part by a loan, whether or not secured by a mortgage, the 
repayment of which is guaranteed or insured by the federal 
government or any agency thereof.

11. The term “ multiple dwelling”  means a dwelling 
which is usually occupied for permanent residence purposes 
and which is either rented, leased, let or hired out, to be oc­
cupied as the residence or home of three or more families 
living independently of each other. A “ multiple dwelling”  
shall not be deemed to include a hospital, convent, monas­
tery, asylum or public institution, or a fireproof building 
used wholly for commercial purposes except for not more 
than one janitor’s apartment and not more than one pent­
house occupied by not more than two families. The term 
“ family” , as used herein, means (a) a person occupying a 
dwelling and maintaining a household either alone or with 
not more than four boarders, roomers or lodgers; or (b) 
two or more persons occupying a dwelling, either living 
together and maintaining a common household, or living 
together and maintaining a common household with not 
more than four boarders, roomers or lodgers. A “ boarder” , 
“ roomer”  or “ lodger”  residing with a family means a per­
son living within the household who pays a consideration 
for such residence and does not occupy such space within 
the household as an incident of employment therein.



88

12. Tlie term “ contiguously located housing”  means (1) 
housing which is offered for sale, lease or rental by a person 
who owns or at any time has owned, or who otherwise con­
trols or at any time has controlled, the sale of ten or more 
housing accommodations located on land that is contiguous 
(exclusive of public streets), and which housing* is located 
on such land, or (2) housing which is offered for sale, lease 
or rental and which at any time was one of ten or more lots 
of a tract whose plan has been submitted to a planning 
board as required by th e  subdivision control l a w , as ap­
pearing in sections eighty-one K  to eighty-one GG, inclu­
sive, of chapter forty-one.

S ection  3. The commission shall have the following func­
tions, powers and duties:

6. To receive, investigate and pass upon complaints of 
unlawful practices, as hereinafter defined, alleging discrim­
ination because of race, color, religious creed, national ori­
gin, age, or ancestry.

S ection  4. It shall be an unlawful practice:

3B. For any person engaged in the business of granting 
mortgage loans to discriminate against any person in the 
granting of any mortgage loan, including but not limited 
to the interest rate, terms or duration of such mortgage 
loan, because of his race, color, religious creed, national 
origin, or ancestry.

5. For any person, whether an employer or an employee 
or not, to aid, abet, incite, compel or coerce the doing of



89

any of tlie acts forbidden under this chapter or to attempt 
to do so.

6. For the owner, lessee, sublessee, assignee or manag­
ing agent of publicly assisted or multiple dwelling or con­
tiguously located housing accommodations or other person 
having the right of ownership or possession or right to rent 
or lease such accommodations :—■

(а) to refuse to rent or lease or otherwise to deny to or 
withhold from any person or group of persons such accom­
modations because of the race, creed, color or national 
origin of such person or persons;

(б) to discriminate against any person because of his 
race, creed, color or national origin in the terms, conditions 
or privileges of such accommodations or in the furnishing 
of facilities or services in connection therewith; or

(c) to cause to be made any written or oral inquiry or 
record concerning the race, creed, color or national origin 
of a person seeking to rent or lease any such accommoda­
tion.

S ection 5. Any person claiming to be aggrieved by an 
alleged unlawful practice . . . may, by himself or his at­
torney, make, sign and file with the commission a verified 
complaint in writing which shall state the name and address 
of the person . . . alleged to have committed the unlawful 
practice complained of . . . and which shall set forth the 
particulars thereof and contain such other information as 
may be required by the commission. The attorney general 
may, in like manner, make, sign and file such complaint. 
The commission, whenever it has reason to believe that any 
person has been or is engaging in an unlawful practice . . . , 
may issue such a complaint. . . .

After the filing of any complaint, the chairman of the com­
mission shall designate one of the commissioners to make, 
with the assistance of the commission’s staff, prompt in­



90

vestigation in connection therewith; and if snch commis­
sioner shall determine after such investigation that prob­
able cause exists for crediting the allegations of the com­
plaint, he shall immediately endeavor to eliminate the un­
lawful practice complained of . . . by conference, concilia­
tion and persuasion. The members of the commission and 
its staff shall not disclose what has occurred in the course 
of such endeavors, provided that the commission may pub­
lish the facts in the case of any complaint which has been 
dismissed, and the terms of conciliation when the complaint 
has been so disposed of. In case of failure so to eliminate 
such practice or violation, or in advance thereof if in his 
judgment circumstances so warrant, he may cause to be 
issued and served in the name of the commission, a written 
notice, together with a copy of such complaint, as the same 
may have been amended, requiring the person, employer, 
labor organization or employment agency named in such 
complaint, hereinafter referred to as respondent, to answer 
the charges of such complaint at a hearing before the com­
mission, at a time and place to be specified in such notice. 
The place of any such hearing shall be the office of the com­
mission or such other place as may be designated by it. 
The case in support of the complaint shall be presented be­
fore the commission by one of its attorneys or agents, and 
the commissioner who shall have previously made the in­
vestigation and caused the notice to be issued shall not par­
ticipate in the hearing except as a witness, nor shall he 
participate in the deliberations of the commission in such 
case; and the aforesaid endeavors at conciliation shall not 
be received in evidence. The respondent may file a written 
verified answer to the complaint and appear at such hear­
ing in person or otherwise, with or without counsel, and 
submit testimony. In the discretion of the commission, the 
complainant may be allowed to intervene and present testi­



91

mony in person or by counsel. The commission or the com­
plainant shall have the power reasonably and fairly to 
amend any complaint, and the respondent shall have 
like power to amend his answer. The commission shall 
not be bound by the strict rules of evidence prevailing in 
courts of law or equity. The testimony taken at the hear­
ing shall be under oath and be transcribed at the request 
of any party. If, upon all the evidence at the hearing the 
commission shall find that a respondent has engaged in 
any unlawful practice as defined in section four . . . , the 
commission shall state its findings of fact and shall issue 
and cause to be served on such respondent an order re­
quiring such respondent to cease and desist from such un­
lawful practice . . . and to take such affirmative action, 
including (but not limited to) hiring, reinstatement or up­
grading of employees, with or without back pay, or restora­
tion to membership in any respondent labor organization, 
as, in the judgment of the commission, will effectuate the 
purposes of this chapter . . . , and including a require­
ment for report of the manner of compliance. If, upon all 
the evidence, the commission shall find that a respondent 
has not engaged in any such unlawful practice . . . , the 
commission shall state its findings of fact and shall issue 
and cause to be served on the complainant an order dis­
missing the said complaint as to such respondent. A copy 
of its order shall be delivered in all cases to the attorney 
general and such other public officers as the commission 
deems proper. The commission shall establish rules of 
practice to govern, expedite and effectuate the foregoing 
procedure and its own actions thereunder. Any complaint 
filed pursuant to this section must be so filed within six 
months after the alleged act of discrimination. . . .



92

S ection  6. Any complainant, respondent or other person 
aggrieved by sncli order of the commission may obtain 
judicial review thereof, and the commission may obtain an 
order of court for its enforcement, in a proceeding as pro­
vided in this section. Such proceeding shall be brought in 
the superior court of the commonwealth within any county 
wherein the unlawful practice which is the subject of the 
commission’s order occurs or wherein any person required 
in the order to cease and desist from an unlawful practice 
or to take other affirmative action resides or transacts busi­
ness. Such proceedings shall be initiated by the filing of a 
petition in such court, together with a written transcript of 
the record upon the hearing before the commission, and is­
suance and service of an order of notice as in proceedings 
in equity. The court shall have power to grant such tempo­
rary relief or restraining order as it deems just and proper, 
and to make and enter upon the pleadings, testimony and 
proceedings set forth in such transcript an order or decree 
enforcing, modifying, and enforcing as so modified, or set­
ting aside in whole or in part the order of the commission, 
with full power to issue injunctions against any respondent 
and to punish for contempt thereof. No objection that has 
not been urged before the commission shall be considered 
by the court, unless the failure or neglect to urge such ob­
jection shall be excused because of extraordinary circum­
stances. Any party may move the court to remit the case 
to the commission in the interests of justice for the purpose 
of adducing additional specified and material evidence and 
seeking findings thereon, provided he shows reasonable 
grounds for the failure to adduce such evidence before 
the commission. The order or decision of the commis­
sion shall be reviewed in accordance with the standards 
for review provided in paragraph (8) of section four­
teen of chapter thirty A. All such proceedings shall



93

be beard and determined by tbe court as expeditiously as 
possible and shall take precedence over all other matters 
before it, except matters of like nature. The jurisdiction 
of the superior court shall be exclusive and its final order 
or decree shall be subject to review by the supreme judicial 
court in the same manner and form and with the same effect 
as in appeals from a final order or decree in proceedings in 
equity. The commission’s copy of the testimony shall be 
available at all reasonable times to all parties for exam­
ination without cost and for the purposes of judicial review 
of the order of the commission. The review shall be heard 
on the record without requirement of printing. The com­
mission may appear in court by one of its attorneys. A 
proceeding under this section when instituted by any com­
plainant, respondent or other person aggrieved must be 
instituted within thirty days after the service of the order 
of the commission.

S ection  9. The provisions of this chapter shall be con­
strued liberally for the accomplishment of the purposes 
thereof, and any law inconsistent with any provision hereof 
shall not apply . . .

S ection 10. If any provision of this chapter or the ap­
plication thereof to any person or circumstance, shall, for 
any reason, be held invalid, the remainder of this chapter 
or the application of such provision to persons or circum­
stances other than those as to which it is held invalid shall 
not be affected thereby.

[As inserted by St. 1946, c. 368, § 4, and as amended by 
St. 1950, c. 479; 1951, c. 681, § 13; 1957, c. 426; 1959 c. 239; 
1960, c. 163.]



94

APPEN D IX B.

Statistical Study of Housing Discrimination against Negroes 
in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I ntroduction .

This appendix, including* the statistical tables, was pre­
pared for this case by Helen R. Kistin, Economic Con­
sultant.*' Except where referred to in the text, the sources 
are contained in the tables which follow the text.

I. T here  is an  I ncreasing  S egregation o r  N egroes in  
U rban B oston.

Tables 1 and 2 show population chang*es by race in the 
Commonwealth and in Boston between 1950 and 1960. In 
that decade the Negro population of the Commonwealth 
increased over 50 per cent, from 73,000 in 1950 to 112,000 
in 1960. During the same period the total population of 
the Commonwealth increased by less than 10 per cent.

#The most recent economic consulting experience of Helen R. 
Kistin is as follows:

Action for Boston Community Development, Boston, Mass. 
Fall, 1961. Consultant on a preliminary study of social planning 
for the Boston Metropolitan area, with particular reference to 
the South End and Roxbury-North Dorchester renewal areas.

Boston Redevelopment Authority, Boston, Mass. Spring and 
summer, 1961. On the staff of Dr. Chester Rapkin, Consultant to 
the Authority on the economic and social feasibility of residential 
renewal in Washington Park urban renewal area, Roxbury.

Joint Center for Urban Studies of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. May 
1960-January 1961. Research Staff, Division of Sponsored Re­
search, M.I.T. appointment.



95

The increasing concentration of the Negro population 
of Massachusetts within Boston is shown in table 3. In 
1960 56 per cent of the Negro population of the Common­
wealth (63,165 persons) lived in the city, an increase in 
proportion as well as numbers since 1950. Over one-half 
of the 1960 Negro population of the Commonwealth was 
confined within three sections of the City of Boston: Rox- 
bury, North Dorchester and the South End. These segre­
gated neighborhoods are shown on the map appended 
hereto, marked Exhibit l .1

About 9 out of 10 nonwhite persons in the Common­
wealth and in the Boston area are Negro. Statistics for 
nonwhites, used in the text and tables when data by race 
are not available, substantially represent the situation of 
the Negro population.

More than half of the net increase in the nonwhite pop­
ulation of the Commonwealth between 1950 and 1960 is 
accounted for by the City of Boston (26,000 persons). 
During the same period, the white population of the City 
decreased by 130,000, or 17 per cent (see Table 1). The 
result of the white exodus and the nonwhite influx was a 
net loss of 104,000 (13 per cent) in the City’s total popu­
lation by the end of the decade. If the nonwhite popula­
tion continues to grow at the rate of the past decade, and 
there is no change in the pattern of urban segregation, 
Boston will have a nonwhite population of about 110,000 
by 1970.

1 These and other geographic sections of Boston were designated 
as “ neighborhoods”  by the Research Division, United Community 
Services of Greater Boston, in Neighborhoods of Boston Banked 
for Selected Factors, Sixth Edition, April, 1961 (mimeographed, 
unpaged). The major neighborhoods are also shown as “ Boston 
Health and Welfare Areas”  in a map printed by the United Com­
munity Services of Greater Boston in 1958.



96

I I . T hebe  is ah  I ncreasing  E xclusion  of t h e  G rowing 
N bgbo P opulation  ebom  th e  S uburbs.

Despite the overall increase in the suburban population, 
both within the country as a whole and within the Com­
monwealth, and despite the even greater relative increase 
in the total nonwhite population, nonwhites have been 
largely excluded from the suburbs. This is shown by 
Tables 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Table 2 compares population changes by race in the 
Commonwealth between 1950 and 1960 with national 
trends. The rate of increase of the total population in the 
Commonwealth has been only about one-half of the na­
tional rate; 9.8 per cent as against 18.5 per cent. The in­
crease in the nonwhite population of Boston, however, has 
been very close to the average for all central cities in the 
country. This increase in central cities represents migra­
tion from rural areas and from smaller cities as well as 
the natural increase.

The increase in the suburban Negro population, how­
ever, has been much smaller than would be expected from 
the natural increase alone in the United States. While 
the Negro population increased 25 per cent in the country 
as a whole (essentially the natural increase) and 58 per 
cent in the City of Boston, the Negro population in Bos­
ton suburbs increased by only 17.5 per cent (see Table 2).

The exclusion of the growing Negro population of this 
Commonwealth from the suburbs is also shown in Table 3. 
In 1960 56 per cent of the entire Negro population of the 
Commonwealth lived in the City of Boston, as compared 
to less than 55 per cent in 1950. The proportion living in 
the suburbs of Boston decreased from 16 to 12 per cent 
during the same period.



97

III. W it h in  both  th e  C ity  of B oston and th e  S ttbubbs

THERE HAS BEEN AN I n CBEASED NEIGHBORHOOD SEGREGA­
TION of N egroes.

The segregated area of Negro concentration is shown 
graphically in the map appended hereto, marked Exhibit 1.

There has been an increasing concentration of the Negro 
population into segregated areas since 1950. Table 4 com­
pares the percentage distribution of the total nonwhite 
and Negro populations in the Boston area in 1960 with 
their distribution in 1950. Almost one-fourth (23 per 
cent) of the Negro population in the Boston Metropolitan 
area lived in the suburbs in 1950, but less than one-fiftli 
(18 per cent) ten years later. The decrease in the relative 
proportion of the nonwhite population in the suburbs and 
the increase in the relative proportion within the City, 
and particularly within the Roxbury-North Dorchester 
area is apparent.

The areas of nonwhite concentration within Boston 
shown in Table 4 are General Neighborhood Renewal Plan 
(GNRP) areas, the geographic boundaries of which are 
designated by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, John 
F. Collins, Mayor, and Edward J. Logue, Development 
Administrator, in “ The 90 Million Dollar Development 
Program for Boston,”  reprinted from the City Record 
issue of September 24, 1960 (unpaged). Extensive urban 
renewal, involving the displacement of many thousands of 
families, is planned for these areas (see below, pp. 114-116).

Even in the suburbs there is a pattern of neighborhood 
segregation of Negroes and very limited diffusion. This 
pattern is shown in the following table, compiled by Ches­
ter W. Hartman, City Planner with the Center for Com­
munity Studies, Boston, Mass., from U.S. Census Tract 
Statistics for the Boston Metropolitan Area in U.S. Bu­
reau of the Census. Advance Tables PH-1. Population



98

and Housing Characteristics: 1960 (copies furnished by 
the Research Division, United Community Services of 
Metropolitan Boston).

Concentration of Negro Population in Boston Suburbs,
1960

Negro Total No. Tracts with Concentration of
population of census fewer than Negro population

City 1960 tracts 10 Negroes within City
Cambridge 5,671 30 5 69% in 7 tracts
Lynn 1,314 20 11 76% in 4 tracts
Medford 1,087 9 7 97% in 1 tract
Malden 718 9 3 82% in 2 tracts
Newton 672 10 1 55% in 1 tract
Everett 664 7 0 94% in 5 tracts
Somerville 350 15 9 71% in 1 tract
Chelsea 315 7 2 77% in 1 tract
Total 8 cities 10,791
Total suburbs

(64 cities
and towns) 12,981

The preceding table shows that 98 per cent of all Ne­
groes living in the suburbs of Boston were concentrated 
in eight inner cities close to Boston, and were further 
concentrated into a few neighborhoods within these cities.

I Y . N egbo H ome O w n ersh ip  has N ot K ept  P ace w it h  
P opulation  I ncrease.

Despite the increase in the proportion of the nonwhite 
population in the Commonwealth there has not been a 
corresponding increase in the amount of housing owned 
by them. This can be seen by comparing the per cent of 
the total population which was nonwhite in 1950 and 1960



99

(Table 1) with the per cent of nonwhite owner-occupied 
housing in the same years (Table 5) as follows:

1950
Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts
City of 
Boston

Boston Metro 
politan Area

Nonwhite per cent 
of population 1.7 5.3 2.4

Nonwhite per cent 
of owner-occupants 0.8 2.9 1.0
1960
Nonwhite per cent 
of population 2.4 9.8 3.4
Nonwhite per cent 
of owner-occupants 1.0 5.6 1.4

Since the white population in Boston has decreased by 
130,000 in the decade and the nonwhite population has in­
creased by only 26,000 (see Table 1), a much greater in­
crease in home ownership would be expected in Boston if 
Negroes were equally able to buy homes even within the 
Boston area. Instead, there has been an increase in the 
absolute number and per cent of housing units owned and 
occupied by whites (Table 5).

The preceding comparison is limited to owner-occupied 
housing units because of a change in the 1960 U.S. Census 
definition which makes a direct comparison of rental units 
in 1960 with previous years impossible.2

The comparison in Table 5 also shows that there is sig­
nificantly less home ownership among Negro than among 
white families, reflecting the exclusion of Negroes from 
the suburbs in which most of the homes available for sale 
are located, as well as their exclusion from substantial

2 The 1960 U.S. Census of Housing definition of “ housing unit”  
includes many single rooms which were not defined as “ dwelling 
units”  in the 1950 U.S. Census of Housing (see footnote 1, Table
5).



100

home-ownership in the City of Boston. Table 5 shows the 
proportion of nonwhite home owners in Massachusetts and 
the Boston area in 1950 and 1960, and the number and 
percentage distribution of households by tenure and color 
for both years. More than half of all the white families 
in the Commonwealth owned the homes in which they lived 
in 1960; the per cent increased from 48 in 1950 to 57 ten 
years later. During the same period the per cent of non­
white owners decreased, from 25.4 to 24.7.

The much lower percentage of home-owners among the 
nonwhite population is also evident in the comparisons 
shown for the Boston area in Table 5. In the City of Bos­
ton less than 16 per cent of the nonwhite housing units 
were owner-occupied in 1960; an increase of only 13 per 
cent over the 1950 proportion, although the nonwhite pop­
ulation increased by over 60 per cent. At the same time 
both the number and percentage of white-owned units 
increased, while the white population decreased by 17 
per cent (see also Table 1).

V . N egroes O ccupy a D isproportionate A m o u n t  of S ub­
standard and  D ilapidated H ousing .

Table 6 shows the condition of housing3 in the City of 
Boston, as classified by the 1960 U.S. Census of Housing,

3 Housing units are classified by the 1960 U.S. Census of Hous­
ing as in one of the following three conditions:

Sound: No defects, or only slight defects which are normally 
corrected in the course of regular maintenance.

Deteriorating: Housing which needs more repair than would 
be provided in the course of regular maintenance, and which has 
one or more defects that must be corrected for safe and adequate 
shelter. Examples of such defects are unsafe porch or steps, 
broken or loose stair treads.

Dilapidated: Housing which does not provide safe or adequate 
shelter due to inadequate original construction or critical defects 
indicating serious damage to the structure. The categories



101

by tenure and color. Nonwliite bousebolds accounted for 
less than 6 per cent of all owner-occupied housing units, 
but owned almost two-fifths of all the units classified by 
the U.S. Census of Housing* as deteriorating (requiring 
major repairs) or dilapidated. Eighty-eight per cent of 
all white-owned units were “ sound, with all plumbing,”  
and less than 10 per cent were either deteriorating or di­
lapidated. The corresponding percentages for nonwhite 
owners were 59 per cent “ sound with all plumbing”  and 
39 per cent deteriorating or dilapidated.

Table 6 shows that the housing condition of the major­
ity of nonwhite families who were renters in 1960 was 
much worse than that of nonwhite owners. Although only 
11 per cent of all renting households in the City were non­
white, they accounted for over 30 per cent of all dilapidated 
units and more than a fourth of all deteriorating units. 
Less than half of all the nonwhite households rented units 
which were classified by the Census as in sound condition 
and with private toilet, bath or shower for the exclusive 
use of the household and hot and cold running water in­
side the structure.

Table 7 shows in greater detail the distribution of 4 ‘ sub­
standard”  housing (as defined by the Public Housing Ad­
ministration, Washington, D.C.) by color of occupants for 
the City of Boston. Under this definition both deteriorat­

“ sound”  and “ deteriorating1”  were added in 1960. The 1950 
U.S. Census of Housing classified units as dilapidated or not 
dilapidated.

Condition is reported together with information on plumbing 
facilities. Units “ with all plumbing facilities”  have hot and 
cold water inside the structure, and flush toilet and bathtub or 
shower inside the structure for the exclusive use of people living 
in the housing unit. See U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census 
of Housing: 1960; Advance Reports, Housing Characteristics, 
Massachusetts, HC (A l)-52;  U.S. Government Printing Office, 
Washington, D.C., April 1961. Definitions and Explanations, 
pp. 1-3.



102

ing and sound units with all plumbing facilities are clas­
sified as “ standard.”  Thirty-two thousand households, 
including approximately 42,000 white and 7,000 nonwhite 
persons, lived in unsound housing as so defined.4

Table 7 shows that in 1960 more than one-fourth of the 
nonwhite families and individuals (owners and renters 
combined) occupied housing which was dilapidated, or 
lacked some or all plumbing facilities, as against less than 
14 per cent of white households. Nonwhite families ac­
counted for less than 10 per cent of all households in the 
City (Table 6), but occupied 17 per cent of all ‘ ‘ substand­
ard”  units so defined. The relative condition of the sub­
standard housing occupied by nonwhites was also substan­
tially worse than that occupied by whites. Over 30 per 
cent of all housing units classified as ‘ ‘ dilapidated ’ ’ were 
nonwhite occupied, as were over one-fifth of ‘ ‘ deteriorat­
ing”  units which lacked hot running water, private bath 
or toilet. Only 8 per cent of the 15,700 “ substandard”  
units in sound structures (amounting to almost half of 
all housing classified as “ substandard” ) were occupied 
by nonwhite families or individuals.

The conditions presented in Tables 6 and 7 are averages 
for the entire City of Boston. In many of the neighbor­
hoods of greatest Negro concentration housing conditions 
are much worse (see below, pp. 106-109, and Table 13).

V I . N egroes P ay  D isproportionately H ig h  R ents por the  
I nferior and  S ubstandard H ousing  w h ic h  t h e y  Occupy.

See, in general, Sara Shuman, “ Differential Rents for 
White and Negro Housing,”  Journal of Housing, August,

4 This estimate was obtained by multiplying the number of 
white and nonwhite households (Table 7) by the average number 
of persons per household (Table 19). Since there is more crowd­
ing in substandard housing (Table 12), the number of persons is 
undoubtedly higher.



103

1946, pp. 167, 174. Robert G. Weaver, The Negro Ghetto, 
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1948, pp. 36-37, 
108-110, 261.

The disproportionately high rentals paid by Negro fam­
ilies in Boston for inferior housing are shown in Table 8. 
Gross monthly rentals 5 are compared by $10 rental classes 
for white and nonwhite primary families 6 occupying ‘ ‘ sub­
standard”  housing, as defined by the Public Housing Ad­
ministration (see Table 7).

More than a quarter of all families living in unsound 
housing, or housing lacking minimum plumbing facilities, 
paid less than $50 a month for rent, including heat and 
utilities. The median gross monthly rent for such hous­
ing was $59. The median monthly cost for nonwhites, 
however, was $65; 10 per cent higher than the average for 
all families and 14 per cent higher than the median rental 
paid by whites. As is shown above, and in Table 7, the 
substandard housing occupied by nonwhites is substan­
tially inferior to that occupied by the white population.

The contrast between the percentage of white and non­
white families paying given monthly rentals for substand­
ard housing is even more striking. More than half of the 
white families, but only 38 per cent of the nonwhite fam­
ilies, paid less than $60 a month. Over three-fifths of the 
nonwhite households paid rents of over $60 a month; 22 
per cent paid over $70, 14 per cent between $80 and $100, 
and 3 per cent over $100 a month. The limited compari­

5 Gross rent includes contract rent plus tlie average monthly 
cost of heat and utilities if these are not included in contract rent. 
The tabulation is limited to primary families renting substandard 
housing and paying cash rent. See Table 7 for definitions and 
sources.

6 Single person households and roomers are not included. “ Pri­
mary families”  consist of the head of the household and persons 
related to him or her by blood, marriage or adoption.



104

sons which are possible with a similar survey by the U.S. 
Census in 1954 indicate that the disparity between rentals 
paid by white and nonwhite families has increased sub­
stantially since that time (see Table 8). The earlier sur­
vey reported data only for all families and for white fam­
ilies. The median gross monthly rental was the same for 
white and all families, and a slightly higher percentage of 
white than of all families paid rents of over $60 a month, 
indicating that the rent differential between white and 
nonwhite families was smaller in 1954 than in 1960.

VII. N egroes P ay  a D isproportionately H igh  S hare op

their  I ncomes eor th e  I nterior H ousing  w h ic h  they

O ccupy .

The fact that nonwhite families spend a disproportion­
ately high share of their incomes for inferior housing 
accommodations is shown in Table 9. The rent-income 
ratios shown here by color and income classes are for the 
same 1960 U.S. Census tabulation presented in Table 8. 
Roughly, a ratio of about one-fifth of net income spent for 
housing is considered normal for low-income families. 
“ . . . the statutory 20 per cent ratio must be presumed 
to meet the related legal provision that rents must be 
within the financial reach of families of low income.”  
Statement of Edward D. Hassan, Chairman, Boston Hous­
ing Authority, to the Committee on Public Housing, Bos­
ton City Council, February 16, 1961, p. 17 (on file with the 
Boston Housing Authority). Also “ . . . it is a commonly 
accepted rule today that the proportion of gross rent . . . 
should not exceed one week’s salary, or 23 per cent of the 
income of the moderate-income groups.”  Lloyd Rodwin, 
Housing and Economic Progress, Harvard University 
Press and the Technology Press, Cambridge, Massachu­
setts, 1961, pp. 14-15. (Emphasis supplied.)



105

Table 9 shows, however, that almost half of all the non- 
white families renting substandard housing in Boston in 
1960 spent more than 22.5 per cent of their total money 
incomes for rent, as against less than 30 per cent of all 
white families. Over one-quarter of the nonwhite renters 
paid more than 32.5 per cent of their annual gross money 
incomes for rent; the corresponding proportion of white 
families was 16 per cent. Even at annual gross incomes 
of $3,000 to $4,000, the income class which includes the 
median annual nonwhite income for 1959 in Boston, almost 
half the nonwhite renters spent 22.5 per cent or more and 
5 per cent spent over 32.5 of total annual income on rent. 
The general substantial disparity between white and non­
white rent-income ratios for all income classes is evident 
from Table 9. VIII.

VIII. T h e  D isproportionately H igher B ents and B en t  
I ncome B atios P aid by N egroes cannot be E xplained  
by  a D ifference betw een  the  S ize of N egro and W hite  
A p a r t m e n t s ; th e  L arger N egro F am ilies S im ply  B e- 
sttlt in  M ore Crowding in  O ccupied U n its .

The disproportionately high rentals paid by nonwhite 
families are for definitely inferior housing, as shown above 
(pp. 100-104 and in Table 7). The difference is too great to 
be explained by the larger size of nonwhite families. The 
difference in average number of persons per household by 
color was relatively small for the City of Boston in 1960. 
All white households averaged 2.93 persons in the City 
and all nonwhite households 3.06 (Table 19). Further, as 
Table 10 shows, about two-fifths of both the white and the 
nonwhite renters included in the special U.S. Census of 
renters in substandard housing in 1960 were two-person 
households, and a smaller proportion of nonwhite than



106

white renters were families of 3 and 4 persons. About 
28 per cent of the nonwhite and 21 per cent of the white 
households consisted of 5 or more persons. Even assum­
ing that this group of larger nonwhite families were able 
to rent correspondingly larger units, the enormous rent 
differentials shown in Table 9 would not be accounted for.

The fact is, instead, that the exclusion of Negroes from 
the suburban housing market (above, pp. 94-96) and from 
a proportionate share of home ownership within the City 
(above, pp. 98-100, and Table 5) has resulted in a dispro­
portionate crowding of nonwhite families as evidenced, 
for example, by the average number of persons per room.7 
In 1960 almost 14 per cent of the substandard housing 
units rented by nonwhite families in Boston had 1.01 or 
more persons per room, as against 8.5 per cent of such 
units rented by white families. The per cent of severely 
crowded nonwhite families (averaging 1.5 or more per­
sons per room) was almost twdee as high as the per cent 
of crowded white families renting substandard units (see 
Table 12).

IN. T h e  H ousing  Conditions eor N egroes in  G eneral 
D escribed A bove are E ven W orse in  th e  S egregated 
N eighborhoods oe H igh  N egro C oncentration .

The housing conditions of Negroes in Boston, described 
so far, are averages for the City, which conceal the ex­

7 Only whole rooms used for living purposes are counted as 
rooms; e.g., living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, finished attic 
and basement rooms. Three persons in an apartment of one room 
and kitchen, for instance, would average 1.5 persons per room. 
See U.S. Bureau of the Census; U.S. Census of Housing: 1960. 
Housing Characteristics, Massachusetts;  Advance Report HC 
(A l)-22;  U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 
March 1961. Definitions and Explanations, p. 2.



107

ceptionally bad conditions in most of tbe areas of Negro 
concentration. The high proportion of “ substandard”  
housing in the South End and Roxbury-North Dorchester 
General Neighborhood Renewal areas (see below, pp. 107- 
109) as well as the considerable differences among neigh­
borhoods is shown in Table 13.

“ Substandard”  units are defined in Table 13 to include 
all units which are not in sound condition or which lack 
one or more plumbing facilities.8 The Public Housing 
Administration definition of substandard housing which 
excludes “ deteriorating”  units requiring major repairs 
provided they have “ all plumbing facilities”  (see above, 
pp. 101-102, and Table 7) is unrealistic in describing the 
housing of low-income families, most of whom do not own 
their homes and are not financially able to make such re­
pairs. In the City of Boston in 1960 almost 12,000 nonwhite 
households (some 36,000 persons) lived in substandard 
housing as defined in Table 13. This number is over half 
(54.3 per cent) of all nonwhite households. About 47,000 
white households (89,000 persons), 23 per cent of all white 
owners and renters, lived in unsound housing as so de­
fined.9

In 11 of the 12 neighborhoods shown in Table 13, how­
ever, the proportion of all occupied housing which is sub­
standard exceeds the 1960 average for the City. In the

8 In the 1950 U.S. Census of Housing, standard housing as de­
fined here is “ not dilapidated,”  “ with all plumbing facilities.”  
See above, footnote 3 and footnotes 3 and 4, Table 13.

9 This estimate is based on the data shown in Tables 7 and 19. 
The number of households, by color, and by condition of housing, 
is shown in Table 7. The approximate number of white and non­
white persons is obtained by multiplying the number of house­
holds in substandard housing units (deteriorating, dilapidated or 
sound but lacking some or all plumbing facilities) shown by color 
of occupants in Table 7 by the average number of white and non­
white persons per household (Table 19).



108

lower Roxbury neighborhood, for example, over 82 per 
cent of the total population is nonwhite and over 60 per 
cent o f nonwhite occupied housing is classified as sub­
standard. The proportion of substandard housing is from 
two to over three times the City average in all the South 
End neighborhoods and in three of seven neighborhoods 
in the Roxbury-North Dorchester renewal area (Table 13, 
columns 2 and 3).

In four of the neighborhoods of large nonwhite popula­
tion substandard housing as a per cent of all occupied 
units is even higher than the per cent of nonwhite units 
which are substandard (columns 3, 4, Table 13). This 
fact seems to indicate that the small white population still 
living in these segregated neighborhoods is in an even 
more marginal situation than the nonwhite population.

The deterioration in housing in all these neighborhoods 
since 1950 is evident in the comparison of the proportion 
of substandard housing in 1950 (column 5, Table 13) with 
the much higher proportion in 1960 (column 3, Table 13). 
The difference is too great to be explained by the U.S. 
Census changes in definition of housing conditions (see 
Table 5, footnote 1). This deterioration in housing condi­
tion has accompanied the substantial increase in the per 
cent of population which is nonwhite in each of the 12 
neighborhoods shown in columns 4, 5 and 6, Table 15.

Crowding, as measured by the per cent of households 
with 1.01 or more persons per room in 1960, exceeds the 
city average in 9 of the 12 neighborhoods. The two excep­
tions in the South End, the North Tremont and South 
Tremont neighborhoods, are predominantly rooming- 
house sections in which housing conditions are among the 
worst in the City (see columns 8 and 3, Table 13).

The per cent of owner-occupants was substantially be­
low the average for the City of Boston in all 12 neigh­



109

borhoods in both 1950 and I960, and decreased between 
1950 and 1960 in all tlie South End neighborhoods and in 
one Roxbury neighborhood (Table 13, columns 6 and 
7). In 1960 the average per cent of home-ownership in 
Boston was 3 to 6 times greater than ownership in most 
of the South End neighborhoods.

X . T he  S egregated N egro N eighborhoods R esult  in  
H ig h  S ocial and  H u m an  Costs.

According to one recent authoritative study, “ . . . 
compulsory residential segregation . . . has far-reaching 
consequences which touch virtually every aspect of the 
life of the segregated group and of the relations between 
them and the dominant majority.”  Davis McEntire, “ Res­
idence and Race,”  Final and Comprehensive Report to 
the Commission on Race and Housing (University of Cali­
fornia Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1960), pp. 88-89.

Some of these consequences in the City of Boston, to the 
extent that quantitative measures are available, are shown 
in Tables 14 and 15. Table 15 measures juvenile delin­
quency, both as an average rate of juvenile court appear­
ances, 1951-1955 (column 9), by neighborhoods and for 
the City, and as the per cent of total juvenile court ap­
pearances from 1953 to 1957 (columns 10 and 11).

Although the per cent of total population aged 7 through 
16 years in 1960 was below the Boston City average in 
the South End in all but one neighborhood (column 8), 
the rate of juvenile court appearances was from 2 to about 
4 times as great as that for Boston as a whole. In the 
Roxbury—North Dorchester area the rate of court appear­
ances exceeded the Boston City average in 4 of 7 neighbor­
hoods, while the area accounted for about 25 per cent of 
total juvenile court appearances in Boston from 1953 to



110

1957, but less than 18 per cent of the youth population 
(Table 15, columns 8, 9, 10 and 11).

The incidence of morbidity and mortality in these 
blighted sections of Boston is indicated by Table 14. Col­
umns 6 and 7 show death rates from pulmonary tubercu­
losis by neighborhoods and for the City for two different 
time periods. In both periods the City average rate (twice 
as high as the rate for the Commonwealth) was greatly 
exceeded in every South End neighborhood and in 7 of 
9 Boxbury-North Dorchester neighborhoods. Despite the 
improvement between the two periods, the death rate from 
pulmonary tuberculosis was from over 5 to 9 times the 
City average in three South End neighborhoods in the 
later period. The annual rate of new pulmonary tubercu­
losis cases exceeded the City rate in all but one of the 
12 neighborhoods during 1955-59 (column 8). Bates in 
the South End were from 2 to over 7 times the City aver­
age, and in Boxbury-North Dorchester ranged upward 
to 2% times the City average rate.

Infant mortality rates, shown as averages for 1955-59 
and 1947-51 in columns 10 and 11, Table 14, exceeded the 
City average in 11 of 12 neighborhoods in the more re­
cent period, and actually increased between the earlier 
and later periods in 3 of the 5 South End neighborhoods 
despite the decline in the average City rate.

In general the data presented in Tables 13, 14 and 15 
indicate the high correlation between the concentration of 
Negroes into blighted slum areas and the incidence of de­
linquency, preventable disease and death. They also show 
the low average educational attainment and incomes which 
accompany and are reinforced by the residential segrega­
tion of minorities (column 10, Table 13).

In 1949 the median annual income of all families and 
single-person households was below the City average in 
11 of the 12 neighborhoods. In the South End neighbor­



I l l

hoods incomes were below the Boston average by $1,000 
or more per year.

More recent income facts are shown in Table 11, which 
compares the 1959 total annual money incomes of white 
and nonwhite primary families renting substandard hous­
ing in Boston in 1960 by size of families. (The statistics 
in this table exclude single-person households and are not 
comparable with the data shown in Table 13. See foot­
notes, Tables 7, 11 and 13.)

Two-fifths of all nonwhite families had total money in­
comes of less than $3,000; almost 70 per cent were under 
$4,500. The corresponding percentages for white families 
were 30 and 50. The relatively high proportion of low- 
income families among nonwhites is evident for all family 
sizes shown in Table 11; the disparity is particularly 
great, however, for the larger families. About two-thirds 
of the nonwhite families of 3 or more persons but only 
about one-third of the white families, had incomes of 
under $4,500.

This color differential is reflected in the median annual 
family income for the sample, which was more than $1,000 
lower for all nonwhite than white families in 1959, a dif­
ference of 23 per cent. The median income of 3- or 4- 
person nonwhite families was lower than that of the same 
size white families by $1,400, or 27 per cent.

The comparable income averages for the Nation in 1959 
show that all families renting substandard units in Boston 
had incomes $1,500 lower than the national average for 
all urban families (including the South) and $1,700 lower 
(28 per cent) than the average for the Northeast region. 
The annual income of the nonwhite Boston families in­
cluded in Table 11 was below the average for all urban 
nonwhite families.



112

X T. U rban R en ew al , H ig h w ay  Construction  and Other 
G overnm ental  P rograms have D isplaced and w il l  Con­
tin u e  to D isplace M an y  L ow -incom e  and N egro F am ­
ilies .

Actions arising* from governmental programs which 
cause permanent displacement of persons from their 
homes include the demolition of residential structures, the 
rehabilitation of structures which increase rents or costs 
beyond the means of the former tenants or owners, the 
conversion of residential areas to other uses, the eviction 
of over-income tenants from public housing and the con­
version of entire renewal areas to different types of hous­
ing at increased rentals.

For example, the West End Urban Renewal project in 
Boston (U.R. Mass. 2-1) displaced 3,075 families who were 
living in the renewal area in 1955. The median gross 
monthly rent was $43. Relocation Plan, West End Land 
Assembly and Redevelopment Project U.R. Mass. 2-1 
(Boston Housing Authority, Urban Redevelopment Divi­
sion, Boston, Mass., March 16, 1955), pp. 8, 12. The forty- 
eight acres were sold to Charles River Parks, Inc., for 
the construction of buildings containing 2,200 new apart­
ments, to cover only 18 per cent of the land, leaving the 
rest for parking, open space and landscaping. Looking 
Forward with Pride to a Better Boston Through Urban 
Renewal (the Boston Redevelopment Authority, undated, 
unpaged). Although the Authority stated that “ the fam­
ilies displaced by the project will have first preference in 
the new dwelling units”  (ibid.), rentals for the new apart­
ments range from $175 to $450 a month.

When dislocation takes place in the course of any of 
these actions, the problems of relocation are particularly 
acute for the nonwhite groups. Urban renewal and other 
related public programs within the City are conducted in



113

areas of widespread deterioration and blight. The rela­
tive deterioration of housing and other incidence of blight, 
low-income status, disease and delinquency for those re­
newal areas in Boston which contain the majority of non­
white families are shown in detail in Tables 13, 14 and 
15. As described above, Tables 1, 2 and 3 show that the 
trend in the recent decade has consisted of an exodus of 
the white population and an increased concentration of 
low income Negroes in those blighted areas. The exodus 
from Boston has been particularly marked. The percent­
age decrease in the City of Boston between 1950 and 1960 
was substantially greater than that of the other 14 larg­
est cities in the United States. Washington, D.C., which 
lost 4.8 per cent of its population in that decade, ranked 
second. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the 
Census. U.S. Census of Population: 1960, General Popu­
lation Characteristics, United States Summary, Final 
Report PC (l)-lB , U.S. Government Printing Office, 
Washington, D.C., 1961, Table 63, pp. 176-185.

The great majority of persons dislocated in the course 
of urban renewal have been nonwhite and of low income. 
The situation in the United States as a whole is indicated 
by a recent report of the Urban Renewal Administration, 
Relocation Prom Urban Renewal Project Areas Through 
June, 1960 (Housing and Home Finance Agency, Wash­
ington 25, D.C.). As of June 30, 1960, about 107,000 fam­
ilies were living in properties acquired in 195 cities for 
322 local slum clearance and urban renewal project areas 
with federal assistance under Title I of the United States 
Housing Act of 1949, as amended (ibid. p. 6). Of 61,200 
relocated families reported by color, 69 per cent were non­
white (ibid. p. 7). More than half of the 85,154 families 
relocated as of June 30, 1960, were apparently eligible for 
admission to federally aided low-rent housing, on the basis 
of reported income (ibid- p. 9).



114

Urban renewal and limited-access highway programs to 
date in Boston have not affected the major concentrations 
of low-income minority population, but are scheduled to 
do so in the near future.

Exhibit 3, appended, shows that 37,195 families have 
been or will be permanently displaced from their homes 
as the result of urban renewal projects under Title I al­
ready completed or in active execution or planning in the 
Commonwealth. Only 3322 families had been relocated 
from projects as of December, 1961; 1731 of these from 
the West End (U.R. 2-3).

Of the 33,873 families to be dislocated by urban renewal 
in the Commonwealth, over 17,000 are now living in the 
South End and Roxbury-Nor th Dorchester “ General 
Neighborhood Renewal Plan”  areas of segregated non­
white population shown in Tables 13, 14 and 15. A  com­
parison of Exhibit 1 with Exhibit 2 shows that these highly 
segregated Negro areas are completely encompassed within 
these renewal-plan areas. I f  the average number of per­
sons per household is no higher than the average of 2.93 
for the entire City of Boston (Table 19), some 50,000 per­
sons will be displaced in these two areas alone. Exhibit 
3 shows that an estimated 13,295 families will be displaced 
in the South End (R. 56). This means the uprooting of 
practically the entire population now living in the South 
End “ General Neighborhood Renewal Plan Area,”  which 
is described by the Boston Redevelopment Authority as 
an area “ bounded by the B. and A. tracks, the Central 
Artery and the Inner Belt. The outer South End is some­
times identified as part of Lower Roxbury. However, the 
Inner Belt will cause it to become part of the South End.”  
The Boston Redevelopment Authority, “ The 90 Million 
Dollar Development Program for Boston,”  reprinted from 
the City Record issue of September 24, 1960 (unpaged). 
According to the same source, “ The South End needs a



115

major renewal effort. It will call for substantial clear­
ance to cut away the slums. Urban renewal of the South 
End should have a high priority.”

From these boundaries and U.S. 1960 Census of Popu­
lation data, the population of the area is estimated at about 
34,000 persons; approximately 40 per cent is nonwhite.1011

Exhibit 3 also shows that an estimated 3,940 families 
(some 11,500 persons) will be displaced as a result of the 
Washington Park Urban Renewal Project (R. 24), which 
is located in the Roxbury-North Dorchester “ General 
Neighborhood Renewal Plan Area.”  This area is de­
scribed in “ The 90 Million Dollar Development Program 
for Boston,”  cited above, as a section which is ‘ ‘ deteri­
orating rapidly.”  This document also states that the Re­
development Authority has received approval for survey 
and planning activities for a renewal project in the Wash­
ington Park area.

The population of the entire Roxbury-North Dorchester 
area, estimated at about 80,000, is about 54 per cent non­
white (Table 13, columns 1 and 2). The Washington 
Park project area (R. 24) is a relatively small section of 
the Roxbury-North Dorchester “ General Neighborhood 
Renewal Plan Area,”  however. The location and size of 
the Project area are shown on a map entitled “ Boston 
Redevelopment Authority Projects—September 1960”  in 
“ The 90 Million Dollar Development Program for Bos­
ton”  (The Boston Redevlopment Authority), reprinted 
from the City Record issue of September 24, 1960 (un­
paged). The Project area is also shown on a map, “ Rox­
bury-North Dorchester GNRP Area and Washington Park 10 11

10 In addition to the estimated population of 31,254 in South 
End “ Neighborhoods”  included in the renewal area, about 40 
per cent of the population in the “ Lower Roxbury”  neighborhood 
is in the South End renewal area (see footnote 2, Table 13).

11 See footnote 11 on next page.



116

Renewal Area,”  prepared by the Boston Redevelopment, 
1108 City Hall Annex, Boston, Mass., which shows street 
boundaries for the Project area as Townsend Street on 
the south, Washington Street on the west, Warren Street 
on the east and Dudley Street on the north. On the basis 
of these boundaries the population is estimated at about 
12,000 persons, approximately 70 per cent Negro in 
I960.11 This map shows that the Roxbury-North Dor­
chester GNRP adjoins the South End GNRP on the north, 
and is bounded by the New York, New Haven & Plartford 
Railroad on the west, Seaver Street and Franklin Park 
on the south, and Columbia Road and Massachusetts Ave­
nue on the east.

The neighborhoods most closely corresponding to the 
Washington Park project area, shown in Tables 13, 14 
and 15, are Warren Street and Dudley Street South. It 
can be seen in these tables that both the South End and 
Washington Park urban renewal projects are scheduled 
in areas of large nonwhite population, low incomes, high 
proportions of substandard housing and relatively little 
home-ownership.

Other areas of substantial nonwhite population slated 
for renewal are included in the project areas listed in Ex­
hibit 3; for example, sections of Cambridge and Malden.

Since urban renewal and other public programs in Bos­
ton have not yet affected the areas of greatest blight and

11 Census tracts in Boston and adjacent areas are shown by 
street boundaries in U.S. Bureau of the Census. U.S. Census of 
Population: 1950; volume III, Census Tract Statistics, Chapter 
6; U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1952. 
Total and non white population living in the Project Area was 
estimated for census tracts from U.S. Bureau of the Census; U.S. 
Census of Population: 1960; Advance Tables PH : 1, Population 
and Homing Characteristics, for the Boston Metropolitan Area; 
copies furnished by the Research Division, United Community 
Services of Metropolitan Boston.



117

highest minority concentration, the experience to date is 
an understatement of what can be expected when these new 
projects move into execution in the near future.

Yery substantial displacement will also result from the 
highway program throughout the metropolitan area, but 
particularly in the densely populated segregated sections 
of Boston and in Somerville, Cambridge and Medford. 
The basic highway program consists of eight major radial 
expressways leading into the heart of the metropolitan 
area from the suburbs and terminating at a circumferen­
tial inner-belt expressway. This plan was first developed 
in 1948. The basic plan is described in “ The Master 
Highway Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area”  by the 
Joint Board for the Metropolitan Master Highway Plan 
based upon a traffic survey by the Massachusetts Depart­
ment of Public Works, February 1, 1958.

At a public hearing on April 22, 1960, the Massachusetts 
Department of Public Works presented augmented plans 
for the remaining portion of this limited-access highway 
system, and recommended that the Inner Belt (Interstate 
Route 695) follow line “ A ,”  the Buggies Street, River 
Street, Elm Street route. The Massachusetts Department 
of Public Works, Anthony N. DiNatale, Commissioner, 
Edward J. McCarthy, Chief Engineer, “ Pertinent Data 
on Studies of the Inner Belt—I—695 and Northern Ex­
pressway, I—93,”  April 22, 1960, p. 1. The probable 
route of the Inner Belt is shown in Exhibit 2 as the divi­
sion between the South End GNRP and the Roxbury- 
North Dorchester GNRP.

In the center of the Lower Roxbury-South End area, the 
Inner Belt would interchange with the Southwest Express­
way (1-95), connected to Columbus Avenue and Tremont 
Street. Ibid,., “ The Innerbelt Summary,”  p. 1.

Data sheets included in the report indicate the approxi­
mate number of residential structures and households



118

which would be displaced. The following table summarizes 
estimated displacement, by city, resulting from the rec­
ommended Inner Belt Route A, and the Northern Express­
way, recommended line “ A ”  (Interstate Route 93). This 
is only a partial estimate of probable displacement, since 
it does not include the Southwest Expressway and other 
radials.

Estimated Demolition, Inner Belt and Northern 
Expressway.

No. of Residential No. of
City or Town 

3STON
Structures Households

B oston 292 797
B oston , C harlestow n 109 330

T o tal 401 1,127

C am bridge 369 1,211
Som erville 334 872
B rookline 292 797

T o tal , 4 cities 1,416 4,007

I f  there are no more than an average of 3 persons per 
household, this means a displacement of over 12,000 per­
sons from highway construction alone, a large number of 
whom will be nonwhite and of low income. Data summary 
sheets included in this report show that total displace­
ment in the metropolitan area due to the Inner Belt will 
range from 2,964 to 3,895 households (some 9,000 to 11,700 
persons) depending on which line the highway follows, 
and that displacement from the Northern Expressway 
will range from about 387 to 585 households (about 1,200 
to 1,755 persons). About 30 per cent of the estimated dis­
placement will be in Boston. Almost all the people dis­



119

placed in the Lower Roxbury-South End area of Boston 
(800 to 2,000 households, depending on which line is fol­
lowed) will be nonwhite.12

Persons forced to relocate because of urban renewal and 
expressway programs in the City of Boston alone will 
therefore total approximately 67,000; it is estimated that 
at least two-fifths are nonwhite.

XII. U rban R enew al , H ighw ay  C onstruction and Other

P ublic  P rograms have A lready W orsened th e  H ous­
ing  Conditions oe L ow -income and N egro F am ilies .

In the United States as a whole, through June, 1960, 
almost 1 in 10 displaced families for whom the condition 
of relocation housing was known were officially reported 
to have relocated in substandard housing, as locally de­
fined. Thirteen per cent of nonwhite families were re­
ported to have been relocated in substandard housing. No 
information on the condition of housing is available for 
an additional 16,000 families (19 per cent of all relocated

12 This is evident from a map included in the report of the De­
partment of Public Works, which shows all the alternative lines 
for the Inner Belt running through densely populated neighbor­
hoods of high nonwhite concentration, from Massachusetts Avenue 
near City Hospital, westward across Tremont and Columbus 
Streets, through the South End and Lower Roxbury neighbor­
hood to the railroad. The proposed interchange with the South­
west Expressway extends into Dudley Street at the northern tip 
of the Washington Park Project area. The neighborhoods in the 
line of these expressways are Lower Roxbury, Dudley Street East, 
Warren Street and Dudley Street South, the populations of which 
are from 25 to 82 per cent Negro (see Exhibit 1 and column 2, 
Table 15). Map showing “ All Lines Studied on Inner Belt”  is 
part of the report, “ Pertinent Data on Studies of the Inner Belt— 
1—695 and Northern Expressway 1—93,”  Massachusetts Depart­
ment of Public Works, Anthony N. DiNatale Commissioner, Ed­
ward J. McCarthy, Chief Engineer, April 22, 1960.



120

families) and 29,000 individual householders displaced. 
“ Relocation from Urban Renewal Project Areas Through 
June 30, 1960”  (Housing and Home Finance Agency, 
Urban Renewal Administration, Washington 25, D.C.), pp. 
11, 13. Although more than half of displaced families 
were found to be eligible for admission to public housing, 
only 18 per cent (14,147) were relocated in federally aided 
or other permanent public housing {Ibid. p. 7).

Although experience in Boston is limited so far, the evi­
dence to date indicates that many displaced families have 
either relocated in substandard housing or in areas desig­
nated for redevelopment, highway construction or other 
public clearance. The relocation areas and housing con­
ditions of more than half the families displaced by the 
New York Streets Project are unknown. Of the remain­
ing 368 families, only 15.5 per cent were placed in public 
housing, although 58 per cent were found to be eligible. 
The majority (over two-thirds) were relocated in private 
rentals. Boston Redevelopment Authority, Final Reloca­
tion Report, New York Streets, Project U.R.. Mass. 2-1, 
November, 1958, Exhibit C (unpaged).

The West End Project has accounted for most of the 
displacement in Boston under Title I to date. Of 3,075 
households originally in the area, 2,640 were families of 
2 or more persons. Some 70 per cent of the total popula­
tion were considered eligible for public housing. Grordon 
N. Glottsche, Relocation: Goals, Implementation and 
Evaluation of the Process with Reference to the West 
End Redevelopment Project in Boston Mass.; Master of 
City Planning Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Tech­
nology, June, 1960, p. 80.

Income data were available for about 1,230 of the fam­
ilies (2 or more persons); over half had annual incomes of 
under $3,600, and 72 per cent under $4,800 {ibid. p. 64). 
Some 200 relocation structures in 15 census tracts were



121

inspected and evaluated in this study. Three out of 4 
were found to be in areas of planned or potential urban 
renewal. Three-fifths of the structures were found to be 
in such poor condition as to be fit only for demolition or 
major rehabilitation (ibid. pp. 109-110).

“ From the evaluation of the result of West End relo­
cation, it would appear that there was not sufficient low 
rental and moderate rental housing in the inner Metro­
politan Area, including at least Boston, Cambridge, Chel­
sea, and Revere, to assure satisfactory relocation. . . . 
As it does not appear likely at present that the private 
housing industry will provide quantities of such housing, 
it seems necessary to construct subsidized low rental and 
controlled moderate rental housing . . .  by public action”  
(ibid. p. 12).

Since 1956 losses of housing units in the City of Boston 
due primarily to the City demolition program and clear­
ance under the first urban renewal projects have exceeded 
new construction and additions through conversion by an 
average of 785 units per year. The net loss in dwelling 
units from 1956 through 1959 totalled 3,139 units, or ac­
commodations for some 9,000 to 10,000 persons, mostly of 
very low incomes. Statement of Edward D. Hassan, 
Chairman, Boston Housing Authority, to the Committee 
on Public Housing, Boston City Council, February 16, 
1961, p. 30 (on file at the Boston Housing Authority).

XIII. T hebe  is a S evebe S hortage oe S ound  L ow-R ental, 
H ousing in  th e  B oston A b e a ; N egroes w ho  w ill  be 
D isplaced by  P ublic P bogbams abe at  the  Greatest 
D isadvantage because oe th e  D ual H andicaps oe L ow 
I ncome and  D iscrim ination .

“ Problems of discrimination in housing have come es­
pecially to the fore in connection with public programs of



122

slum clearance and urban renewal. Reconstruction of a 
slum usually requires the relocation of all or part of the 
resident population either temporarily or permanently. 
Since the residents, more often than not, are members of 
minority groups, efforts to rehouse them in non-slum areas 
collide with segregation barriers.”  Where Shall We 
Live, Report of the Commission on Race and Housing, 
University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 
1958, p. 7.

No comprehensive study of the housing market in the 
Boston area has been made in recent years in connection 
with the redevelopment program or for other public pur­
poses. As a result, there is no accurate information on 
the total housing stock by size of units, rentals and prices, 
geographic location and other characteristics which should 
be considered in determining whether decent, safe and 
sanitary dwellings at rentals within the financial means of 
displaced families are in fact available. In the absence of 
such a survey, recent U.S. Census data and other sources 
have been evaluated which indicate clearly that there is a 
very short supply of all types of housing in the Boston 
area and in particular a severe shortage of sound low- 
rental housing, both public and private.

Table 16 shows that the standard rental vacancy ratio 
for the City of Boston in 1960 was only 2.4 per cent, and 
even lower (1.4 per cent) for all housing units in the Met­
ropolitan area. This is the ratio of both sound and de­
teriorating vacant units with all plumbing facilities avail­
able for rent to the total number of housing units. Au­
thorities on housing consider such a ratio extremely low. 
According to the director of the Housing Research Center 
at Cornell University, “ Before the war, a 4 or 5 per cent 
gross vacancy was considered normal and not dangerous. 
Since the war, it has been shown, that the vacancy rates 
have generally been lower than this. However, in order



123

that families have the advantage of a competitive market, 
it is conservative to use a 4 per cent gross vacancy rate in 
any estimate of future housing need.”  Glenn H. Beyer, 
Housing; A Factual Analysis, New York, MacMillan Co., 
1958, pp. 284-285.

The gross rental vacancy ratio in the City of Boston in 
1960 was only 3.6 (8,708 units, sound or deteriorating, 
available for rent). There were only 13,000 year-round 
vacant units for rent or for sale, regardless of condition, 
available in the City of Boston in 1960. Over 17 per cent 
of these were reported as dilapidated and an additional 
23 per cent lacked some or all plumbing facilities (Table 
16). Although the great majority of families who will be 
displaced by urban renewal, highway construction and 
other public programs are low-income renters and some 
60 per cent of both white and nonwhite renters in sub­
standard housing are families of 3 or more persons (Table 
10), only 5,800 year-round non-dilapidated rental units 
with all plumbing facilities were available in the City in 
1960, and only 11,600 in the entire metropolitan area 
(Table 16).

An unknown proportion of these require major repairs 
or are located in areas scheduled for future clearance. It 
is obvious that many of the remaining vacant units which 
are in sound condition and not in clearance areas are un­
suitable for relocation purposes, because of location, size 
or rentals beyond the means of displaced families.

The median number of rooms in vacant units available 
for rent was only 3.4, as against an average of 4.6 rooms 
for all occupied units and 5.6 rooms for houses available 
for sale. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Hous­
ing: i960; Advance Reports, Housing Characteristics, 
Massachusetts HC (A l)-22 . U.S. Government Printing- 
Office, Washington, D.C., March 1961, Table 1, p. 7.



124

The housing problem of minority families in the Boston 
area is particularly severe because of the comparatively 
old age of the housing stock (Table 18) and the substantial 
per cent o f structures which lack central heating (Table 
17). The 1950 U.S. Census of Housing reported that over 
one-fourth of all dwelling units in the City of Boston 
lacked central heating. Many of these are the very old 
three-deckers for which Boston is famous. The costs of 
rehabilitating such structures, including the provision of 
modern and safe central heating systems required by the 
New England climate, are prohibitive. Yet these units, 
unless they lack plumbing facilities or are in a state of 
severe disrepair, would not be classified as substandard 
under the Public Housing Administration definition.

The 1950 U.S. Census of Housing also provided some in­
formation on the age of the housing stock. Table 18 indi­
cates one of the reasons for the extent of blight and the 
shortage of decent housing in the Boston area. Over four- 
fifths of the total housing stock in the City of Boston and 
more than 75 per cent in the entire Metropolitan area was 
over thirty years old in 1950, as against less than half for 
the entire United States. The classification by years built 
prior to 1920 in the 1940 U.S. Census of Housing shows 
the great age of much of Boston housing. At that time 
over 40 per cent of dwelling units were in structures which 
had been built before the start of the century; half of these 
were over sixty years old, and 8 per cent (14,000 dwelling 
units) were in structures built in 1859 or earlier.13

The table below indicates the very small amount of new 
private housing which has been built in the Boston area 
since 1950.

13 Classification by years built prior to 1920 was dropped from 
the 1950 U.S. Census of Housing.



125

Changes in the Total Housing Supply, City of Boston,
1950-1959.

Number of dwelling units, 1950: 222,079
Additions, 1950-59:

New Building
Private 5,769
Public 6,818

Total 12,587
Conversions 4,246

Total Additions 16,833
Losses, 1950-59 —9,857

Net Change 6,976

Number of dwelling units, 1959 229,055 14

Source: Statement of Edward D. Hassan, Chairman, Bos­
ton Public Housing Authority, to the Committee on Public 
Housing, Boston City Council, February, 1961 (pp. 30 and 
43) (on file at the Boston Public Housing Authority).

This total, of course, includes units which are dilapidated 
or in need of major repairs, units lacking’ essential plumb­
ing or central heating, and some which have been aban­
doned but are still standing. It is significant that a major 
part of the new supply consists of public housing. New 
private buildings provided only half as many units as were 
lost, primarily because of public programs.

According to this statement, “ The new private rental 
housing market in the city has been dormant for years

14 The 1960 U.S. Census of Housing reports a total of 238,547 
“ housing units”  in 1960. As explained above (Table 5, fn. 1), 
the new definition includes units which would not have been clas­
sified as “ dwelling units”  by the 1950 Census.



126

. . . current plans for the redevelopment of urban re­
newal areas contemplate the construction of new apart­
ments at minimum monthly rentals of $40 a room . . . 
the current average selling* price is estimated at $14,900 
for new houses. . . .  It appears . . . that families who 
cannot afford to pay more than $100 a month for housing- 
are faced with a tight housing situation, with availability 
limited for the most part to some small converted apart­
ment, substandard housing, or public housing. . . . New 
rental housing construction has been practically at a stand­
still for years. . . . Most new single family houses and 
available existing houses are within the capacity only of 
families in the upper levels of the income scale”  (pp. 
41-42).

The evidence is that there is no significant supply of 
low-rental housing in sound condition which is within the 
means of the majority of families now living in blighted 
areas and facing displacement, except in existing public 
housing units. Although families displaced from urban 
renewal projects have priority in federally assisted pub­
lic housing, it is not possible to accommodate such fam­
ilies in the existing supply.

In 1960 there were 3,600 state-aided and 9,844 federally 
aided public housing units in the City of Boston. Of these, 
only 1,867 or 14 per cent were occupied by nonwhite fam­
ilies. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Executive 
Department, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Massachu­
setts Commission Against Discrimination, Public Docu­
ment No. 163, p. 26.

The Public Housing Authority reports that the average 
annual number of applications for admission to federally 
aided units, 1955-60, has been about 4,600. At the most 
recent date reported, in 1960, 3,332 active eligible applica­
tions were on file waiting for units. The only vacancies 
available are from turnover, which amounted to only 1,990



127

units in 1959. Statement by Hassan, op. cit. pp. 57, 58. 
At the current rates of turnover it would take almost two 
years to place the present applicants alone. No new pub­
licly aided housing units are under construction except 
for 480 apartments specifically designed to accommodate 
the elderly. Statement by Hassan, ibid. p. 63.

But the families now renting substandard housing in the 
City of Boston who are living in areas of blight and dete­
riorated housing are predominantly younger families with 
children (see Table 10). According to the special 1960 
U.S. Census of families living in substandard housing (as 
officially defined), only one-fourth of white households and 
8 per cent of nonwhite households had heads aged sixty- 
five or over. Fifty-six per cent of the white renters and 
64 per cent of nonwhite had one or more minor children. 
Two-fifths of nonwhite primary families living in sub­
standard units had 2 or more minor children. U.S. Bureau 
of the Census. U.S. Census of Housing: i960 ; Special- 
Reports for Local Housing Authorities, Boston, Mass., 
HC ( Si ) -67; U.S. Government Printing Office, Washing­
ton, D.C., Table 1, p. 8.

On June 5, 1961, the Boston City Council approved the 
application of the Boston Housing Authority to the Pub­
lic Housing Administration, Washington, D.C., for an ad­
ditional 1,000 units of federally aided low rent housing. 
These units, now in the planning stage, will be predomi­
nantly one-bedroom apartments intended for occupation 
by the elderly. The 1,480 publicly aided units under con­
struction or planned, together with the normal annual 
turnover of about 2,000, total less than 3,500 available 
units, or less than the averag*e annual number of eligible 
applicants in recent years prior to massive demolitions 
from urban renewal and highway construction such as are 
now scheduled for Boston. Furthermore, these units are 
intended primarily for elderly occupants, but the majority



128

of families who will be displaced by urban renewal and 
other public programs are Negro and have young children. 
It thus appears that neither private nor public low-rent 
decent housing is presently available or is contemplated 
for the rehousing of these families.



T-A-BEE

POPULATION CHANGES BY RACE, MASSACHUSETTS, 19 50-60

N u m b e r  o f  P e r s o n s P e r c e n t  N o n w h i t e  c 
T o t a l  P o p u l a t i o nT o t a l W h ite N o n w h i te , ' " “I

T o t a l N e g r o A l l  O t h e r A l l N e g r o

M a s  s a c h u s e t t s  
1950 
I 9 6 0
C h a n g e  1 9 5 0 - 6 0 , N u m b e r

P e r c e n t

4 , 6 9 0 ,  514  
5 , 1 4 8 , 5 7 8  

4 8 5 , 0 6 4  
9 . 8

4, 6 1 1 ,  503 
5 , 0 2 3 , 1 4 4  

4 1 1 ,  641
8 . 9

7 9 , O i l  
125 , 4 3 4  

4 6 , 4 2 3  
5 8 .  8

73 , 171 
111 , 8 4 2  

3 8 , 6 7 1  
52.. 8

5, 840  
1 3 ,5 9 2  

7 , 7 5 2  
132 . 7

1 .7  
2 . 4

1. 6 
2. 2

B o s t o n  C i t y  
1950 
I9 6 0
C h a n g e  1 9 5 0 - 6 0 , N u m b  e r 

P e r c e n t  ,

8 0 1 ,  4 4 4  
6 9 7 ,  197 

- 1 0 4 , 2 4 7  
- 1 3 . 0

7 5 8 , 7 0 0  
6 2 8 , 7 0 4  

-1 2 9 , -9 9 6  
- 1 7 .  1

•42, 7 4 4  
68 , 493 
25 , 749  

60 .  2

4 0 , 0 5 7  
6 3 , 1 6 5  
23 ,  108 

5 7 . 7

2, 687 
5, 238 
2, 641 

9 8 .  3

5 . 3 
9 . 8

5. 0
9 . 0

B o s t o n  S t a n d a r d  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a  
1950 
1960
C h a n g e  1 9 5 0 - 6 0 ,  N u m b e r  

P e r c e n t

2, 3 6 9 ,  986  
2, 5 1 3 ,  161 

1 4 3 ,1 7 5  
6. 0

2, 3 1 4 ,  261 
2, 4 2 7 ,  045 

112, 784
4 . 9

55, 725  
86 ,  116 
30 ,  391 

5 4 .  5

5 1 , 7 5 8  
76 ,  9 1 4  
2 5 , 1 5 6  

4 8 .  6

3 , 697 
9 ,  202  
5, 235 
132 . 0

2. 4 
3 . 4

2. 2 
3 . 1

B o s t o n  S u b u r b s  
1950 
I9 6 0
C h a n g e  1 9 5 0 - 6 0 , N u m b e r

P e r c e n t

1 , 5 6 8 , 5 4 2  
1, 8 1 5 ,  6 9 4  

2 4 7 ,1 5 2  
15. 8

1, 5 55 , 561 
1, 7 9 8 ,  341 

2 4 2 ,  780  
15. 6

1 2 ,9 8 1  
1 7 ,6 2 3  

4, 642  
3 5 .  8

11, 701 
1 3 ,7 4 9  

2, 048 
17. 5

1, 280 
3, 8 7 4  
2, 594  
2 0 2 .  6

0. 8 
1. 0

0. 7 
0. 8

P r e d o m i n a n t l y  o r i e n t a l ;  64  p e r c e n t  o f  a l l  o t h e r  n o n w h ite  in  M a s s a c h u s e t t s  in  I 9 6 0  an d  o v e r  70  p e r c e n t  in  th e

B o s t p n  a r e a . s u b t r a c t e d  f r o m  th eA s  d e f i n e d  in  19 50 E l e v e n  t o w n s  a d d e d  to  th e  S t a n d a r d  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a  in  I9 6 0  w e r e
A s  d e f i n e d  m  i ^ U .  *  T h g  t o t a l  p o p u l a t i o n  o f  t h e s e  t o w n s  w a s  76 ,  140, n o n w h ite  p o p u l a t i o n  9 7 6  an d

t o t a l  t o  p e r m i t  1950  c o m p a r i s o n s .
N e g r o  p o p u l a t i o n  867  in  I 9 6 0 .

3 S ta n d a r d  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a  l e s s  th e  C ity  o f  B o s t o n .
U . S . C e n s u s  o f  P o p u l a t i o n :  I 9 6 0 .  G e n e r a l  P o p u l a t i o n  C h a r a c t e r -

U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C .  , 1 9 6 1 .
T a b l e  14, p .  2 3 * 2 9 ,  T a b l e  15, p .  2 3 * 3 0 ,  T a b l e  21 ,  p .  2 3 - 7 8 ,  p . 2 3 - 8 0 .  
U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  P o p u l a t i o n :  19 5 0 . V o l u m e  II, C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s  o f  the

M a s s a c h u s e t t s .  U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r in t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D. C .  , 1 9 5 2 .  I n t r o d u c t i o n ,  
X X X ,  T a b l e  33 ,  p .  2 1 - 6 3 ,  p . 2 1 - 5 8 ,  T a b l e  3 4 ,  p .  2 1 - 6 6 ,  p . 2 1 - 6 7 .

S o u r c e s : U .S ,.  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s . ________
i s t i c s ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s .  F i n a l  R e p o r t  P C  (1 )  -  2 3 B . 
I n t r o d u c t io n ,  p"! X II ,  T a b l e  13, jn  2 3 * 2 7 ,  T a b l e  14, 

U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  
P o p u l a t i o n ,  P a r t  21,



T A B L E  2

P O P U L A T I O N  C H A N G E S  B Y  R A C E ,  M A S S A C H U S E T T S  C O M P A R E D  W I T H

T H E  U N I T E D  S T A T E S ,  1 9 5 0 - 6 0

P o p u l a t i o n  C h a n g e ,  1 9 5 0 - 6 0 ,  P e r c e n t s ________  N o n w h i t e  P e r c e n t  o f
T o t a l  W h ite N o n w h i te 1 T o t a l P o p u l a t i o n

T o t a l N e g r o A l l  O t h e r  * 1 9 ^ 0 ’ I9 6 0

M a s s a c h u s e t t s 9.-8 8 . 9 5 8 .  8 52 . 8 i 3 2. 7 1. 7 2 . 4

B o s t o n
C i t y - 1 3 . 0 - 1 7 .  1 6 0 .  2 5 7 .  7 9 8 .  3 5. 3 9 . 8

S t a n d a r d  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a ' 6 . 0 4 . 9 54 . 5 4 8 .  6 132 . 0 2. 4 3 . 4
3

S u b u r b s 15. 8 15. 6 3 5 .  8 17 . 5 2 0 2 .  6 0 . 8 1 . 0

U n i t e d  S t a t e s
T o t a l 18. 5 17. 5 26 . 7 2 5 .  4 10. 7 1 1 . 4

R u r a l - 0 .  8 0 . 2 - 8 .  8 1 1 . 4 1 0 .4

U r b a n

T o t a l 2 9 . 3 27 . 1 4 8 .  7 10. 3 11 . 8
4

C e n t r a l  C i t i e s 19. 8 1 3 .3 6 3 . 3 13 . 1 17. 8
S u b u r b s  ^ 3 8 .  8 4 0 .  1 2 3 .  1 7 . 5 6 .  7

^ M o s t l y  o r i e n t a l ,  s e e  T a b l e 1 a b o v e  f o r  M a s s a c h u s e t t s  a n d  T a b l e  4 4 ,  p . 1 - 1 4 4 , U n to e d  S t a t e s  S u m m a r y c i t e d  b e l o w .
A s  d e f i n e d  in  1950  b y  th e  U., S .  C e n s u s . (S e e T a b l e  1).

^ S ta n d a r d  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a  l e s s  th e  C i t y  o f  B oston ..  (S e e  T a b l e  1).
‘ C i t i e s  o f  50 ,  000  p o p u l a t i o n  o r  m o r e  in  I 9 6 0 ,  in  d e n s e l y  s e t t l e d  s e c t i o n s  d e s i g n a t e d  a s  " u r b a n i z e d  a r e a s "  b y  

th e  y.S. C e n s u s  ( S e e  I n t r o d u c t i o n ,  p p .  V III  -  I X ,  U n i t e d  S t a t e s  S u m m a r y  c i t e d  b e l o w ) .
^ T c t a l  u r b a n  p o p u l a t i o n  l e s s  c e n t r a l  c i t i e s .

S o u r c e s : S e e  th e  s o u r c e s  f o r  T a b l e  1. A l s o ,  U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S. C e n s u s  o f  P o p u l a t i o n :
196TT. G e n e r a l  P o p u l a t i o n  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,  U n ite d  S ta te s  S u m m a r y .  F i n a l  R e p o r t  P C  ( i )  -  I B .  U . U. G o v e r n ­
m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C . , 1 9 6 1 .  T a b l e  4 2 ,  p . 1 - 1 4 3 ,  T a b l e  4 4 ,  p . 1 - 1 4 4 ,  aricT I n t r o d u c t i o n ,  
p p .  V III  -  IX ,  p . X I .



T A B L E  3

C O N C E N T R A T IO N  O F  N O N W H IT E  P O P U L A T IO N  IN M A S S A C H U S E T T S , B Y A R E A  A N D  R A C E

1950  A N D  I 9 6 0

M a s s a c  h u s  e tt  s
B o s t o n  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a
C i t y  o f  B o s t o n

B o s t o n  N e i g h b o r h o o d s  
R o x b u r y
D o r c h e s t e r  N o r t h  
S o u th  E n d  

R e s t  o f  C i t y   ̂
S u b u r b s  o f  B o s t o n  
E l s e w h e r e  in  S ta te

M a s s a c h u s e t t s  
B o s t o n  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a  
C i t y  o f  B o s t o n  ^

B o s t o n  N e i g h b o r h o o d s  
R o x b u r y
D o r c h e s t e r  N o r t h  
S o u th  E n d  

•Rest o f  C i t y  
S u b u r b s  o f  B o s to n ^

E l s e w h e r e  in  S ta te  *

1950 , N u m b e r  o f  P e r s o n s  I 9 6 0 ,  N u m b e r  o f  P e r s o n s
T o t a l  N o n w h i te N e g r o O t h e r T o t a l  N o n w h i t e N e g r o O t h e r

7 9 , O i l 7 3 ,  171 5, 840 1 2 5 , 4 3 4 111, 8 4 2 1 3 ,5 9 2
5 5 , 7 2 5 51, 758 3 , 697 8 6 ,  116 7 6 , 9 1 4 9 , 202
4 2 , 7 4 4 4 0 , 0 5 7 2, 687 6 8 ,4 9 3 6 3 , 1 6 5 5, 238

3 7 , 5 3 0 3 6 ,  813 717
11, 235 10, 8 9 2 343
12, 448 9, 846 2, 602

7, 280 5, 6 1 4 1, 576
12, 981 1 1 ,7 0 1 1, 010 1 7 ,6 2 3 1 3 ,7 4 9 3, 9.64
2 3 , 2 8 6 21 , 413 2, 143 3 9 , 3 1 8 - 3 4 ,  928 4 , 3 9 0

1950 , P e r c e n t  D i s t r i b u t i o n s I 9 6 0 ,  P e r c e n t  D i s t r i b u t i o n s

100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0
7 0 .  5 7 0 .  8 6 3 . 3 68 . 6 68 . 8 67 . 7
54 . 1 54 . 8 4 6 .  0 54 . 6 56 . 5 3 8 .  5

2 9 .9 3 2 . 9 5. 3
9 .  0 9 . 7 2. 5
9 . 9 8 . 8 19. 1
5. 8 5. 0 11. 6

16, 4 16. 0 17. 2 14. 0 12. 3 29 . 2

29 . 5 29 . 2 3 6 .  7 3 1 . 3 3 1 . 2 3 2 .  3

* A s  d e f i n e d  b y  th e  U n i t e d  C o m m u n i t y  S e r v i c e s  o f  M e t r o p o l i t a n  B o s t o n .
^ B o s t o n  S t a n d a r d  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a  l e s s  C i t y  o f  B o s t o n .  (S e e  T a b l e  1).

T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  to  r o u n d in g .
S o u r c e s :  19 50 an d  I9 6 0  P o p u l a t i o n  b y  r a c e  f o r  s t a t e ,  m e t r o p o l i t a n  a r e a ,  c i t y  a n d  s u b u r b s .

(S e e  T a b l e  1). B o s t o n  n e i g h b o r h o o d s :  p o p u l a t i o n  b y  c o l o r  c o m p u t e d  f o r  n e i g h b o r h o o d s  i n  I 9 6 0  f r o m
c e n s u s  t r a c t  r e p o r t s  f o r  th e  C i t y  o f  B o s t o n ,  U. S. B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s ,  A d v a n c e  T a b l e s  P H - 1 .  
P o p u l a t i o n  a n d  H o u s in g  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s :  I 9 6 0 ,  in  N e i g h b o r h o o d s  o f  B o s t o n  R a n k e d  l o r  S e l e c t e d
F a c to r s " ,  " R e s e a r c h  D i v i s i o n , ” "U n i t e d  C o m m u n i t y  S e r v i c e s  o f  M e t r o p o l i t a n  B o s t o n ,  A p r i l  1961 .



T A B L E  4

C O N C E N T R A T I O N  O F  N O N W H I T E  P O P U L A T I O N  IN  T H E  B O S T O N  AREA

1950  A N D I9 6 0

1950 , P e r c e n t s I 9 6 0  P e r c e n t s
T o t a l

N o n w h i te N e g r o
T o t a l

N o n w h i t e Negro

B o s t o n  S t a n d a r d  M e t r o ­
p o l i t a n  Area-*- 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100.0

2
S u b u r b s 2 3 . 3 2 2 .  6 2 0 .  5 17.9

C i t y  o f  B o s t o n 7 6 .  7 7 7 .  4 79- 5 82.1

R o x b u r y  G N R P 3 3 6 .  8 3 8 . 8 4 5 .  7 50.2
S o u th  E n d  G N R P 3 2 9 .  4 3 0 .  1 15. 8 16.8
R e s t  o f  C i t y 10. 5 8 . 4 18. 0 15.2

* A s  d e f i n e d  in  1 9 5 0 .  ( S e e  T a b l e  1).
2B o s t o n  S t a n d a r d  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a  l e s s  th e  C i t y  o f  B o s t o n .
’ ’ G e n e r a l  N e i g h b o r h o o d  R e n e w a l  P l a n  A r e a s  e s t a b l i s h e d  b y  th e  B o s t o n  

R e d e v e l o p m e n t  A u t h o r i t y .  T h e  d e c r e a s e  in  N e g r o  p e r c e n t  o f  t o t a l  p o p u ­
l a t i o n  in  th e  S o u th  E n d  f r o m  1 950  t o  I 9 6 0  i s  th e  r e s u l t  o f  a  d e c r e a s e  o f  
a b o u t  18, 0 0 0  w h i t e  p o p u l a t i o n  ( - 4 7  p e r c e n t )  an d  2, 8 0 0  n o n w h i t e  
( - 1 7  p e r c e n t ) .

T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100  p e r c e n t  d u e  t o  r o u n d i n g .

S o u r c e s : B o s t o n  C i t y  an d  S t a n d a r d  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a :  S e e  T a b l e  1.
G e n e r a l  N e i g h b o r h o o d  R e n e w a l  P l a n  A r e a s  a r e  d e s c r i b e d  

a c c o r d i n g  t o  g e o g r a p h i c  b o u n d a r i e s  in  th e  9 0  M i l l i o n  D o l l a r  D e v e l o p m e n t  
P r o g r a m  f o r  B o s t o n ,  T h e  B o s t o n  R e d e v e l o p m e n t  A u t h o r i t y ,  J o h n  F .
C o l l i n s ,  M a y o r ,  E d w a r d  J . L o g u e ,  D e v e l o p m e n t  A d m i n i s t r a t o r ,  r e p r in t e d  
f r o m  th e  C i t y  R e c o r d ,  i s s u e  o f  S e p t e m b e r  24 ,  I 9 6 0  (u n p a g e d ) .  P o p u la t io n s  
f o r  t h e s e  a r e a s  W e r e  e s t i m a t e d  f r o m  U . S .  C e n s u s  t r a c t  d a ta  in  U . S .  B ureau  
o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  P o p u l a t i o n :  1950 . V o l .  I l l ,  C e n s u s  T r a c t  
S t a t i s t i c s ,  C h a p t e r  6 , U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D. C . , 
T932',  'T a b le  1, p p .  7 - 3 3 ,  a n d  U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s ,  A d v a n c e  
T a b l e s  P H - 1 .  P o p u l a t i o n  a n d  H o u s in g  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s :  196W, t a b l e s  f o r
c e n s u s  t r a c t s  w i t h in  th e  C i t y  o f  B o s t o n ,  f u r n i s h e d  b y  th e  R e s e a r c h  D iv is io n ,  
U n i te d  C o m m u n i t y  S e r v i c e s  o f  M e t r o p o l i t a n  B o s t o n .



T A B L E  5

T E N U R E  B Y  C O L O R , M A S S A C H U S E T T S , 1950 A N D  I9 6 0 , O C C U P IE D  H OUSING U N IT S 1

N u m b e r N o n w h i t e P e r c e n t D i s t r i b u t i o n

C i t y  o f  B o s t o n
T o t a l W h ite N o n w h i t e  % o f  T o t a l W h ite N o n w h i te

1950
O w n e r - o c c u p i e d  u n i ts 54 , 266 52, 686 1, 580 2 . 9 ,25. 4 1 3 .9
R e n t e r - o c c u p i e d  u n i ts 1 6 3 ,8 3 7 1 5 4 ,0 8 0 9, 757 6 .  0 7 4 .  6 8 b .  1

T o t a l 218 , 103 2 0 6 , 7 6 6 11, 337 5. 3 100 . 0 100 . 0
1960

O w n e r - o c c u p i e d  u n its 61 , 165 5 7 , 7 6 8 3, 397 5. 6 28 . 5 15. 7
R e n t e r - o c c u p i e d  u n its 163 , 267 1 4 5 ,0 4 8 18, 219 1 1 . 2 7 1 . 5 8 4 .  3

T  o t a l  , 224 , 43 2 2 02 , 8 1 6 21, 616 9 . 6 100 . 0 100 . 0
B o s t o n  S t a n d a r d  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a  

1950
O w n e r  - o c c u p i e d  u n its 2 8 7 ,8 6 1 2 8 5 , 0 2 2 2, 839 1. 0 4 5 .  1 19. b
R e n t e r - o c c u p i e d  u n i ts 3 5 8 ,  295 3 4 6 ,  632 11, 663 3 . 2 5 4 . 9 8 0 .  4

T o t a l 6 4 6 , 1 5 6 6 3 1 , 6 5 4 1 4 ,5 0 2 2. 2 100. 0 100 . 0
1960

O w n e r - o c c u p i e d  u n its 4 0 2 ,  618 3 9 7 , 1 5 3 5, 465 1 . 4 5 3 . 4 20 . 7
R e n t e r - o c c u p i e d  u n its 3 6 7 , 5 9 7 3 4 6 , 6 7 6 20, 921 5. 7 4 6 .  6 7 9 .  3

T o t a l 7 7 0 , 2 1 5 7 4 3 , 8 2 9 26, 386 3 . 4 1 00 . 0 100 . 0
M a s  s a c h u s  etts  

1950
O w n e r - o c c u p i e d  u n its 6 2 4 ,  838 6 1 9 , 7 7 5 5, 063 0. 8 4 8 .  2 25 . 4
R e n t e r - o c c u p i e d  u n i ts 6 8 0 ,  3 5 6 6 6 5 , 5 1 0 14, 846 2. 2 5 1 . 8 74. 6

T o t a l 1, 3 0 5 ,  194 1, 285 , 285 1 9 ,9 0 9 1. 5 100 . 0 1 00 . 0
1960

O w n e r - o c c u p i e d  u n its 8 5 7 , 3 7 8 8 4 8 ,  526 8, 8 5 2 1. 0 56 . 6 24 . 7
R e n t e r - o c c u p i e d  u n its 6 7 7 , 3 5 4 6 5 0 , 3 8 8 26, 9 9 6 1 .8 4 3 . 4 75 . 3

T o t a l 1, 5 3 4 ,  7 3 2 1, 4 9 8 , 9 4 6 3 5 , 818 100 . 0 100 . 0

l n H o u s in g  U n i t s "  in  I 9 6 0 ,  " D w e l l i n g  U n i t s "  in  195 0 . T h e  I 9 6 0  d e f i n i t i o n  in c l u d e s  s o m e  r o o m s  w i t h o u t  
s e p a r a t e  c o o k i n g  f a c i l i t i e s ,  w h i c h  w e r e  n o t  c o u n t e d  as  " d w e l l i n g  u n i t s "  in  1 9 5 0 .  ( S e e  " D e f i n i t i o n s  and  
e x p l a n a t i o n s , "  p p .  1 - 2 ,  A d v a n c e  R e p o r t  H C  ( A l )  22  c i t e d  b e l o w .  )

^ A s  d e f i n e d  in  195 0 . S e e  T a b l e  1.
T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  t o  r o u n d in g .

S o u r c e s :  U. S. B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :  195 0 . V o l .__I, G e n e r a l  c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,
P a r t  3 : Id a h o  - M a s  s a c h u s  e t t s . U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C . ,  19 5 3 , " t a b le  17, p p .  1 4 - 1 6 .

U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :  I 9 6 0 ,  H o u s in g  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,
M a s s a c h u s e t t s .  A d v a n c e  R e p o r t  H C  ( A  1) -  22 , U . S. G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C .  , M a r c h  
T 9 5 T  T a b l e  1, p . 5, 7; T a b l e  2, p . 14. —



T A B L E  6

C O N D I T I O N  O F  O C C U P I E D  H O U S IN G  U N IT S  B Y  T E N U R E  A N D  C O L O R  O F  H O U S E H O L D  H E A D

C I T Y  O F B O S T O N , I9 6 0

N u m b e r  o f U n its N o n w h i t e P e r c e n t D i s t r i b u t i o n

C O N D I T I O N
T o t a l W h ite N o n w h i te % o f  T o t a l W h ite N o n w h i t e

O w n e r - o c c u p i e d  U n its

S o u n d  w i th  a l l  p lu m b i n g  f a c i l i t i e s 52 , 957 50 , 976 1 ,9 9 0 3 . 8 8 8 .  2 5 8 .  6
L a c k i n g  s o m e  o r  a l l  p lu m b i n g 1, 289 1, 196 93 7. 2 2. 1 2 . 7

T o t a l 54 , 246 52, 162 2, 083 3 . 8 9 0 .  3 6 1 ,  3

D e t e r i o r a t i n g  w i t h  a l l  p lu m b i n g 5, 4 7 5 4 , 433 1, 042 19. 0 7 . 7 3 0 .  7
L a c k i n g  s o m e  o r  a l l  p lu m b i n g 640 535 105 1 6 . 4 0 . 9 3 .  1

T o t a l 6, 115 4, 968 1, 147 1 8 .8 8 .  6 3 3 .  8

D i la p id a t e d 8 0 4 637 167 20 . 8 1. 1 4 . 9

T o t a l ,  O w n e r - o c c u p i e d 61 , 165 5 7 , 7 6 8 3, 397 5. 6 1 00 . 0 1 00 . 0

R e n t e r w o c e u p i e d  U n its

S o u n d  w i t h  a l l  p lu m b i n g  f a c i l i t i e s 1 1 2 ,9 8 1 1 0 5 ,1 0 8 7 , 8 7 3 7 .  0 7 2 .  5 4 3 .  2
L a c k i n g  s o m e  o r  a l l  p lu m b i n g 14, 3 8 7 13, 267 1, 120 7 . 8 9 .  1 6. 1

T o t a l 1 2 7 ,3 8 6 118 , 393 8 , 9 9 3 7. 0 8 1 .  6 49 , 3

D e t e r i o r a t i n g  w i t h  a l l  p lu m b i n g 2 0 , 2 2 7 15, 046 5, 181 2 5 .  6 10. 4 2 8 .  4
L a c k i n g  s o m e  o r  a l l  p lu m b i n g 9, 621 7, 4 9 2 2, 129 22 . 1 5 . 1 1 1 . 7

T o t a l 2 9 , 8 4 8 2 2 5 , 5 3 8 7, 3 1 0 2 4 .  5 15. 5 4 0 .  1

D i la p id a t e d 6, 051 4, 13 5 1 ,9 1 6 3 1 . 7 2 . 8 10 . 5

T o t a l ,  R e n t e r - o c c u p i e d  
T o t a l  O c c u p i e d  H o u s in g  U n its

163 , 267 
2 2 4 ,  43 2

1 4 5 ,0 4 8  
2 0 2 ,  8 1 6

1 8 ,2 1 9  
21, 6 1 6

11. 2
9 . 6

1 0 0 ..0 . 100 . 0

T  e n u r  e
O w n e r - o c c u p i e d  U n its 61 , 165 5 7 , 7 6 8 3, 3 9 7 5 . 6 28 . 5 15. 7
R e n t e r - o c c u p i e d  U n its 1 6 3 ,2 6 7 1 4 5 ,0 4 8 1 8 ,2 1 9 11. 2 7 1 . 5 8 4 .  3
T o t a l  O c c u p i e d  U n its  

T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  to

2 2 4 ,  43 2 

r o u n d i n g .

2 0 2 ,  8 1 6 2 1 , 6 1 6 9 . 6 100 . 0 100 . 0

S o u r c e : U . S .  B u reau  of the C e n su s . U . S .  C en su s of H ou sin g : I9 6 0 . H ousing C h a r a c te r is t ic s ,
M a s s a c h u s e tts , A dvan ce R ep ort HC (A  1) -  2 2 , U . S .  G o vern m en t P rin tin g  O ffic e , W ash in gton , D . C . , 
M a rc h  1961 . ' T a b le  1, p . 5, 7.' T a b le  2, p . 14.



T A B L E  7

S U B S T A N D A R D  U N I T S ,1 A L L  H O U S E H O L D S  A N D  P R I M A R Y  F A M I L I E S , * 2 

B Y  C O L O R  O F  H O U S E H O L D  H E A D  A N D  C O N D I T I O N  O F  H O U S IN G , C I T Y  O F  B O S T O N ,  I9 6 0

S u b s t a n d a r d  O c c u p i e d  H o u s in g  U n its  
S o u n d ,  N o  h o t  w a t e r

N o  p r i v a t e  b a th  
N o  p r i v a t e  t o i l e t  
L a c k i n g  p i p e d  w a t e r  

T o t a l

D e t e r i o r a t i n g ,  N o  h o t  w a t e r
N o  p r i v a t e  b a th  
N o  p r i v a t e  t o i l e t  
L a c k i n g  p i p e d  w a t e r  

T o t a l

D i la p id a t e d

T o t a l  S u b s t a n d a r d  
P r i m a r y  F a m i l i e s  in  S u b s t a n d a r d  

R e n t a l  U n its

A H  O c c u p i e d  H o u s in g  U n its

S u b s t a n d a r d ,  P e r c e n t  o f  A l l  O c c u p i e d  U n its

P r i m a r y  F a m i l i e s  in  S u b s t a n d a r d  R e n t a l  U n its  
P e r c e n t  o f  a l l  O c c u p i e d  U n its  
P e r c e n t  o f  S u b s t a n d a r d  O c c u p i e d  U n its

N u m b e r  o f  H o u s e h o l d s  ____ N o n w h i t e
T o t a l W h ite N o n w h i t e P e r c e n t  o f  T o t a l

1, 840 1, 504 3 3 6
4, 161 4 , 062 99
9 ,  697 8, 917 780

15 15 -
1 5 ,6 7 6 1 4 ,4 6 3 1, 213 7 .  7

1, 4 1 6 837 579
•2, 836 2, 703 133
6, 417 4 , 9 0 0 1, 517

11 7 4
21 . 81 0 ,2 6 1 8, 027 2, 234

6, 855 4 , 772 2, 083 3 0 .  4

3 2 ,  7 9 2 2 7 , 2 6 2 5, 530 16. 9

1 1 , 5 6 4 9, 345 2, 219 19. 2

2 2 4 ,  43 2 2 0 2 ,  816 21 , 616 9 .  6

P e r c e n t s

14 . 6 1 3 . 4 25 . 6

5. 2 4 .  6 1 0 .3
3 5 .  3 3 4 .  3 4 0 .  1

■'■Substandard U n i t s :  Defined b y  th e  P u b l i c  H o u s in g  A d m i n i s t r a t i o n ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C .  , a s  e i t h e r
d i l a p id a t e d  o r  l a c k i n g - o n e  o r  m o r e  o f  th e  f o l l o w i n g  p lu m b i n g  f a c i l i t i e s :  h o t  an d  c o l d  p i p e d  w a t e r  i n s i d e  th e
s t r u c t u r e ,  f l u s h  t o i l e t  i n s i d e  th e  s t r u c t u r e  f o r  e x c l u s i v e  u s e  o f  th e  h o u s e h o l d ,  an d  b a th  tu b  o r  s h o w e r  i n s i d e  
th e  s t r u c t u r e  f o r  e x c l u s i v e  u s e  o f  th e  h o u s e h o l d ,

2 P r i m a r y  F a m i l i e s :  H o u s e h o l d  h e a d  a n d  r e l a t e d  p e r s o n s  in  h o u s e h o l d :  s i n g l e  p e r s o n  h o u s e h o l d s
( p r i m a r y  in d i v i d u a l s )  a r e  e x c l u d e d .

S o u r c e s :  U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s , U . S . C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :  I 9 6 0 ,  H o u s in g  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,
M a s s a c h u s e t t s . A d v a n c e  R e p o r t s  H C  ( A  1) -  22 ,  U. S. G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C . ,
M a r c h  1 9 6 l .  T a b l e  1, p . 7 a n d  T a b l e  2, p . T4.

U. S. B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :  I 9 6 0 .  S p e c i a l  R e p o r t s  f o r  L o c a l
H o u s in g  A u t h o r i t i e s ,  B o s t o n ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s .  H C  (S  1) -  67 ,  U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  
W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C .  , 1961 . T a b l e  A ,  p . 1, T a b l e  1, pp.' 8 , 9 ,  a n d  I n t r o d u c t i o n ,  p p .  1 - 5 .



T A B L E  8

M O N T H L Y  R E N T S ,  P R I M A R Y  F A M I L I E S  IN  S U B S T A N D A R D  
R E N T A L  U N I T S 1 B Y  C O L O R  O F  H E A D ,  I 9 6 0  A N D  195 4 , A N D  

A L L  R E N T E R - O C C U P I E D  U N IT S ,  I 9 6 0 ,  C I T Y  O F  B O S T O N

I 9 6 0 ,  F a m i l i e s 1954 , F  am ilies
T o t a l  W h i t e  N o n w h i t e T o t a l White-

N u m b e r  o f  F a m i l i e s
P a y i n g  c a s h  r e n t 11, 387 9 , 199 2, 188
R e p o r t i n g  r e n t ,  P e r c e n t 8 4 .  1 8 6 .  6 7 3 .  5

E s t i m a t e d  n u m b e r 9, 600 8, 000 1, 600

2M o n t h ly  G r o s s  R e n t ,  P e r c e n t s
L e s s  th a n  $3 0 1. 5 1 .7 1. 2 4 .  1 4 .7
L e s  s th a n  $ 4 0 7. 7 8 . 4 4 .  7 2 9 . 9 2 9 . 0
L e s s  th a n  $50 26 . 1 28 . 1 16. 3 7 2 .  4 72 ,1
L e s s  th a n  $60 52 . 7 55 . 7 3 8 .  1 8 9 . 4 8 9 ,0
O v e r  $ 6 0

T  o t a l 4 7 .  2 4 4 .  3 6 1 . 7 10. 5 11 , 0
$ 6 0  -  $69 20. 0 19. 4 2 3 . 2
$ 7 0  -  $79 15. 6 14. 3 2 1 . 8
$ 8 0  -  $99 9 . 5 8 .  7 14 . 0
$ 1 0 0  o r  m o r e 2 . 1 1 .9 2. 7

T  o t a l 100 . 0 1 0 0 .  0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100., 0

M e d i a n  g r o s s  m o n t h l y  r e n t $59 $57 $65 $ 4 4 $44

M e d i a n  c o n t r a c t  m o n t h l y  r e n t  $37 $35 $ 4 4 $25 $25

M e d i a n  c o n t r a c t  m o n t h l y  r e n t  
A l l  r e n t e r - o c c u p i e d  u n i t s ,
C i t y  o f  B o s t o n  $63 * 3

* F o r  d e f i n i t i o n s  o f  P r i m a r y  F a m i l i e s  a n d  S u b s t a n d a r d  R e n t a l  U n i t s , 
s e e  T a b l e  7.

^ I n c lu d e s  a v e r a g e  m o n t h l y  c o s t  o f  f u e l  a n d  u t i l i t i e s ,  i f  n o t  i n c l u d e d  
in  c o n t r a c t  r e n t .

3 A g r e e d - u p o n  r e n t ,  r e g a r d l e s s  o f  w h e t h e r  f u e l ,  u t i l i t i e s ,  f u r n i t u r e  
o r  o t h e r  c o s t s  a r e  i n c l u d e d .

T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  t o  r o u n d i n g .

S o u r c e s :  U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  F a m i l y  I n c o m e  a n d  R e n t
S u r v e y ,  B o s t o n ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s ,  U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  " 
W a s h in g t o n ,  D .  C .  , A p r i l  196^7  T a b l e  3 ,  p .  10.

U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s i n g : 
I 9 6 0 .  S p e c i a l  R e p o r t s  f o r  L o c a l  H o u s in g  A u t h o r i t i e s ,  B o s t o n , 
M a s s a c h u s e t t s ,  H C  (S 1) -  67 ,  U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  
W a s h in g t o n ,  D .  G . , 1 9 6 1 .  T a b l e  2, p .  9 ,  an d  I n t r o d u c t i o n ,  p p .  1 - 5 .

U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S . ,  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s i n g : 
I 9 6 0 .  A d v a n c e  R e p o r t s ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s ,  H C  ( A  1) -  22, U . S .  G o v e r n ­
m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D .  C .  , 19$ 1. T a b l e  1, p . 7.



T A B L E  9

G R O S S  A N N U A L  R E N T  A S  P E R C E N T  O F  A N N U A L  F A M I L Y  I N C O M E  

P R I M A R Y  F A M I L I E S  IN S U B S T A N D A R D  R E N T A L  U N IT S ,  1 C I T Y  O F  B O S T O N ,  I9 6 0

P e r c e n t a g e  D i s t r i b u t i o n ,  N u m b e r o f  F a m i l i e s b y  I n c o m e an d  C o l o r

A l l  I n c o m e s  I n c o m e s u n d e r  $ 2 0 0 0 I n c o m e s  $ 2 0 0 0 - 2 9 9 9
W h ite  Nop. w h i t e  W h i t e N o n w h i t e W h ite N o n w h i t e

R e n t - I n c o m e  R a t i o

L e s s  th a n  17. 5% 5 8 .  0 3 7 .  0 6. 6 4 .  1 7. 2 5. 0

17. 5 t o  22 . 4% 12. 5 17. 3 1. 6 4 . 9 20 . 6 1 1 .7

2 2 . 5 to  3 2. 4% 1 3 .5 1 8 .3 7. 4 4 . 9 4 7 .  4 3 3 . 3

3 2 .  5% o r  m o r e 16. 1 27 . 4 8 4 .  3 8 6 .  1 24 . 7 50 . 0

A l l  f a m i l i e s 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 1 00 . 0 100 . 0

I n c o m e s $ 3 0 0 0 - 3 9 9 9 I n c o m e s $ 4 0 0 0  -  5999 I n c o m e s  $ 6 0 0 0  a n d  Ove3
W h ite N o n w h i te W h ite N o n w h i t e W h ite N o n w h i t e

R e n t - I n c o m e  R a t i o

L e s s  th a n  17. 5% 2 9 .8 18. 7 7 8 . 8 6 1 . 9 9 7 .  9 9 7 .  0

17. 5 t o  22 .  4% 3 2 . 4 3 2 .  5 1 5 .9 28 . 8 2. 0 3 . 0

22 . 5 to  3 2. 4% 3 5 .  9 4 3 . 9 5. 3 9 . 3 - -

3 2. 5% o r  m o r e 1 .8 4 . 9 - - - -

A l l  f a m i l i e s 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0

1F o r  d e f i n i t i o n  o f  P r i m a r y  F a m i l i e s  a n d  S u b s t a n d a r d  U n i t s , s e e  T a b l e  7.

T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  t o  r o u n d i n g .

S o u r c e : u - s - B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U. S. C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :  I 9 6 0 .  S p e c i a l  R e p o r t s  f o r  L o c a l
H o u s in g  A u t h o r i t i e s ,  B o s t o n ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s ,  H C  (S 1) - 6 T ~, U. S . G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e  
W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C . , 1961 . T a b l e  4, p . 10, a n d  I n t r o d u c t i o n ,  p p .  1 - 5 .



T A B L E  10

N U M B E R  O F  P E R S O N S  P E R  H O U S E H O L D ,  P R I M A R Y  F A M I L I E S  IN 

S U B S T A N D A R D  R E N T A L  U N IT S ,  1 C I T Y  O F  B O S T O N ,  I 9 6 0 ,  B Y  C O L O R

N u m b e r  o f  H o u s e h o l d s P e r c e n t  D i s t r i b u t i o n
T o t a l W h ite N o n w h i t e T o t a l W h ite N o n w h i t e

2 p e r s o n s 4, 658 3 , 768 890 4 0 .  3 4 0 . 3 4 0 .  1
3 p e r s o n s 2, 428 2, 0 0 2 4 2 6 21 . 0 2 1 . 4 19. 2
4  p e r s o n s 1, 919 1, 628 291 16. 6 17. 4 13. 1
5 p e r s o n s 1, 162 933 2 2 9 10. 0 10 . 0 10. 3
6 p e r s o n s 655 509 146 5 . 7 5 . 4 6 . 6
7 p e r s o n s 3 6 5 275 90 3 .  2 2 . 9 4 .  0
8 o r  m o r e  p e r s o n s 377 23 0 147 3 . 3 2. 5 6. 6

T o t a l  N u m b e r 11, 564 9, 345 2, 219 1 00 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0

G r o u p e d  C l a s s e s

2 p e r s o n s 4 0 .  3 4 0 .  3 4 0 .  1
3 an d  4  p e r s o n s 3 7 .  6 3 8 .  8 3 2 .  3
5 o r  m o r e  p e r s o n s 22 . 2 2 0 .  8 27 . 5

T o t a l 1 00 . 0 1 00 . 0 1 00 . 0

F o r  d e f i n i t i o n s  o f  P r i m a r y  F a m i l i e s  a n d  S u b s t a n d a r d  U n i t s ,  s e e  T a b l e  7. 
T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  t o  r o u n d i n g .

.  ^ °-v-5 C e : . “ . o .  b u r e a u  or m e  C e n s u s .  U . S . C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :  I 9 6 0 .  S p e c ia l
A u t h o r i t i e s , B o s t o n ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s ,  H C ( S l ) - 6 7 ,  US.  C o v e r n m e r  

O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C .  , 1 9 6 1 ,  T a b l e  1, p .  9" ------

R e p o r t s  f o r  
P r i n t i n g



TABLE

F A M IL Y  IN C O M E 1 B Y  C O L O R  A N D  S IZ E  O F  F A M I L Y , 1959 A N D  1953  

P R I M A R Y  F A M I L I E S  IN  S U B S T A N D A R D  R E N T A L  U N IT S , 2 C I T Y  O F  B O S T O N  A N D  U . S .  C O M P A R I S O N S

1 1

S i z e  o i  F a m i l y  a n d  C o l o r  b y I n c o m e

A l l  F a m i l i e s  2 P e r s o n s 3 o r  4  P e r s o n s 5 p i - M o r e  P e r s o n s
T o t a l  W h i t e  N o n w h i t e  W h i t e  i^ o n w h ite W h i t e  H o n w h i f e WJtS&ea? N onw hifre

A n n u a l  F a m i l y  I n c o m e P e r c e n t  o f F a m i l i e  s

B o s t o n ,  1959
L e s s  th a n  $ 1 5 0 0 L2. 1 11. 4 15. 9 21 . 2 18. 0 5. 7 1 9 . 2 3 .  8 n .  0
L e s s  th a n  $3 000 3 1 .  0 2 9 . 4 4 0 .  0 4 8 .  5 4 8 .  2 1 9 . 4 3 8 .  0 1 1 . 4 3 3 . 8
L e s s  th a n  $ 4 5 0 0 5 3 . 5 5 0 . 7 6 9 . 1 7 0 .  8 7 5 .  5 3 6 .  6 6 2 . 6 3 8 .  2 6 8 .  6
L e s s  th a n  $ 6 0 0 0 7 2 .  4 6 9 .9 8 5 .  1 8 3 . 7 9 0 .  2 6 2 .  2 8 1 . 9 58 . 5 8 3 .  1
$ 6 0 0 0  an d  O v e r 27 . 5 3 0 .  0 14. 8 16. 1 9 . 7 3 7 .  8 17. 9 4 1 .  5 16. 9

T o t a l 100. 0 100. 0 100. 0 100. 0 100. 0 100. 0 100. 0 100. 0 100. 0

B o s t o n ,  1953^ $3 200 $ 3 3 0 0

M  e d  i  

N . A .

a n  F  a m  

$ 2 9 0 0

i  l y  I n c  

N . A .

0  m  e  , 

$ 3 3 0 0

D o l l a r  

N . A .

s

$ 3 5 0 0
B o s t o n ,  1 9 5 9 ^ $ 4 2 7 0 $ 4 4 5 0 $ 3 4 1 0 - - $ 5 1 5 0 $ 3 7 5 0 -
U n i t e d  S t a t e s ,  U r b a n

~  $ 5 7 5 5  $ 5 9 4 4  $ 3 5 1 9
U n i te d  S t a t e s ,  N o r t h -  

E a s t  R e g i o n ,  U r b a n
1959 $ 5 9 5 5  N . A .  N . A .

■'■Income in  a l l  c a s e s  r e f e r s  t o  t o t a l  m o n e y  f a m i l y  i n c o m e  f o r  th e  y e a r .  I n c o m e  o f  u n r e l a t e d  in d i v i d u a l s  
n o t  in c l u d e d .

^ F o r  d e f i n i t i o n s  o f  P r i m a r y  F a m i l i e s  a n d  S u b s t a n d a r d  U n i t s ,  s e e  T a b l e  7 . D a t a  o n  i n c o m e  f o r  th e  
p r e c e d i n g  c a l e n d a r  y e a r  w a s  c o l l e c t e d  f r o m  th e  s a m e  p r i m a r y  f a m i l i e s  i n c l u d e d  in  th e  p r e c e d i n g  T a b l e s  8 -  10.

3 M e d i a n  i n c o m e  f o r  a l l  f a m i l i e s ;  2 p e r s o n s ,  $ 3 0 0 0 ;  3 o r  4  p e r s o n s ,  $ 3 3 0 0 ;  5 o r  m o r e  p e r s o n s ,  $ 3 4 0 0 .
^ P r i m a r y  f a m i l i e s  in  s u b s t a n d a r d  r e n t a l  u n i t s .

T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  t o  r o u n d in g .

S o u r c e s : U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s  . F a m i l y  I n c o m e  a n d  R e n t  S u r v e y ,  B o s t o n ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s ,
U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C .  , A p r i l  1 9 5 4 .  T a b l e  2, p p .  8 - 9 .

U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :  I 9 6 0 .  S p e c i a l  R e p o r t s  f o r  L o c a l
H o u s in g  A u t h o r i t i e s ,  B o s t o n ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s ,  H($ (S l )  - 6 7 , U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,
D .  C .  , 196 1 . T a b l e  3 ,  p .  Toj a n d  I n t r o d u c t i o n ,  p p .  1 - 5 .

1959 I n c o m e ,  U . S .  U r b a n  an d  N o r t h e a s t e r n  R e g i o n ,  U . S .  D e p t ,  o f  C o m m e r c e ,  B u r e a u  o f  th e  
C e n s u s .  C u r r e n t  P o p u l a t i o n  R e p o r t s ,  C o n s u m e r  I n c o m e ,  S e r i e s  P - 6 0 ,  N o ,  3 5 , J a n u a r y  5 , 1 9 6 1 ,  T a b l e  16, 
p a g e  3 3 .



T A B L E  12

C R O W D I N G  B Y  C O L O R  O F  O C C U P A N T S  A N D  H O U S IN G  CONDITION

B O S T O N  A R E A ,  I 9 6 0

C i t y  o f  B o s t o n

S u b s t a n d a r d 1 H o u s in g  U n i t s ,  I 9 6 0

T o t a l W h ite Nonwhite

T o t a l  o c c u p i e d  u n i ts  

P e r s o n s  p e r  r o o m
3 2 ,  792 2 7 , 2 6 2 5,530

1 .0 1  an d  o v e r ,  p e r c e n t 9 . 6 8 . 8 13.6
1. 01 t o  1. 50 5. 5 5 . 2 7 .0
1 . 5 0  o r  m o r e

C i t y  o f  B o s t o n
A l l  O c c u p i e d  H o u s in g  U n its

1. 01 P e r s o n s  p e r  r o o m  o r  m o r e ,
p e r c e n t 2

A v e r a g e  N o .  o f  P e r s o n s  P e r  H o u s e h o ld ,  

A l l  O c c u p i e d  H o u s in g  U n its

4 .  1 3 . 6 6.6

7 . 7 N . A . N. A.

C i t y  o f  B o s t o n 2. 93 2. 9 1 3.06
B o s t o n  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a 3 .  23 3 . 23 3.15

1 A s  d e f i n e d  b y  th e  P u b l i c  H o u s i n g  A d m i n i s t r a t i o n .  ( S e e  T a b le  7).
^ C o m p u t e d  b y  th e  R e s e a r c h  D i v i s i o n ,  U n i t e d  C o m m u n i t y  S e r v ic e s  

o f  M e t r o p o l i t a n  B o s t o n ,  f r o m  c e n s u s  t r a c t  r e p o r t s  f o r  th e  C i t y  o f  
B o s t o n ,  U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  A d v a n c e  T a b l e s  P H - 1 .  
P o p u l a t i o n  a n d  H o u s in g  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s :  I 9 6 0 .  S e e  N e i g h b o r h o o d s  of 
B o s t o n  k a n k e d  f o r  S e l e c t e d  F a c t o r s  c i t e d  b e l o w .

S o u r c e s : U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s . U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :
I 9 6 0 .  H o u s in g  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s ,  A d v a n c e  R e p o r t s  
H C ~ (A 1 )  ~ 2 2 , U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C . , 
M a r c h  1 9 6 1 .  T a b l e  1, p .  5, p .  7 .

U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s . U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g : 
I 9 6 0 .  S p e c i a l  R e p o r t s  f o r  L o c a l  H o u s in g  A u t h o r i t i e s ,  B o s t o n , 
M a s s a c h u s e t t s . H C  ( S i )  -  6 7 , U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  
W a s h in g t o n ,  D .  C . ,  1 9 6 1 .  T a b l e  1, p .  8 a n d  I n t r o d u c t i o n ,  p p .  1 -5 .

U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s . U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  P op u la tion : 
I 9 6 0 .  G e n e r a l  P o p u l a t i o n  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s .  ~ F in a l  
R e p o r t  P C  ( 1 )  -  2 3 B .  U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W ash in gton , 
D 7 U . , 1 9 6 1 .  T a b l e  2 1 ,  p .  2 3 - 7 8 ,  p . 2 3 - 8 0 .

R e s e a r c h  D i v i s i o n ,  U n i t e d  C o m m u n i t y  S e r v i c e s  o f  
M e t r o p o l i t a n  B o s t o n ,  N e i g h b o r h o o d s  o f  B o s t o n  R a n k e d  f o r  S e l e c t e d  
F a c t o r s ,  A p r i l  1 9 6 1 .  ' "



T A B L E  13

B O S T O N  U R B A N  R E N E W A L  A R E A S  W I T H  L A R G E  N O N W H I T E  P O P U L A T I O N :  C O N D I T I O N  O F  H O U S IN G  

A N D  O T H E R  C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S  B Y  N E I G H B O R H O O D S ,  1950  A N D  I 9 6 0

(1 ) (2 ) (3 ) (4 ) (5 ) (6 ) (7 ) (8 ) (9 ) (1 0 )

I 9 6 0  P o p u l a t i o n S u b s t a n d a r d  H o u s in g U n its O w n e r - o c c u p i e d C r o w d i n g ;  H o u s e h o l d s M e d i a n M e d i a n
P e r c e n t 1960,3 P e r c e n t  o f  T o t a l 195 0 4 U n i t s , P e r c e n t  o f w i t h  1 .0 1  or . m o r e  P e r s o n a S c h o o l I n c o m e ®

R e n e w a l  A re a s '* '  a n d N o n w h i t e A l l  O c c u - N o n w h i t e  O c c u - -  A l l  O c c u - a l l  O c c u p i e d  U n its p e r  R o o m ,  % o f  a l l Y e a r s  C o m p l e t e d 5 1949
N e i g h b o r h o o d s ^ T o t a l o f  T o t a l p i e d  U n its p i e d  U n its p i e d  U n its I 9 6 0 O c c u p i e d  U n i t s ,  I 9 6 0 1950 ( D o l l a r s )

R o x b u r y  -  N o r t h  D o r c h e s t e r  G N R P

D u d l e y  S t .  E a s t ^ 10, 519 2 3 . 8 53 . 1 54 . 3 2 1 . 7 14. 4 14. 0 13. 7 9 .  2 t 2 ; 4 1 4
D u d l e y  S t .  S o u th 1 2 , 0 0 0 4 7 .  9 6 4 .  5 6 8 .  2 21 . 2 19. 3 1 9 . 0 12. 1 9 .  8 2 , 4 5 9
E g l e s t o n  S q u a r e 3 ,  821 17. 9 2 8 .  8 2 3 .3 9 . 4 1 3 . 5 1 2 . 0 8 . 4 10. 8 2, 615
G r o v e  H a l l  W e s t 1 7 , 8 9 8 7 5 .  0 26 . 1 3 0 .  3 4 .  6 16 . 2 1 9 . 0 7 . 3 1 1 . 6 3 , 0 6 6
L o w e r  R o x b u r y 8 , 489 8 2 . 6 6 8 .  4 6 2 .  4 4 2 .  0 8 . 7 7 . 0 11. 7 9 .  0 1, 718
W a r r e n  S t r e e t 9 ,  3 3 0 7 0 .  5 55 . 6 53 . 0 1 5 . 4 20 . 7 2 0 . 0 11. 0 10. 5 2, 600
G r o v e  H a l l  E a s t ^ 18, 463 4 2 , 7 5 1 . 1 56 . 0 9 . 6 18. 9 15. 0 18. 9 10. 2 2, 8 0 2

T o t a l 8 0 ,  520 5 4 . 4
S o u th  E n d  G N R P

C a s t l e  S q u a r e  -  N . Y .  S t r e e t s 2 , 263 2 3 . 7 9 0 .  6 8 2 .  6 4 4 .  6 4 .  5 5 . 0 10. 9 8 . 5 $ 1 ,  669
C o l u m b u s  -  M a s s .  A v e . 8 , 703 7 8 .  2 8 0 .  5 8 1 . 3 5 8 .  1 8 . 5 1 0 . 0 8. 1 9 .  1 a
N o r t h  T r e m o n t 7 , 077 1 3 . 8 8 4 .  1 9 2 .  6 5 6 .  2 8 . 6 16. 0 6. 3 9 .  6 a
S o u th  B a y 6, 3 4 2 20 . 4 5 9 .  1 2 4 .  0 3 9 . 2 6. 1 9 .  0 10. 4 9 . 5 a
S o u th  T r e m o n t 6, 869 14. 7 8 2 .  9 7 4 .  7 52 . 5 7. 8 11. 0 7. 7 8 . 4 a

T o t a l 3 1 ,  254 3 4 .  0

C i t y  o f  B o s t o n 6 9 7 ,  197 9 .  8 26 . 1 54 . 4 1 5 . 4 2 7 .  2 2 4 .  9 7. 7 1 1 . 0 $ 2 ,  643
M a s s a c h u s e t t s  5, 1 4 8 , 5 7 8 2. 4 55 . 9 4 7 .  9 10. 9 2, 909

^ B o u n d a r i e s  o f  G e n e r a l  N e i g h b o r h o o d  R e n e w a l  P l a n  a r e a s  a r e  d e s c r i b e d  b y  th e  B o s t o n  R e d e v e l o p m e n t  A u t h o r i t y  in  T h e  9 0  M i l l i o n  
D o l l a r  D e v e l o p m e n t  P r o g r a m  f o r  B o s t o n , r e p r i n t e d  f r o m  th e  C i t y  R e c o r d  i s s u e  o f  S e p t e m b e r  24 , I 9 6 0 .

^ N e i g h b o r h o o d s  d e s i g n a t e d  b y  th e  U n i t e d  C o m m u n i t y  S e r v i c e s  o f  M e t r o p o l i t a n  B o s t o n ,  in  N e i g h b o r h o o d s  o f  B o s t o n  c i t e d  b e l o w .
A l l  " n e i g h b o r h o o d s "  c o n s i s t  o f  o n e  o r  m o r e  U . S .  C e n s u s  t r a c t s .  T h e  n e i g h b o r h o o d s  w e r e  s e l e c t e d  to  c o r r e s p o n d  a s  c l o s e l y  a s  
p o s s i b l e  w i t h  th e  t w o  G e n e r a l  N e i g h b o r h o o d  R e n e w a l  P l a n  a r e a s .  A  p a r t  o f  " L o w e r  R o x b u r y "  ( a b o u t  40  p e r c e n t  o f  t o t a l  I 9 6 0  
p o p u l a t i o n )  i s  i n  th e  S o u th  E n d  G N R P .

-’ S u b s t a n d a r d  d e f i n e d  a s  d e t e r i o r a t i n g  o r  d i l a p id a t e d ,  o r  s o u n d  b u t  l a c k i n g  s o m e  o r  a l l  p l u m b i n g  f a c i l i t i e s .
^ " D w e l l i n g  U n i t s "  in  1 9 5 0 .  N o t  d i r e c t l y  c o m p a r a b l e  w i t h  I 9 6 0  U . S .  C e n s u s  d e f i n i t i o n  o f  " H o u s i n g  U n i t "  o r  c o n d i t i o n .
^ P e r s o n s  25 y e a r s  o f  a g e  o r  o v e r .
^ A n n u a l  m o n e y  i n c o m e  o f  f a m i l i e s  a n d  s i n g l e  i n d i v i d u a l s .  N o t  c o m p a r a b l e  w i t h  d a ta  in  T a b l e  11.
^ O n e  c e n s u s  t r a c t  w a s  t r a n s f e r r e d  b y  U C S  f r o m  D u d le y  S t r e e t  E a s t  t o  G r o v e  H a l l  E a s t  in  I 9 6 0 .  T h i s  c h a n g e  m a y  a f f e c t  c o m p a r i s o n s  

w i t h  e a r l i e r  y e a r s  f o r  b o t h  n e i g h b o r h o o d s .  
a L e s s  th a n  $ 1 5 0 0 .

S o u r c e s :  R e s e a r c h  D i v i s i o n ,  U n i t e d  C o m m u n i t y  S e r v i c e s  o f  M e t r o p o l i t a n  B o s t o n ,  N e i g h b o r h o o d s  o f  B o s t o n  R a n k e d  f o r  S e l e c t e d
F a c t o r s ,  E i f t h  E d i t i o n ,  J u n e  1958 an d  S ix t h  E d i t i o n ,  A p r i l  196 1 . C o m p u t a t i o n s  b y  th e  U n ite d  C o m m u n i t y  S e r v i c e s ,  b a s e d  o n  U . S .  
B u r e a u  o f  t h e  C e n s u s ,  P o p u l a t i o n  a n d  H o u s in g  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s  r e p o r t e d  f o r  c e n s u s  t r a c t s  f o r  th e  C i t y  o f  B o s t o n ,  1950  an d  I 9 6 0 .

U . S .  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  G e n s u s  o f  P o p u l a t i o n :  I 9 6 0 .  G e n e r a l  P o p u la t i o n  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s .  
F i n a l  R e p o r t  P C  ( 1 )  -  23 B , U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C . ,  19 6 1 . T a b l e  13, p . 2 3 - 2 7 .

T h e  B o s t o n  R e d e v e l o p m e n t  A u t h o r i t y ,  J o h n  F .  C o l l i n s ,  M a y o r  an d  E d w a r d  J . L o g u e ,  D e v e l o p m e n t  A d m i n i s t r a t o r ,
T h e  9 0  M i l l i o n  D o l l a r  D e v e l o p m e n t  P r o g r a m  f o r  B o s t o n  r e p r i n t e d  f r o m  th e  C i t y  R e c o r d ,  i s s u e  o f  S e p t e m b e r  24 ,  I 9 6 0 ,  ( u n p a g e d ) .



T A B L E  14

B O S T O N  U R B A N  R E N E W A L  A R E A S  W I T H  L A R G E  N O N W H I T E  P O P U L A T I O N :  D I S E A S E  A N D

M O R T A L I T Y  I N D I C E S  A N D  O T H E R  C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S ,  B Y  N E I G H B O R H O O D S ,  1 9 5 0 - 1 9 6 0

( 1) ( 2 )
I 9 6 0  P o p u l a t i o n

R e n e w a l  A r e a s  * a n d  
N e i g h b o r h o o d s  1

R o x b u r y  -  N o r t h  D o r c h e s t e r  G N R P

T o t a l

P e r c e n t  
N o n w h i t e  
o f  T o t a l

D u d l e y  S t .  E a s t * 4 1 0 ,5 1 9 23. 8
D u d le y  S t. S o u th 1 2 , 0 0 0 4 7 .  9
E g l e s t o n  S q u a r e 3 , 8 2 1 1 7 .9
G r o v e  H a l l  W e s t 1 7 ,8 9 8 7 5 .  0
L o w e r  R o x b u r y 8 , 489 8 2 .  6
W a r r e n  S t r e e t 9 ,  3 3 0 7 0 .  5
G r o v e  H a l l  E a s t 4 1 8 ,4 6 3 4 2 .  7

T  o t a l
S o u th  E n d  G N R P

8 0 , 520 54 . 4

C a s t l e  S q u a r e  -  N . Y .  S t r e e t s 2, 263 23 . 7
C o l u m b u s  -  M a s s .  A v e n u e 8, 703 7 8 .  2
N o r t h  T r e m o n t 7, 077 13. 8
S o u th  B a y 6, 3 4 2 20 . 4
S o u th  T r e m o n t 6, 869 14. 7

T  o ta l 3 1 ,  2 5 4 3 4 .  0
C i t y  o f  B o s t o n 6 9 7 ,  197 9 .  8
M a s s a c h u s e t t s  5, 1 4 8 ,5 7 8 2. 4

(3 ) (4 ) (5 ) (6 ) (7 )
P o p u la t : ion  A g e  65 a n d  O v e r P u l m o n a r y  T B  D e a t h

1960 1950 R a te s ^
P e r c e n t P e r c e n t A n n u a l A v e r a g e

N o . o f  T o t a l o f  T o t a l 1 9 5 5 - 5 9 1 9 4 7 - 5 1 '

1, 533 14. 6 7. 9 3 4 .  2 7 4 .  7
1, 258 10. 5 8. 9 26 . 6 50 . 3

552 14. 4 9 . 6 10. 5 5 9 . 8
2, 0 7 4 1 1 .6 9 .  2 2 1 . 2 50 . 3
1, 194 14. 0 8. 6 5 6 .  5 75 . 4

9 4 0 10. 1 9 . 8 12. 8 6 1 .  7
1, 537 8 . 3 8 . 0 14. 1 3 1 . 6
9 , 088 1 1 .3

333 14. 7 10. 0 9 7 .  2 1 50 . 4
1, 173 13. 5 12. 2 7 8 .  1 176 . 3
1, 625 22 . 9 18. 5 9 8 . 9 145 . 2

9 0 2 14. 2 10. 0 4 4 .  1 128 . 8
1, 146 16. 7 16. 0 160 . 1 3 0 2 .  3

5, 179 16. 6

8 5 , 5 8 5 1 2 .3 9 . 7 18. 2 4 7 .  2
2 3 . 8

(8 ) (9 ) (1 0 ) (1 1 )
P u l m o n a r y  T B  N e w  C a s e In fa n t  .

R a t e s  ̂ M o r t a l i t y R a t e s
A n n u a l  A v e r a g e A n n u a l  A v e r a g e

193"B- 5 9 .............. "  ' 1947 '-5 1 1 9 5 5 - 5 9 1 9 4 7 L 5 T

1 46 . 4 1 34 . 4 3 3 . 9 3 7 .  5
1 00 . 0 113 . 5 3 6 .  5 37 . 4

8 8 .  9 162 . 4 24 . 4 3 7 .  8
9 2 .  7 9 1 . 0 27 . 8 3 0 .  1

2 0 9 .  6 177 . 4 3 6 . 9 4 7 .  7
1 4 1 . 4 1 16 . 6 3 0 .  5 28 . 6

7 5 .  8 6 5 .  5 3 6 .  2 2 5 . 7

3 8 0 .  0 2 4 3 .  0 4 9 . 8 4 7 .  8
3 5 1 .  6 3 4 4 .  2 4 8 .  9 52 . 8
3 2 7 .  8 2 5 5 .  6 60 . 2 4 2 .  5
1 79 . 7 195 . 6 3 9 .  7 4 9 .  9
5 9 6 .  8 5 6 3 . 7 3.8. 7 3 5 .  6

7 9 .  5 102 . 3 2 6 .  7 2 9 . 9
52 . 1 25 . 0

* S e e  T a b l e  13.
2A v e r a g e  a n n u a l  d e a t h s  a n d  n e w  c a s e s  p e r  100, 000  p o p u l a t i o n :  p o p u l a t i o n  b a s e  U . S .  C e n s u s  I 9 6 0 .
 ̂A v e r  a g e  a n n u a l  d e a t h s  u n d e r  o n e  y e a r  p e r  1, 000  l i v e  b i r t h s .

4 O n e  c e n s u s  t r a c t  m o v e d  in  I9 6 0  f r o m  D u d le y  S t r e e t  E a s t  t o  G r o v e  H a l l  E a s t .  ( S e e  T a b l e  13, f o o t n o t e  7 ) ,

S o u r c e s : S e e  T a b l e  13. W it h  th e  e x c e p t i o n  o f  d i s e a s e  a n d  m o r t a l i t y  s t a t i s t i c s ,  a l l  d a ta  c o m p u t e d  f r o m  U. S . C e n s u s
t r a c t  r e p o r t s  b y  th e  R e s e a r c h  D i v i s i o n ,  U n i te d  C o m u n i t y  S e r v i c e s  o f  M e t r o p o l i t a n  B o s t o n .



T A B L E  15

B O S T O N  U R B A N  R E N E W A L  A R E A S  W I T H  L A R G E  N O N W H I T E  P O P U L A T I O N :  J U V E N I L E  D E L I N Q U E N C Y
M E A S U R E S  A N D  O T H E R  C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S  B Y  N E I G H B O R H O O D S ,  1950  -  I9 6 0

(1 ) (2 ) (3 ) (4 ) (5 ) (6 ) (7 ) (8 ) (9 ) (1 0 ) ( I D
P o p u l a t i o n , I9 6 0 N o n w h i t e  P o p u l a t i o n ,  P e r c e n t P o p u l a t i o n  A g e d  7 t h r u  16 Y e a r s J u v e n i l e  D e l i n q u e n c y  M e a s u r e s

R e n e w a l  A r e a s '  a n d
P e r c e n t o f  T o t a l  P o p u l a t i o n 1960 R a t e  o f  C o u r t C o u r t  A p p e a r a n c e s , 1 9 5 7 = 5 7

T o t a l N e g r o P e r c e n t  o f T 'o t a l A p p e a r a n c e s  ^ T o t a l P e r c e n t
N e i g h b o r h o o d s  1 N u m b e r N e g r o o f  T o t a l 1940 1950 1960 N u m b e r P o p u l a t i o n 1 9 5 1 -5 5 - N u m b e r o f  T o t a l

R o x b u r y  -  N o r t h  D o r c h e s t e r  G N R P

N e i g h b o r h o o d s
D u d l e y  St. E a s t ' ' 1 0 ,5 1 9 2, 4 0 2 22. 8 4 .  7 8 .  0 23 . 8 2, 028 19. 3 3,7. 4 63 4 7 .  1
D u d le y  St. S o u th 1 2 , 0 0 0 5, 674 4 7 . 3 3 . 8 12. 0 4 7 . 9 2, 122 17. 7 25 . 5 3 4 2 3 . 8
E g l e s t o n  S q u a r e 3 , 821 646 1 6 ,9 2. 0 4 .  3 17. 9 886 2 3 . 2 15. 4 49 0 . 6
G r o v e  H a l l  W e s t 1 7 ,8 9 8 1 3 ,2 8 7 7 4 .  2 18. 5 3 0 .  1 7 5 . 0 2, 679 15. 0 14. 2 2 0 4 2. 3
L o w e r  R o x b u r y 8 , 489 6, 949 8 1 . 8 61 . 2 7 1 . 8 8 2 .  6 1, 401 16. 5 3 5 .  7 4 7 0 5 . 3
W a r r e n  S t r e e t 9, 3 3 0 6, 521 6 9 . 9 10. 3 2 5 .  4 7 0 . 5 1, 642 17. 6 23 . 6 281 3. 2
G r o v e  H a l l  E a s t ' ' 1 8 ,4 6 3 7, 783 4 2 .  1 0. 3 3 .  2 4 2 . 7 3 , 349 18. 1 14. 4 230 2. 6

T  o t a l 8 0 ,  520 4 3 , 2 6 2 53. 7 54 . 4 14, 107 17. 5 2, 210 2 4 .  8
S o u th  E n d  G N R P

N e i g h b o r h o o d s
C a s t l e  S q u a r e  - N .  Y .  S t r e e t s 2, 263 3 63 16. 0 1 1 .9 2 1 . 9 23 . 7 341 15. 1 3 9 .  2 152 1 . 7
C o l u m b u s  -  M a s s .  A v e n u e 8, 703 6, 630 7 6 .  2 4 2 .  0 6 0 .  4 78 . 2 666 7. 6 3 8 .  7 162 2. 0
N o r t h  T r e m o n t 7, 077 8 1 6 1 1 .5 1. 0 7. 0 13. 8 3 7 5 5. 3 3 9 . 4 111 1 . 2
S o u th  B a y 6, 3 4 2 1, 198 18, 9 3 . 7 3 . 4 20 . 4 880 1 3 .9 6 2 .  1 266 3 . 0
S o u th  T r e m o n t 6, 869 793 11. 5 2. 4 7. 0 14. 7 679 9 . 8 3 6 .  5 136 1. 5

T o t a l 3 1 ,  254 9 , 800 3 1 . 4 3 4 .  0 2, 941 9 . 4 8 4 7 9 .  4

C i t y  o f  B o s t o n 6 9 7 ,  197 63 , 165 9 .  0 3 . 3 5. 3 9. 8 102 , 7 2 4 14. 7 15. 9 8, 9 0 6 100 . 0
S ta te  o f  M a s s a c h u s e t t s  5, 1 4 8 ,5 7 8 111, 8 4 2 2. 2 1. 4 1 .7 2. 4

' S e e  T a b l e  13. o
A v e r a g e  a n n u a l  r a t e  o f  c o u r t  a p p e a r a n c e s  p e r  1, 0 0 0  p o p u l a t i o n  a g e  7 t h r u  16 y e a r s .  P o p u l a t i o n  b a s e ,  I 9 6 0  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  P o p u l a t i o n .  

' O n e  c e n s u s  t r a c t  m o v e d  in  I 9 6 0  f r o m  D u d le y  S t r e e t  E a s t  t o  G r o v e  H a l l  E a s t .  ( S e e  T a b l e  13, f o o t n o t e  7 ).

S o u r c e s : S e e  T a b l e  13. W ith  th e  e x c e p t i o n  o f  ju v e n i l e  d e l i n q u e n c y  m e a s u r e s ,  a l l  d a ta  c o m p u t e d  f r o m  U . S .  C e n s u s  t r a c t  r e p o r t s  b y  th e
R e s e a r c h  D i v i s i o n ,  U n i t e d  C o m m u n i t y  S e r v i c e s  o f  M e t r o p o l i t a n  B o s t o n .



T A B L E  16

V A C A N C I E S  B Y  C O N D I T I O N  A N D  R E N T ,  A N D  V A C A N C Y  R A T I O S ,

B O S T O N  A R E A  I9 6 0

Y e a r - R o u n d  V a c a n t  U n its  *

C i t y
Of

B o s t o n

B o s t o n
M e t r o p o l i t a n

A r e a

S o u n d  o r  D e t e r i o r a t i n g
W it h  a l l  p l u m b i n g  f a c i l i t i e s  

F o r  s a l e  o n ly  
F o r  r e n t

485  
5, 778

3 , 690  
11, 610

T o t a l 6, 263 15, 3 0 0

L a c k i n g  s o m e  o r  a l l  p lu m b i n g  
F o r  s a l e  o n ly  
F o r  r e n t

.95 
2, 930

2 2 4  
3 , 867

T o t a l 3, 025 4 , 090

B a l a n c e 1, 580 7 , 107

T o t a l  S o u n d  o r  D e t e r i o r a t i n g 10, 868 26 , 4 9 8

D i l a p i d a t e d ,  f o r  s a l e  a n d  r e n t 2, 296 3 , 649

T o t a l  y e a r - r o u n d  v a c a n t  u n i ts 13, 164 3 0 ,  147

P e r c e n t  o f  a l l  V a c a n c i e s  D i la p id a t e d  
P e r c e n t  o f  a l l  V a c a n c i e s  L a c k i n g  P l u m b in g

1 7 . 4  
23 ,  0

12. 1 
13. 6

4 0 ,  4 - 25 .  7

A l l  H o u s in g  U n i t s ,  T o t a l 2 3 8 ,5 4 7 8 1 3 , 8 3 7

2
S ta n d a r d  r e n t a l  v a c a n c y  r a t i o 2 . 4 % 1. 4%

A v e r a g e  c o n t r a c t  r e n t ,  d o l l a r s ,  v a c a n t  u n its $ 56 N. A .

M e d ia n  V a l u e ,  d o l l a r s ,  v a c a n t  u n its  f o r  s a l e $ 1 3 , 7 0 0 N . A .

N o n - s e a s o n a l .
2S o u n d  o r  d e t e r i o r a t i n g ,  w i t h  p lu m b i n g  f a c i l i t i e s ,  a s  p e r c e n t  o f  a l l  

h o u s in g  u n i t s .

S o u r c e :  U . S .  D e p a r t m e n t  o f  C o m m e r c e ,  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .
U .S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :  I 9 6 0 .  H o u s in g  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s .
A d v a n c e  R e p o r t  H C ( A 1 )  -  22 ,  U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  
W a s h in g to n ,  D .  C . , M a r c h  1 9 6 1 .  T a b l e  1, p .  5, p .  7 .



T A B L E  17

P R O P O R T I O N  O F  D W E L L I N G  U N IT S  W I T H  N O  C E N T R A L  H E A T I N G  

A N D  U N H E A T E D ,  B O S T O N  A R E A ,  1950

W it h  C e n t r a l  H e a t in g

W it h o u t  C e n t r a l  H e a t in g

N o  c e n t r a l  h e a t in g  
U n h e a te d

T o t a l

T o t a l  r e p o r t i n g

C i t y  o f B o s t o n
N o .  o f P e r c e n t

D w e l l in g  U n its D i s t r i b u t i o n

1 5 7 ,4 8 5 7 3 . 4

51, 345 2 3 . 9
5, 730 2. 7

57, 075 2 6 .  6

214 , 560 100 . 0

B o s t o n  M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a
N o .  o f

D w e l l i n g  U n its
P e r c e n t

D i s t r i b u t i o n

5 2 5 , 5 7 0 8 2 .  3

101 , 9 3 5 16. 0
11, 320 1. 7

1 1 3 ,2 5 5 17. 7

6 3 8 , 8 2 5 100 . 0

T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  t o  r o u n d i n g .

S o u r c e :  U. S. D e p a r t m e n t  o f  C o m m e r c e ,  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s in g :
19 5 0 , VoT, I I ,  G e n e r a l  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,  P a r t  3: I d a h o  -  M a s s a c h u s e t t s 7  U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  
P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  IL  CT, 1 9 5 3 .  T a b l e  20 ,  p . 21 - 2 8 ,  p] 2 1 - 3 0 .



T A B L E  18

A G E  O F  T H E  H O U S IN G  S T O C K ,  B O S T O N  A R E A  C O M P A R E D  W I T H  U . S .

1940  A N D  1950

1950 , P e r c e n t  o f  D w e l l i n g  U n its  
b y  Y e a r  B u i l t 1 9 4 0 ,  C i t y  o f  B o s t o n

U . S . B o s t o n P e r c e n t  b y -Wo. Ol
M e t r o p o l i t a n  A r e a C i t y Y e a r s  B u i l t D w e l l in g  U n its

e a r s  B u i l t

1919 o r  e a r l i e r
7 .  8 1 4 ,3 3 8

1859 o r  e a r l i e r 12. 0 2 2 , 2 8 7
1860 t o  1879 8 .  5 15, 651
1880 to  1889 15. 0 2 7 , 7 0 9
1890  t o  1899 22 . 1 4 0 ,  9 3 4
1900 t o  1909 15. 3 2 8 , 2 9 4
1910  t o  1919

T o t a l 4 5 .  8 6 6 .  6 7 7 .  5 8 0 .  7 - 1 4 9 ,2 1 3

1920 t o  1929 20 . 1 18. 0 13. 5 15. 2 2 8 , 0 5 4

1930 to  1939 1 3 .3 7 . 2 3 . 9 4 .  2 7 , 7 0 0

1940 t o  1950 20 . 8 8 . 2 5. 1

T o t a l  D w e l l i n g  U n i t s 1 1 00 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 100 . 0 1 8 4 ,9 6 7

^ N u m b e r  r e p o r t i n g  y e a r  b u i l t .
T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  t o  r o u n d i n g .

S o u r c e s :  U . S .  D e p a r t m e n t  o f  C o m m e r c e ,  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s i n g :
1 9 4 0 —̂ V o l u m e  II, G e n e r a l  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,  P a r t  3 : I o w a  -  M o n t a n a .  U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  
O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C .

U . S .  D e p a r t m e n t  o f  C o m m e r c e ,  B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s .  U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  H o u s i n g : 
195 0 . V o l u m e  II, G e n e r a l  C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s ,  P a r t  3: I d a h o  -  M a s s a c h u s e t t s . U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  
P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h in g t o n ,  D . C .  , 1953'. T a b l e  6, p .  2 1 - 5 2 .



T A B L E  19

H O U S E H O L D  R E L A T I O N S H I P S ,  I 9 6 0 ,  C I T Y  O F  B O S T O N

B Y  C O L O R

T o t a l  N o n w h i t e  W h i t e  N on w h 'ite  T o t a l  N o n w h i t e  W h ite
___________  N o .  o f  P e r s o n s  P e r c e n t  o f  T o t a l  P e r c e n t a g e  D i s t r i b u t i o n

P o p u l a t i o n  in  H o u s e h o l d s

H e a d  o f  P r i m a r y  F a m i l y 1 6 1 ,7 2 9 14, 389
P r i m a r y  I n d iv id u a l 62 , 703 6, 777
W i f e  o f  H e a d 125, 895 10, 168
C h i ld  u n d e r  18 1 8 8 ,1 5 8 23, 429
O t h e r  R e l a t i v e 101 , 171 8, 6 4 4
N o n r e l a t i v e 1 7 ,1 9 8 2, 275

T o t a l  P o p u l a t i o n  in  H o u s e h o l d s 6 5 6 , 8 5 4 66, 152

T o t a l  N o .  o f  H o u s e h o l d s 224 , 43 2 21 . 616

A v e r a g e  N o .  o f  P e r s o n s
P e r  H o u s e h o l d 2. 93 3 . 06

1 4 5 ,8 9 0 8. 9 24 . 6 2 2 . 4 24 . 7
55 , 9 2 6 10. 8 9 .  5 10 . 2 9 .  5

1 1 5 ,7 2 7 8 . 1 19 . 2 15 . 4 19. 6
1 6 4 ,7 2 9 12. 4 2 8 .  6 3 5 .  4 27 . 9

9 3 ,  037 8. 5 15. 5 13 . 1 15. 8
1 4 ,9 2 3 13. 2 2. 6 3 . 5 2. 5

5 9 0 , 7 0 2 10. 1 1 0 0 .0 100 . 0 1 00 . 0

2 0 2 , 8 1 6  9 . 6

2 . 9 1

T o t a l s  m a y  n o t  e q u a l  100 p e r c e n t  d u e  t o  r o u n d i n g .

. S o u r c e : U. S . B u r e a u  o f  th e  C e n s u s  . U . S .  C e n s u s  o f  P o p u l a t i o n :  I 9 6 0 .  G e n e r a l  P o p u l a t i o n  C h a r a c t e r
i s t i c s ,  M a s s a c h u s e t t s ,  F i n a l  R e p o r t  P C  ( T) -  2 3 B ,  U . S .  G o v e r n m e n t  P r i n t i n g  O f f i c e ,  W a s h i n g t o n  D  C 
T 9 6 L  T a b l e  21 , p . 2 3 - 8 0 : ------------------------ ------------------------- B







December 6 , 1961S o u r c e :

T h is  t a b l e  w as fo r w a r d e d  t o  Edward. J .  
M cC orm ack, J r . ,  A t t o r n e y  G e n e r a l ,  b y  
L eo  F . B e n o i t ,  C h airm an  o f  th e  S t a t e  
H o u sin g  B oard  on D ecem ber 6 ,  1 9 6 1 .

EX.3
D I V I S I O N  O F  U R B A N  A N D  I N D U S T R I A L  R EN E W A L 

U R B A N  R E N E W A L  T I T L E  I  P R O J E C T S  I N  M A S S A C H U S E T T S

COMMUNITY

ANDOVER
BOSTON

PROJECT NAME Nclj. PLANNING........2XE0J TICK FEDERAL
RESERVATION re- use

Central Andover R-02E 5 /6 0

Back Bay RJ-47GN 1 2 /6 0

Charlestown r|-42GN 12/60

Charlestown R-55 | X

. Downtown______ R =460N-------- |l2/ 6 CL.

Downtown North i 1-45GN 
Government Cntr.fi.-35E

East Boston Rf44*$N 

Jamaica P lain  R-49QN 
New York S t s .  UR- 2 - 1

12/60 • 

I 9 /6 0  ij 

112/60  |j 

12/60 ji
4 /5 5

Parker H ill-F en n y. IR-48GN 1 2 /6 0  

No. Harvard R-5n2 Ij | 9 /6 1

Roxbury-No. Dora le s fcerR-50GN 1 2 /60  

Washington Pk,R.-24 ! 3 /6 0

South Boston k{-51GN 1 1 2 /60

5791038 -  

j 5581653 -  
!j( 4934000 -  
;l( 4898300 -

jl 499^000-=-

I 10972000- !'il I |l
|i 3690000 -  j
ji 34100(X) -  !|
ij 32Qoj)33

DISPLACED

R-SP-P

40 -ji

5960 -

PTC

2640000 - 
290025  -  

-0-
2640000 
4482200__

R -C

NO. OF .APPROXIMATE ij SCHEDULE ;| 
'^FAM ILIES j| GROSS COMPLETION’1

RELOCATED j ACREAGE I; DATES ,1,

- r -

25 9 12 /64

|334 2

388 -  Ii

368 - 1368

1535

| 22 3 :

12 /6 5

9 /6 1

66 -

3940 -  ij.

BROCKTON

BROOKLINE

South End R-43GX j 1 2 /6 0

South End Ri-5611 I X jj
i  1 i

West End UR 243

Crescent CourtR--31 ! 8 /6 0

Marsh Area P.4.37______ ■ w ;

!1 2 /5 7

CAMBRIDGE

The Farm U ki5-1  

Cambridgeport R fU ;, 

Donnelly F ield  R-14  

Houghton R rlO ;

Riverview Rr21

1,(4477 600j. I
11(20215200
ij 10886075

jj 932 000

.. U 5 3 3 3  3 .

10 1  ;;

’186 - 12 /63

2 /6 0

1/60
8 /6 0

6 /5 8

1 /5 9

1747706

4006000

1457689

5600000
237351

R-P-SP
i

R-SP-C

R -G -I

R-C

13

1

■

295 ~ 

7 3 1 -  
300 -  

n o  -

a

]

.

.731 -.

j;

566 3 j| 
48 -jj

44 9 j; 
-  '

1 ;1

1 /6 4  / 

1 0 /6 4  ;

R-PH 206 -
----------~T1

114 - 183 6 /6 2

R j 

R

R - f  

R !

1530

1485i
1973I

-ULZ-

|262  -

102 9

CHELSEA 

DEDHAM ■ 

FALL RIVER 

FITCHBURG

GLOUCESTER

HAVERHILL

Rogers Block UR7-2 :

Area N o .l  UR22-1 j ;•

East Dedham Sq.$-3?GN 7 /6 1

P earl S t .  UR4-2 i !!

Central  Val l eyw jR -l? 1 2 /5 9  •

Water S t .  R-i-20' : X

W aterfront R4-33E 9 /6 0

C entral RenewalR-AlGN 1 2 /6 0  

Pentucket   -_Rrl9 4.—

112/56
| 4 /6 0

I 2/58

i 2 1 6 4 9 4  

j 50i:277 
! 10237 50

; 1265243 

2 0 9 1 5 3 9 ...

I 865 193
j! 2354:625 

| - 6-  
1928.362

C !I
I |Ii

I
C I

-.BcrC.-

c-i
c

■ R—0

; 57 -  ? 

77 -

|l30 -  ||

3 3 k . - : . . .  

237 -  |i 

j 65 -  |

900 -  L

•1 ii
! 17  -  |! .. -

107  7
o k

1 2 /6 4

9 /6 1

1 57 -  i: 51 CLOSED

15 - 152 1 6 /6 2
j

1 3 0  -  j; 273 : _ H O
'

H

- 88-

j I ?
j 27 6

ii

t 33  5 •

1 /6 4
j

1 /6 4

HOLYOKE

LAWRENCE

Area 1A & IB R40 7 /6 1

Common V a i l . Con4.UR19-l j 

Central La wrenc eft-3 0GN 1 0 /60
Broadway Essex R461E 1 2 /6 1

The P lain s R -02 || 1 0 /6 1

6 /5 8

2035000

2017111

2194000
2507400

2415000

R-: P-C

46 5 -

260 - 22 5 -

R-C j 11 

r - p4s p  , ii

LOWELL Church S t .  UR413-1

Northern CanalR-i.624 4 /6 0  

LYNN Market S t .  R-53S X

MALDEN Charles S t .  R - ^ i  7 /6 0

_________________ S u T l k ^ S q j F a u y m ^ R y A ^

MEDFORD 

MELROSE 

NEWTON 

NORTH ADAMS 
PLYMOUTH

8 /5 7

X

1 /6 1

407053

1253956

820500
1045693

543 7711

Union Swan UR0-l|j 6 /5 8  ' 265 199 

Melrose C tr . R -08 j| 1 0 /6 0  I || 632792 

(Comm.Renewal)R-io-CR XI j ]j 65 000  

Center S t . R-| | j | 6 /5 8  'l5 1 0 :9 2 Q  
Summer & H ig h  St j . i|____ . 5060 : j 1156^57

sp-cj 
R-C-jl-P  

R-G |

1 I
R-C j_____

SP -C-I

C |

p - s p - c
P-R-C

! 70

r 506

1 70 -  

82 -

.554 -  

21 -  

29 -

; 91 - 
100 -

: 70  - :

121

91 -

; 42 8
| 3a a j;
! ' 1.
j 26 9 1
j 58 8
j 10 5 ^  
I 95 6

14 5

! 24: 9 

204 —

I 44 ii
j 62 ::
i :j

! 297 , 
30 1 '

2 /63

12 /62

9 /6 1

9 /6 3

12/62
6/63

1 2 /6 1

6/63

1 1 /6 1

1 /6 4

REVERE Ocean Ave. URI-ll; i 4 /5 8  ' 232 1839 P j 87 - 87 - ' 126 ; 9 /6 1

SOMERVILLE Linwood-Joy UR-8-1 3 /5 4  10231 64 1 1 '182 - 182  - 1 2 4  9 3 /6 2

SPRINGFIELD North End R -f  |i 

DeBerry SchoolR-j>82 X

0 /6 1  || 8826897  

Is 125 200

;i R -P -C -I

R-P-SP

U 9 3  -

j . |j

1986  

i t

1 2 /6 2

-S.TQN2LAM.. Central R-52GN 7 / 61 -561J25.-
WINTHROP S h irley  S t , R-i0GN 11/6 0 1665 000 j

WORCESTER Area D R -I 5 4/  61 ;[ 1 522 540 P-SP-C | 12 -

Expressway R i-lSGN 2 /5 9 ; 1750; 000 1 1

Elm Park R - h  11 X i ! 1 4626000 R -c : ;| 1050 -

_ New Salem 3 t .  UR5-1 8/54 27A2 907 P-C 21A -
(Comm.Renewal)R-63CR X 133334

3 2 :l 12 /63

214 -

; 240 -

B  2. 1 2 /6 1

27 60 $ ij.54,714134 37 ,1 9 5  -  3^22 -

-RESIDENTIAL P-PUBLIC

3 ,1 0 1  4 .

X -  IN REGIONAL OFFICE W-1N CENTRAL OFFICE S-SPEC. CONTRACT COND. E -3 (#  EXCEPTION R- 

SP-SEMI-PUBLIC C-COMMERCIAL ^INDUSTRIAL PH-PUBLIC HOUSING 2 - 5 /4  p ro jec t f-lEASfiD 

D-DISASTER PROJ. U-UNIVERSITY j *SMALL MUNICIPALITY OR REDEVELOPMENT AREA GN-GSNERAL NEIGHBORHOOD RENEWAL PROJECT 

CR-COMKUNITY RENEWAL PLANNING ji I ;



Table o f Contents.

Concise statement of facts and prior proceedings
Summary of argument
Argument

I. The Fair Housing Practices Law is part of a 
tradition pioneered by Massachusetts Legisla­
tures for almost a century and followed by many 
states

II. Statutes forbidding discrimination based on 
race, creed, color or national origin have been re­
peatedly upheld by this and other state courts 
and by the United States Supreme Court as 
within the police power and affording due proc­
ess of law

III. The Fair Housing Practices Law represents 
a constitutional exercise of legislative power
A. The objectives of the statute are permissible 

and well within the police power of the Com­
monwealth
1. Equal opportunity to secure shelter, with­

out regard to race, creed, color or national 
origin

2. The social and economic consequences of 
housing discrimination

B. The means employed by the Massachusetts 
Fair Housing Law and the restrictions on re­
spondents are wholly reasonable and in accord 
with due process
1. Belationship of the means to the statutory 

objectives
2. The harm suffered by respondents



11 TABLE OF C O N TE N TS

3. Amenability to regulation of property in­
terests in land and housing 58

IV. The Fair Housing Practices Law establishes
reasonable classifications affording equal pro­
tection 66

V. The respondent Nahigian was a proper party
to this proceeding 70

VI. The respondents have waived their right to
attack the Commission findings and order 72

VII. The Commission’s findings were warranted
and its order reasonable 75

Conclusion 82
Appendix A 83

Constitutional provisions and statutes involved 83
Constitutional provisions 83

United States Constitution, Amendment X IV  83
Massachusetts Constitution, Part the First, Arti­

cle I 83
Massachusetts Constitution, Part the First, Arti­

cle X  83
Statutes involved 84

General Laws, chapter 30A, section 14 84
General Laws, chapter 151B 85

Appendix B 94
Statistical study of housing discrimination against 

Negroes in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 94 
Introduction 94
I. There is an increasing segregation of Negroes

in urban Boston 94
II. There is an increasing exclusion of the grow­

ing Negro population from the suburbs 96



TABLE OP CON TENTS XU

III. Within both the City of Boston and the sub- 
urbs there has been an increased neighborhood 
segregation of Negroes

IV. Negro home ownership has not kept pace 
with population increase

V. Negroes occupy a disproportionate amount 
of substandard and dilapidated housing

VI. Negroes pay disproportionately high rents 
for the inferior and substandard housing 
which they occupy

VII. Negroes pay a disproportionately high 
share of their incomes for the inferior hous­
ing which they occupy

VIII. The disproportionately higher rents and 
rent income ratios paid by Negroes cannot be 
explained by a difference between the size of 
Negro and white apartments; the larger 
Negro families simply result in more crowd­
ing in occupied units

IX. The housing conditions for Negroes in gen­
eral described above are even worse in the seg­
regated neighborhoods of high Negro concen­
tration

X. The segregated Negro neighborhoods result 
in high social and human costs

XI. Urban renewal, highway construction and 
other governmental programs have displaced 
and will continue to displace many low-income 
and Negro families

XII. Urban renewal, highway construction and 
other public programs have already worsened 
the housing conditions of low-income and 
Negro families

97

98 

100

102

104

105

106

109

112

119



IV TABLE OF ATJTHOBITIES CITED

XIII. There is a severe shortage of sound low- 
rental housing in the Boston area; Negroes 
who will he displaced by public programs are 
at the greatest disadvantage because of the 
dual handicaps of low income and discrimina­
tion 121

Table of Authorities Cited.

Cases.

Allydonn Realty Corp. v. Holyoke Housing Author­
ity, 304 Mass. 288 47, 48, 50, 59

Barry v. Civil Service Commission, 323 Mass. 431 76
Berman v. Parker, 348 H.S. 26 59, 60
Billings v. Mann, 156 Mass. 203 72
Block v. Hirsh, 256 U.S. 135 40, 58, 63
Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. Michigan, 333 U.S. 28 35
Bolden v. Grand Rapids Operating Corp., 239 Mich.

318 28
Bowker v. Worcester, 334 Mass. 422 48, 59
Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503 63
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 13
Bryant v. Rich’s Grill, 216 Mass. 344 28
Burlington v. Dunn, 318 Mass. 216 62
Case v. Colorado Anti-Discrimination Commission,

Civ. No. 39682, June 2, 1961 26
Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 8, 9
Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53 64
Crawford v. Kent, 341 Mass. 125 28
Darius v. Apostolos, 68 Colo. 323, 190 P. 510 28



TABLE OF A U T H O R ITIE S CITED V

Day-Brite Lighting, Inc., v. Missouri, 342 U.S. 421 
Delaware & Hudson Co. v. Boston Railroad Holding 

Co., 323 Mass. 282 37,
Despatches’ Cafe Inc. v. Somerville Housing Au­

thority, 332 Mass. 259 73,
Detroit Housing Commission v. Lewis, 226 F. 2d 180 
District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., 346 

U.S. 100
Dorsey v. Stuyvesant Town Corp., 299 N.Y. 512;

cert. den. 339 U.S. 981 
Draper v. Clark Dairy, 17 Conn. Supp. 93 
Druzik v. Board of Health of Haverhill, 324 Mass.

129
East New York Savings Bank v. Hahn, 326 U.S. 230 
Elm Farm Foods Co. v. Cifrino, 328 Mass. 549 
Engel v. O ’Malley, 219 U.S. 128
Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 61,
Feliciano v. Fishman, pp. 38-95, 55; Lee v. Duffy, 

CP-4830-57 (reported in “ Reports of Progress,”  
pp. 60-61, 98-99 (1955, 1958))

Foster v. Shubert Holding Co., 316 Mass. 470 
FTC v. Beech-Nut Packing Co., 257 U.S. 441 
FTC v. Morton Salt Co., 334 U.S. 37 
FTC v. National Lead Co., 352 U.S. 419 
FTC v. Ruberoid Co., 343 U.S. 470 
Goldman, Petition of, 331 Mass. 647 
Gorieb v. Fox, 274 U.S. 603 
Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U.S. 394- 
Heath & Milligan Manufacturing Co. v. Worst, 207 

U.S. 338
Holland v. Edwards, 307 N.Y. 38 6, 32,

37

38

76
13

28

14
32

36
65
72
69
65

81
29
81
82
77
77
18
61
60

69
74



V I TABLE OE A U T H O R ITIE S CITED

Howes Brothers Co. v. Unemployment Compensa­
tion Commission, 296 Mass. 275 45, 69

Hoyt v. Florida, 30 U.S. Law Week 4013 18
Inspector of Buildings of Lowell v. Stoklosa, 250 

Mass. 52 61
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v.

NLRB, 341 U.S. 694 77
International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U.S. 392 77
Ivory v. Edwards, 278 App. Div. 359; affd. without 

opinion, 304 N.Y. 949 32
Jones v. Kehrlein, 49 Cal. App. 646, 194 P. 55 28
Jordan Marsh Co. v. Labor Relations Commission,

312 Mass. 597 32
Lamarre v. Commissioner of Public Works of Fall

River, 324 Mass. 542 62
Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225 38
Lawrence v. Smith, 201 Mass. 214 72
Levitt & Sons, Inc., v. Division Against Discrimina­

tion, 31 N.J. 514, 158 A. 2d 177; appeal dismissed 
363 U.S. 418 19, 20, 21, 22, 66

Levy Leasing Co. v. Siegel, 258 U.S. 242 63
Lincoln Building Associates v. Barr, 1 N.Y. 2d 413 63
Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61 69
Local 35, Int’l Brotherhood v. Commission on Civil 

Rights, 18 Conn. Supp. 125 32
Madden v. Queens County Jockey Club, 296 N.Y. 249 29
Maher v. Brookline, 339 Mass. 209 67, 69
Maniscalco v. Director of Division of Employment

Security, 327 Mass. 211 76
Marcus Brown Holding Co. v. Feldman, 256 U.S. 170 63
Marshall v. Middlesex Homes, Inc., Pr. H. II-9-c 79



Martin v. City of New York, 22 Misc. 2d 389, 201 
N.Y.S. 2d 111 24> 25

Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals v. Commissioner of Public Health, 339 
Mass. 216 66

Mathewson’s Case, 227 Mass. 470 73
McCarthy v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Board,

1961 Adv. Sh. 221 76
Merit Oil Co. v. Director, 319 Mass. 301 37, 46, 58
Messenger v. State, 25 Neb. 674, 41 N.W. 638 28
Miller v. Schoene, 276 U.S. 272 66
Miller v. Strahl, 239 U.S. 426 69
Mitchell v. United States, 313 U.S. 80 35
Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502 30
NLRB v. Cheney California Lumber Co., 327 U.S.

385 6> 73> 75
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 32, 33
NLRB v. Seven-Up Co., 344 U.S. 344 76, 81
NLRB v. United Mine Workers, 195 P. 2d 961; cert.

den. 344 U.S. 920 77
New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 

U .S .552 33
Old Colony Railroad v. Assessors of Boston, 309

Mass. 439 67>68
O ’Meara v. Washington State Board Against Dis­

crimination, 365 P. 2d 1 21, 22, 66
Opinion of the Justices, 234 Mass. 597 61
Opinion of the Justices, 247 Mass. 589 28
Paquette v. Pall River, 338 Mass. 368 48, 49, 60
People v. King, 110 N.Y. 418 27
Pickett v. Kuchau, 323 111. 138, 153 N.E. 667 28

TABLE OF A U T H O R ITIE S CITED V l l



Vlll TABLE OF A U T H O R ITIE S CITED

Queenside Hills Realty Co. v. Saxl, 328 U.S. 80 60
Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U.S. 106 69
Railway Mail Association v. Corsi, 326 U.S. 88 33, 34, 35
Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U.S. 171 60
Rhone v. Loomis, 74 Minn. 200, 77 N.W. 31 28
Ross v. Arbury, 206 Misc. 74; affd. without opinion,

285 App. Div. 886 32
Russell v. Treasurer & Receiver General, 331 Mass.

501 37, 40, 63, 68, 69
Shervington v. Pelham Hall Apartments, Inc., 

Pompa, Coconato and Markoly, CH-4466-56 78
Siegel v. FTC, 327 U.S. 608 77
Simon v. Needham, 311 Mass. 560 18, 62
South Carolina State Highway Department v. Barn­

well Bros., 303 U.S. 177 38
Spector v. Building Inspector of Milton, 250 Mass. 63 61
State Commission Against Discrimination v. Pelham 

Hall Apartments, 10 Misc. 2d 334,170 N.Y.S. 2d 750
22, 24, 78

Stockus v. Boston Housing Authority, 304 Mass. 507 73
Swanson v. Commission on Civil Rights of Connecti­

cut, No. 94802, July 11, 1961 25
United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 37
Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. NLRB, 319 U.S.

533 79, 80, 81
Welch v. Swasey, 193 Mass. 364; affd. 214 U.S. 91 60
Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483 37, 69

S tatutes, etc .

United States Constitution, Amendment XIV, sec­
tion 1 4, 8, 33, 35, 40, 66



TABLE OE A U T H O R ITIE S CITED IX

Massachusetts Constitution, Part the First
Article I 35, 40, 66
Article X 4, 40, 66
Article LX 62

29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. (National Labor Relations
Act) 12, 32, 73, 79, 80

Civil Rights Act of 1875, 18 Stat. 335 8

G.L. c. 6, §§ 17, 43-45 23n.
G.L. c. 20, §§ 7-9 23n.
G.L. c. 23, § 90 23n.
G.L. c. 30A, § 14(8) (b), (g) 72, 76
G.L. c. 94A 23n.
G.L. c. 112, §§ 24, 37, 82, 87 67
G.L. c. 121, §26FF(e) 13n., 55
G.L. c. 138 23n.
G.L. c. 140, §§ 22, 33 69
G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 141, § 1 67
G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 142, § 1 67
G.L. c. 150A (State Labor Relations Act) 23n., 32
Fair Housing Practices Law, G.L. c. 151B (St. 1959,

c. 239) 1 et seq.
G.L. c. 151C lOn.
G.L. c. 272, §§ 92A, 98 10n., 29
St. 1865, c. 277 9
St. 1937, c. 436 32
St. 1950, c. 479 12,13, 55
St. 1957, c. 426 6, 7, 70
St. 1959, c. 239 6, 70



St. 1960, c. 163 44n.
St. 1961, c. 128 6, 7, 44n., 70n.

Alaska Comp. Laws Ann. (Snpp. 1958)
§§ 20—1—3-4 i 0n.
§§ 4 3 -5 —1-10 i ln .

California Health and Safety Code, §§ 357000-740 14n.
California Labor Code, §§ 1410-32 H n.
California Pen. Code, § 365, Civ. Code, §§ 51-52 lOn.
Colorado Rev. Stat. Ann.

§§ 25— 1—1, 2 5 -2 —1-5 (1953) lOn.
§§ 25— 3—1-6 (Snpp. 1960) I2n.
§§ 69— 7—1-7 (Supp. 1960) I 5n.
§§ 80—24—1-8 (Supp. 1960) n n.
§ 139.60.10 (1953) 43n.

Connecticut G-en. Stat. Rev. (Supp. 1959)
§§ 31—122-28 l l n.
§ 53 35 13n., 14n.

§§ 53—35-36 10n., 12n., 15n.
Delaware Code Ann. tit. 19, §§ 710-13 (Supp. 1960) lln . 
District of Columbia Code Ann. §§ 47—2901-04 

(Supp. 1960) lOn.
Idaho Code Ann. A  18—7201-03 (Supp. 1961) 10n., lln .
Illinois Ann. Stat.

c. 38, §§ 125-29 (Smith-Hurd Supp. 1961) 10n.
c. 67i/2, 260(12)-(13) (Smith-Hurd, 1958) 14n.

Illinois L. 1961, c. 48 lln .
Indiana Ann. Stat.

§§ 10—901-02 (Supp. 1960) lOn., 13n.
§§ 40—2307-17 (Supp. 1961) n n.

Iowa Code Ann. §§ 735.1-.02 (1950) lOn.

X  TABLE OF A U T H O B ITIE S CITED



Kansas Gen. Stat. Ann.
§ 21-2424 (1949) lOn.
§ 12.713 (1949) 13n.

Kansas Laws, 1961, c. 248 lln .
Maine Rev. Stat. Ann. c. 137, § 50 (Supp. 1959) lOn.
Michigan Comp. Laws, §§ 750.146-.147 (1948) lOn.
Michigan Stat. Ann.

§§ 17.458(1)-(11) (1960) lln .
§ 28-343 (Supp. 1959) 13n.

Minnesota Stat. Ann.
§ 327.09 (1947) 10n.

§§ 363.01-.13 (1957) lln ., 15n.
§ 507.18 (Supp. 1960) 13n.

Missouri Ann. Stat. §§ 296.010-070 (Supp. 1961) lln .
Montana Rev. Codes Ann. (Supp. 1961)

§ 11-3917 14n.
§ 64—211 10n.

Nebraska Rev. Stat. §§ 20—101-02 (1954) lOn.
New Hampshire Rev. Stat. Ann. c. 354, as amended

by L. 1961, c. 219 10n., 15n.
New Jersey Stat. Ann. (Supp. 1960)

§§ 1 0 :1—2-7 10n.
§ 18:25— 4-6 lln .
§ 18:25—5 10n.

§§ 18:25-1-28 12n., 14n., 15n.
§§ 55:14A-7.5, 55:14B-5.1, 55:14C-7.1 13n.
§§ 55:14A-39.1, 55:14D-6.1, 55:14E-7.1, 55:16-8.1 14n.

New Mexico Stat. Ann.
<j>§ 49—8—1-6 (Supp. 1961) 10n.
§§ 59—4—1-14 (1960) lln .

TABLE OF A U T H O R ITIE S CITED x i



X l l TABLE OS' A U T H O R ITIE S CITED

New York City Administrative Code
§ W41-1.0(b) 14n.
<§ N41-1.0 15n.

New York Civ. Rights Law
§§ 18—a-e 14n.
§ 18-b(3) 14n.
§ 40-41 lOn.
§ 43 33

New York Education Law, § 313 10n.
New York Executive Law

§§ 290-99 15n.
§§ 290-301 lln ., 12n.
§ 292(9) lOn.
§ 296(2) lOn.

New York Pub. Housing Law, § 223 13n.
North Dakota Cent. Code, § 12—22—30 (Supp.

1961) lOn.
Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2901.35 (Page, 1954) lOn.
Ohio Rev. Code Ann. A  4112-01-.08, 4112.99 (Supp.

1961) et seq. (Page, 19) lln .
Oregon L. 1957, c. 725, §§ 1-4 14n.
Oregon Rev. Stat.

§§ 30.670-.680 (1959) lOn.
§§ 345.240-.250 (1957) 10n.
§§ 659.010-115 (1959) 15n.
§§ 659.010-.990 (1959) lln .
§ 659.100(3) (1959) 12n.

Pennsylvania Stat. Ann. tit. 18, § 4654 (1945) lOn.
Pennsylvania Stat. Ann. tit. 43, §§ 951-63 (Supp.

I960) lln ., 15n.



TABLE OF A U T H O B ITIE S CITED x m

Pittsburgh, Pa. Ordinance No. 523, Dec. 15, 1958,
recorded in vol. 62, p. 303, office of City Clerk 15

Rhode Island Gen. Laws Ann. (1956)
§§ 11 -24—1-6 10n., 12n.
§ 11—24—3 13n.

§§ 2 8 -5 —1-39 lln .
Puerto Rico Laws. Ann. tit. 1, § 13 (1954) lOn.
Vermont Stat. Ann. tit. 13, §§ 1451-52 (1958) lOn.
Virgin Islands, tit. 10, § 3 (1957) lOn.
Washington Rev. Code

§ 9.91.010 (1957) lOn.
§§ 49.60.010-.310 (1959) 12n.
§§ 49.60.010-.320 (1959) lln .
§ 49.60.030 (1958) 14n.
§ 49.60.040 (1958) 10n., 14n.
§ 49.60.215 (1959) lOn.

Wisconsin Stat. Ann.
§ 66.405 (2m) (1957) 13n., 14n.

§§ 111.31-.37 (Supp. 1959) lln .
§ 942.04 (1958) lOn.

Wyoming Laws 1961, c. 103 lOn.

M iscellaneous.

Bamberger and Lewin, “ The Right to Equal Treat­
ment: Administrative Enforcement of Antidis­
crimination Legislation,”  74 Harv. L. Rev. 526, 
526-528 (1961) 12n.

Cardinal Cushing, “ A Catholic Case Against Seg- 
gregation”  (O ’Neill Ed. 1961), Boston Sunday 
Globe, Nov. 19, 1961, p. A l, cols. 1-3 41, 42n.



X IV TABLE OB A U T H O R ITIE S CITED

Cole, Albert M., “ What is the Federal Government’s 
Role in Housing?” , address to Economic Club of 
Detroit, Feb. 8, 1954, quoted in Report of Commis­
sion on Race and Housing, “ Where Shall We 
Live?” , pp. 22-29, 40 (U. Cal. Press. 1958) 49n., 68

1 Davis, Administrative Law, 134 (1958 Ed.) 81
Discrimination in Operations of Interstate Motor 

Carriers of Passengers, I.C.C. No. MC-C-3358, 
September 22, 1961 52n.

Dodd, Professor E. Merrick, 17 Bar Bulletin of the 
Bar Association of Boston, 201-207 (1946) 33

Fourteenth Annual Report for 1959, p. 10 54, 55
Freund, Professor Paul, ‘ ‘ The Supreme Court of the 

United States”  (Meridian Books by World Pub.
Co. 1961), pp. 150-152 43n.

Hale, “ The Constitution and the Price System:
Some Reflections on Nebbia v. New York,”  34 Col.
L .Rev. 401 (1934) 30

Laurenti, “ Property Values and Race”  (U. Cal.
Press 1960), p. 47 57

Lukas, “ Trouble on Route 40,”  The Reporter, Oct.
26, 1961 52n.

McEntire, “ Residence and Race”  (U. Cal. Press,
1960), pp. v, v-vii; c. I ll, pp. 32-66, 67, 79-80, 93-94; 
c. IX, p. 155 42, 43, 45, 46, 51

N.Y. Post, Sept. 15,1961, Mag. p. 5, col. 2 52n.
N.Y. Times, July 11, 1961, p. 19, col. 2 52n.
Public Document No. 163 54
Public Law 85-315, Eighty-fifth Congress 41n.
“ Report of Progress,”  a Review of the Program for 

1959 of the State Commission Against Discrimina­
tion (N.Y.), pp. 96-99; pp. 106-109 79



TABLE OF A U T H O B ITIE S CITED X V

1959 Report of United States Commission on Civil 
Rights, pp. 411-412, 545 16, 41

1961 Report of United States Commission on Civil 
Rights, Rook 4 on Housing, pp. 1, 3, 82-83, 198-199, 
200-201 16, 42, 45, 46n., 49m, 68

Robison, ‘ ‘ The New Fair Employment Law, ’ ’ 20 Ohio 
St. L.J. 570, 571 (1959) 11



No. 6108, Eq.

COMMISSION AGAINST 
DISCRIMINATION 

v.
A. J. COLANGELO et al .

BRIEF FOR PETITIONER.
M iddlesex C o u n ty .

ADDISON G. G E T C H E L L  & SON, IN C ., L A W  PR IN TE R S, BOSTON.