The little problem I had renting a house

An 18-year-old, African-American male
joined the United States Air Force

and was assigned to Mountain Home
Air Force Base

and was a part of the air police squadron.

Upon first arriving there, the first goal
that I had was to identify an apartment,

or find an apartment,

so I could bring my wife and my new
baby, Melanie, out to join me.

I immediately went to the personnel office,

and talking with the guys in personnel,

they said, "Hey, no problem finding an
apartment in Mountain Home, Idaho.

The people down there love us because
they know they have an airmen

who is coming in to rent one of their
apartments--they'll always get their money."

And that was a really important thing.

He said, "So here is a list of people
that you can call,

and then they will allow you to select
the apartment that you want."

So I got the list, I made the call.

The lady answered on the other end
and I told her what I wanted.

She said, "Oh, great you called. We have
four or five apartments available right now."

She said, "Do you want a one bedroom
or two bedroom?"

Then she said, "Let's not talk about that.

Just come on down, select the apartment
that you want.

We'll sign the contract and you'll have
keys in your hand to get

your family out here right away."

So I was excited.

I jumped in my car. I went downtown
and knocked on the door.

When I knocked on the door, the woman
came to the door,

and she looked at me, and she said,

"Can I help you?"

I said, "Yes, I'm the person who called
about the apartments.

I was just coming down to
make my selection."

She said, "You know what? I'm really sorry,
but my husband rented those apartments

and didn't tell me about them."

I said, "You mean he rented all five
of them in one hour?"

She didn't give me a response,

and what she said was this,

she said, "Why don't you leave your number,

and if we have some openings,
I'll give you a call."

Needless to say, I did not get
a call from her.

Nor did I get any responses from
the other people

that they gave me on the list
where I could get apartments.

So as a result of that, and feeling rejected,

I went back to the base, and I talked
to the squadron commander.

His name was McDow, Major McDow.

I said, "Major McDow, I need your help."

I told him what happened, and here's
what he said to me,

"James, I would love to help you.

But you know, the problem:

we can't make people rent to folks
that they don't want to rent to.

And besides, we have a great relationship
with people in the community

and we really don't want to damage that."

He said, "So maybe this is what you should do.

Why don't you let your family stay home,

because you do know that you get
a 30-day leave.

So once a year, you can go home
to your family,

spend 30 days and then come on back."

Needless to say, that didn't
resonate for me.

So after leaving him, I went
back to personnel,

and talking to the clerk,

he said, "Jim, I think I have a
solution for you.

There's an airmen who is leaving
and he has a trailer,

if you notice in Mountain Home,

there are trailer parks and trailers
all over the place.

You can buy his trailer, and you
could probably get

a really good deal because he wants
to get out of town as soon as possible,

and that would take care of your problem

and that would provide the solution for you."

So I immediately jumped in my car,

went downtown, saw the trailer

-- it was a small trailer.

But under the circumstances,
I figured that that was

the best thing that I could do.

So I bought the trailer.

And then I asked him,

Can I just leave the trailer here?

And that would take care of all my problems,

I wouldn't have to find another trailer park."

He said, "Before I say yes to that, I need
to check with management."

So I get back to the base,

he called me back and management said,

"No, you can't leave the trailer here

because we had promised that slot
to some other people."

And that was strange to me because
there were several other slots

that were open,

but it just so happened that he had
promised that slot to someone else.

So, what I did

-- and he said, "You shouldn't worry, Jim,

because there are a lot of trailer parks--

So I put out another exhaustive list
of going to trailer parks.

I went to one after another,
after another.

And I got the same kind of rejection there
that I received

when I was looking for the apartment.

And as a result, the kind of comments
that they made to me,

in addition to saying that they
didn't have any slots open,

one person said, "Jim, the reason
why we can't rent to you,

we already have a negro family
in the trailer park."

He said, "And it's not me, because
I like you people."

(Laugher)

And that's what I did, too,
I chucked, right?

He said, "But here's the problem:

If I let you in, the other tenants
will move out

and I can't afford to take
that kind of a hit."

He said, "I just can't rent to you."

Even though that was discouraging,
it didn't stop me.

I kept looking,

and I looked at the far end
of the town in Mountain Home,

and there was a small trailer park.

I mean, a really small trailer park.

It didn't have any paved roads in it,

it didn't have the concrete slabs,

it didn't have fencing to portion out
your trailer slot from other trailer slots.

It didn't have