Learning the History of Racial Covenants in Our Haller Lake Housing Deeds & What to Do about Them

In 2020, unequal impacts of COVID-19 and racial justice protests have again highlighted the issue of housing segregation in our communities. Housing segregation impacts health outcomes through a multitude of factors from access to parks to the quality of air and safety of our streets, according to Washington State Department of Health’s summary in “Race and Place.”

Seattle and our Haller Lake Neighborhood were also shaped by racial segregation, and restrictive racial covenants were one method used to enforce housing segregation: restricting non-whites from purchasing property subject to the restrictions. Most often these restrictions were implemented at the time of the subdivision development. Even after Supreme Court found racial covenants in housing to be unconstitutional in 1948, they continued in practice in and around Seattle.

Discovering the history of our own properties in Haller Lake is one way to learn about the history of housing segregation, and the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project at the University of Washington has made this accessible through their Racial Restrictive Covenants Maps.

There are 6 subdivisions in Haller Lake where the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project has identified racial restrictive covenants. The documents showing the boundaries of the subdivisions and the exact language of the racial restrictions on the sale of houses in these subdivisions are linked at the bottom of the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project’s Racial Restrictive Covenants site.

Figure 1: Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project's Racial Covenants Map lists Haller Lake subdivisions as well as the language of the racial covenants: https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants_map.htm.

The boundaries of these 6 Haller Lake subdivisions are shown below.

  

Figure 2: Boundaries of subdivisions with racial covenants in the Haller Lake neighborhood, based on documents made available by the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project.

You can look at the original documents, showing subdivision boundaries, at Racial Restrictive Covenants website.

Figure 3: A map of Haller Lake's North Seattle Heights Div. 2, accessed through Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project’s site: https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants.htm.

If you live in one of these subdivisions, you can trace the restrictive language, as well as legislation put into place to outlaw the practice, in your home’s title report.

Figure 4: Language added to a title report of a home in North Seattle Heights Div. 2 of the Haller Lake Neighborhood, indicating previous racial covenants are to be "omitted."

Figure 5: Original deed for a home in North Seattle Heights Div. 2 of the Haller Lake Neighborhood, with racial covenant language struck out.

When it comes to addressing the language in individual property deeds, Katherine Long of the Seattle Times has covered the process introduced in 2019 in her article “The deed to your Seattle-area home may contain racist language. Here’s how to fix it.”: “As of Jan. 1 [2019], a new law allows you to file a request with the county auditor striking the discriminatory language from your deed. There’s no fee, and no need to hire a lawyer.”

In her article, Katherine Long covers opinions for and against the removal of racial covenants from property deeds. Is it best to have the language struck out, to avoid causing pain to future home buyers, or does it erase a widespread racist practice that continues to have negative impacts on black and brown communities in Seattle?

If you decide to pursue the striking out of racial covenant language from your property deed, Haller Lake Community Club can help. We would like to document the process as a guide for others in our neighborhood. You can reach us at hallerlakecc@gmail.com.

Resources:

“Health Equity Considerations and Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups.” CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html. Accessed 1 December 2020.

“Race and Place.” Washington State Department of Health, https://www.doh.wa.gov/CommunityandEnvironment/HealthEquity/RaceandPlace. Accessed 1 December 2020.

Silva, Catherine. “Racial Restrictive Covenants History.” Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project, University of Washington, https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants_report.htm. Accessed 1 December 2020.

“Racial Restrictive Covenants Map Seattle/King County.” Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project, University of Washington, https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants_map.htm. Accessed 1 December 2020.

“Racial Restrictive Covenants.” Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project, University of Washington, https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants.htm. Accessed 1 December 2020.

Long, Katherine. “The deed to your Seattle-area home may contain racist language. Here’s how to fix it.” Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/the-deed-to-your-house-may-contain-racist-covenants-heres-how-to-fix-it/. Accessed 1 December 2020.