Crooks, the black stable buck, is given his own separate housing because he is not white, like the other ranch hands. In other words, race is the central reason for his special living arrangement.
"Bitter and lonely, Crooks lives in isolation in the harness room" (eNotes).
This segregation takes on telling connotations in the context of the larger narrative around Crooks. In a social setting where the wealthy land owners live in a house and the proletarian, hired-hands live in a crude bunk house, Crooks is not the only one "put in his place." Rather, each character type is given a place of his or her own.
Consider Curley's wife. She is expected to stay in the house by herself all day because she is a woman and feels isolated there. Her resentment for the camaraderie of the men is often fully on display (especially in the scene that takes place in Crooks' room) and she feels so confined that she is willing to accept the ridicule and snide remarks from the men in order to find some companionship.
Crooks thus becomes one of several character types representing the many ways in which society can isolate people from one another for reasons that are no more than generic and categorical.
The shared dream that brings together George, Lennie, Candy and Crooks is a testament to the idea that each of these characters is limited and/or isolated in ways that make them similar. They yearn for the same things because, we might say, they suffer in similar ways.
"[T]he nature of the dream at the center of this story is specifically related to Steinbeck's critical understanding of a specific aspect of society in his contemporary California. The rootlessness and alienation which Steinbeck sees in the lives of California's migrant farm laborers are the real social conditions which he chooses to structure his story" (eNotes).
Crooks is given his own living quarters and alienated because he is "black" and the others are "white." But, importantly, he is not alone in his alienation, as it were. Gender, intellect, age and economic conditions also serve to alienate and isolate as we see with Curley's wife, with Lennie and with Candy.
Crooks is set apart from the other men because he is black. This story is set during the Great Depression. At this time, racism was still quite common and quite public. Although clearly unethical from our perspective in 2015, it would have been quite common for businesses to segregate black and white workers. In fact, "Separate but Equal" was a legal doctrine (1896) that justified and legalized racial segregation. So, there was nothing Crooks could have done about this. He reluctantly had to accept this was the way things were done.
This is why Crooks is one of the sympathetic characters in the story. In Chapter 4, Crooks is hesitant to allow Lennie and Candy into his bunk. His reasoning is that if they (the white workers) won't allow him into their...
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bunkhouse, why should he be accommodating to them. But he does and they have a civil conversation. However, Curley's wife comes in and Crooks senses that she could be trouble. When he insists that she leave, she tells him to keep his place and that she could have him hanged. Unfortunately, she is correct. The boss and certainly Curley himself would take her side no matter what Crooks said. He knows that because he is black, he is looked upon as a second class citizen by whites. When Curley's wife tells him off, he backs down immediately.
Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego--nothing to arouse either like or dislike. He said, "Yes, ma'am," and his voice was toneless.
Crooks is segregated because at this time segregation was legally and culturally permitted. He accepts his ostracism because he knows this is part of the institutionalized racism that was quite acceptable in America at this time.
Your question is evidently referring to the man called Crooks in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. This is a story set in California in the middle of the 1930s. Crooks is not allowed to sleep in the bunkhouse with the other men because of the simple fact that he is black. It is never stated whether he eats with the other men, but chances are he does not. There was extreme prejudice against African-Americans in those days, even as far away from the Deep South as California. Blacks were not totally segregated in California as they were in the South, but they were virtually confined to black ghettos because landlords would not rent apartments or rooms to them in white neighborhoods. They found it nearly impossible to buy a house in a white neighborhood because the owners would not sell to them for fear of angering their neighbors for what was then called "block busting." If a black man or woman tried to rent a hotel room, he or she would be told there were no vacancies. When black people traveled by automobile they would often buy food at grocery stores and eat in their cars to avoid being humiliated by being refused service at most restaurants. The fact that Crooks had to sleep in the tackle room attached to the stable was just taken for granted. When the U.S. became involved in World War II in 1941, there was no integration of black and white soldiers. This was all just taken for granted, pretty much as it was in the Deep South. The black population of California was very small in the 1930s. There was no point in moving to California because there were no jobs available for blacks except the lowest kinds of jobs like shining shoes and doing janitorial work. There were no black cab drivers or bus drivers or construction workers or policemen or firemen, and few if any jobs available for blacks in restaurants, department stores, or anywhere else. The black population grew dramatically during World War II because of the big demand for labor in ship building and aircraft manufacturing, among other things. Crooks doesn't even complain about being segregated in Steinbeck's novella. He just takes it for granted himself. He doesn't expect anything else. Steinbeck himself does not focus on Crooks' mistreatment but treats it as something taken for granted, just an aspect of reality in a realistic novel. The situation for blacks has improved greatly since the 1930s, although it would be wrong to claim that segregation, discrimination and prejudice no longer exist. The one man who was most influential in bringing about improvement in race relations was Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Another very important figure was Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Crooks is physically set apart from the others because of his race; as an African-American, he is segregated from the white ranch hands, living in the harness room. He does not join the others in the bunkhouse, although George learns from the old man who shows him around that one exception to that rule was made the previous Christmas. Because it was Christmas, Crooks was allowed to "come in that night." Of Mice and Men was written during a time in the United States, long before the civil rights movement, when this kind of racial discrimination was the social norm.
Crooks is also stigmatised because of his permanently injured hand. He had caught it in some farm machinery a few years earlier and has since been delegated kitchen work, which is another source of humiliation for him since it is associated with a woman's work and domestic chores. Besides that, he has a bad back and is all bent over, from whence comes his nickname.
Crooks gives the other workers the "sour grapes" treatment, distaining them by being stand-offish and moody, but underneath (as he confides to Lenny) he is a very isolated and lonely man.