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New Report Shows Racial Divide In Education, Income, Housing

DETROIT (WWJ) - A just-released "Metropolitan Detroit Race Equity Report" shows a "pervasive" divide between the races in southeast Michigan.

"You look at where people live, you will find that we continue to live in segregated communities," Shirley Stancato, President and CEO of New Detroit, the group that authored the report, told WWJ's Stephanie Davis, "even though there is more racial diversity in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties."

The report — which is based on information from the U.S. Census Bureau, Data Driven Detroit and ACCESS —also found significant gaps between racial and ethnic groups in education, income and home ownership.

In Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties and in Detroit, the report showed, African American, Hispanic/Latino and American Indian/Alaskan Native lag far behind their white counterparts in educational attainment, in household income, in per capita income and in home ownership.

In Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, roughly 80 percent of whites own their own home. But only 50 percent of African Americans in Macomb County, 45 percent of African Americans in Oakland County and 34 percent of African Americans in Wayne County own their own home. Hispanics/Latinos and American Indians/Alaskan Natives, while posting slightly higher home ownership numbers than African Americans, still fall far behind their white counterparts.

The separation of housing along racial lines is underscored by another statistic: 55.8 percent of workers employed in Detroit are white but only 19.4 percent of workers living in Detroit are white. Conversely, 38.7 percent of those working in Detroit are African American, but 77.1 percent of workers who live in Detroit are African America.

"At New Detroit our central goal is achieving a time when race is no longer an issue in this region and no longer an obstacle to progress for our city, region and state," Stancato said. "This inaugural report shows in vivid detail that we are far from achieving that goal. At the same time, it offers examples of hope in the form of local initiatives that are in fact, achieving real success in closing the gap that exists."

Read more from the report HERE.

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