You know how Marin County is pretty much entirely white? Well, HUD (the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development) actually has a problem with this, because they've been giving the County money for quite a while to build and maintain public housing projects, and a recent review found that the County had failed to adequately reach out to minority populations to fill this housing, and failed to document which minority groups benefited most from it.

Under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other anti-discrimination laws, HUD requires that counties prove that no minority group is getting pushed out of federally financed housing, and Marin hasn't been able to do that. The review found what most everyone already knows -- that there are (virtually) no black people in Marin except in Marin City, and that most of the Latino population is concentrated in the canal zone in San Rafael.

John Young, director of Grassroots Leadership Network of Marin, says that the "old-boys network" up there is to blame, giving each other plum construction contracts, and that neighborhood groups always go to war whenever the threat arises of affordable housing being built nearby. Now, facing the threat of losing HUD money, Marin County signed an agreement saying they will actively seek out and try to attract more ethnic minorities and low-income residents. But dear lord, where will they put them? Think of the children!