New Washoe County software helps area homeowners research if their homes have racist covenants

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RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – While racist land-use restrictions have been illegal since 1968, thousands of homes in the Reno and Sparks area have one stuck in their deed.

“People will find that they’re very common in our area for subdivisions or tracks that were established from the 1920s to the 1950s,” said historian Alicia Barber. “So that’s kind of not the oldest areas in Reno, but sort of the next circle out of that. Mostly we’re going to find it sort of inside the McCarran reigns.”

The covenants prohibited selling or renting the property to people of color unless they were servants.

“In 1917, the US Supreme Court had ruled that you couldn’t actually in a city have zoning that was segregated so developers, private developers, started to put this kind of language into their deeds.”

Barber says some covenants also targeted other ethnic and religious groups, such as Asian Americans and Jews.

“We get examples from new home buyers pretty frequently,” said Kalie Work, Washoe County recorder. “That they had to sign for their new home and they came across this language in the original deed and they were angry by what that language said and what it represents.”

For the past two years the recorder’s office has been on a mission to digitize all of the county’s property records.

“So instead of coming on-site and looking through books and microfilm, the public has the opportunity to search them online,” said Work.

If you would like to check if your home has this clause, go to washoecounty.gov/recorder and click on ‘document search and copies.’ Then click on ‘historical index search’ and put the box/page or document number and go to the search results.

Although current statute does not allow to remove this historical language, in 2019 Nevada passed a legislation allowing owners to disavow racist covenants by filling out a form.

some commissioners have donated funds to cover the cost for residents who want to make the change in their records, all you have to do is fill out the form.

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