00:00I'm Allison LaForgia, Managing Editor of HousingWire's Content Studio, and on this episode of 10-Minute Talks, I'm sitting down
00:07with National Fair Housing Alliance Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey.
00:23Nikitra, welcome to 10-Minute Talks.
00:26Thank you. I'm so delighted to be with you today.
00:30I am delighted to have you. It is Fair Housing Week of Action. Can you explain what is at stake
00:38and why this moment is so significant for fair housing enforcement?
00:44Absolutely. We are in the throes of a fair and affordable housing crisis. And let me make it plain for
00:52you what we mean.
00:54So we have disabled veterans who might be in a home and need to get an accessibility ramp. We would
01:02have a family with children, and they might be attempting to secure housing, and the housing provider might say to
01:09them, we're not renting to people with children.
01:11And then we might even have an immigrant who is interested in renting a home. And after they check in
01:19on the property, moments later, they may be told that the property is no longer available.
01:26And none of these things are things that should be happening in our marketplace. None of these things are the
01:33type of things that are going to help people solve their housing challenges during this nation's fair and affordable housing
01:38crisis.
01:39And they represent the 4 million instances of housing discrimination that people are facing in our nation throughout the country.
01:48And they need someone to call. And the people that they could have reliably called on for so much of
01:57our country's history, you know, for decades now, are local community-based fair housing agencies who are on the ground
02:05in communities answering those calls and helping those people secure housing free of any of those obstacles and those burdens
02:14that we just discussed.
02:15You just mentioned how key local organizations are and touched on how they handle the majority of housing discrimination cases
02:26nationwide.
02:27What role do these local organizations play alongside lenders, real estate professionals, and housing providers? And what's at risk if
02:38they lose funding?
02:39I don't think people in our industry understand how often we all rely on local community-based fair housing leaders,
02:47right? We're all working on them. They are the enforcement that our communities absolutely depend on. They take the calls,
02:55they investigate the complaints, they run testing and produce evidence. And then they actually train industry professionals on what compliance
03:04actually looks like in practice, right?
03:07They make the promises of the Fair Housing Act, right? They make the promises of the Fair Housing Act from
03:11Miami to Memphis to, you know, Huntsville to Seattle. They make the promises of the Fair Housing Act a reality
03:18for all of us.
03:19And just to kind of hone in a little bit more on the impact of their work because they are
03:25the frontline workers who are driving the difference. Just in 2024 alone, over 32,000 complaints of housing discrimination were
03:36filed. And these frontline agencies process three out of four of those complaints in comparison to just one in 20
03:45from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
03:48So they actually handle 75% of fair housing complaints in local communities in a very cost-effective way, helping
03:58people reach solutions that allow them to live and thrive in neighborhoods of promise.
04:04I want to really double down and highlight this for professionals who are in the housing industry for the housing
04:13wire audience. Why should they care about preserving these programs, even if it's a program that they don't interact directly
04:21with?
04:22What I want to stress here is everyone of us should care, not just those in the housing section. And
04:29I'll get to them. But I really want to stress why all of us should care.
04:33Just last month, in fiscal year 25, HUD announced that it is going to redirect these local community-based resources
04:43away from local neighborhoods. And instead, they are going to funnel those resources to these two large law schools.
04:53So instead of making sure these local community-based advocates are on the ground there to answer the phone when
05:00someone calls because they are concerned that they might have been treated unlawfully while seeking a housing option, these resources
05:08are going to be directed to two schools throughout our nation.
05:13So how is that going to serve people in local communities and on the ground. And then secondly, what HUD
05:19has decided to do that if you have received funding in 2023 or 2024, you will not be eligible for
05:28funding in 2026.
05:30So they are going to penalize effective and, you know, transformational support in communities as opposed to rewarded for being
05:42efficient and really helping to save the government resources and make sure that people like disabled veterans and others who
05:51are facing housing discrimination get the relief that they need.
05:55Now, I'm bringing it to the housing sector, right? Like we know that our ecosystem is more effective when we
06:02work together. We all are celebrating the 21st century road to housing act.
06:08There are very important provisions in that legislation that the National Fair Housing Alliance has long championed, like reforming the
06:16appraisal process, to really bring about this right for a consumer to have a reconsideration of their home's valuation if
06:26they believe that that valuation is incorrect.
06:29So we know what we can achieve when we can achieve when we can achieve when we can achieve when
06:32we can achieve when we as an ecosystem actually work together.
06:35What these local community-based fair housing agencies do in local communities all the time is they help housing providers
06:43really inform their practices.
06:46They help them to have fairer practices.
06:49They are the people that housing providers actually call when they need to know about a reasonable accommodation
06:56and how to assess whether a property can make that type of reasonable accommodation.
07:03They are the people who are trained by agents, you know, in fair housing.
07:09So our local community-based fair housing leaders oftentimes work with industry actors to train them on fair housing and
07:16how to make sure they are compliant with the law.
07:19And then from overall compliance, they provide expertise to industry partners on how they can effectively comply with the law.
07:28So they end up saving significant resources of our government.
07:33They serve community people on the ground who might have been impacted by housing discrimination.
07:38And then they empower the industry to operate more effectively because that's the key about the work that they do.
07:47Discrimination actually distorts the marketplace and it causes it to underperform.
07:53They allow for efficiencies in the marketplace so that we can all achieve the common goals that we have,
08:00which is to create fair and affordable housing solutions so that everyone can have an opportunity to live in inclusive
08:06and thriving neighborhoods.
08:08What a fantastic statement to make.
08:11And as a housing industry, our end goal, our direct purpose is to put more people in houses.
08:20And what I think is fantastic about your last answer, one of the many things is you mentioned what we're
08:27able to accomplish when we work together.
08:30So what are some practical ways that housing industry professionals and their organizations can support fair housing through advocacy and
08:40within their own businesses?
08:41Absolutely.
08:42So one of the things that we can do, and there are, you know, a number of them, we can
08:48help people access housing free of discrimination.
08:52Right now, there is a major trust gap.
08:56Four out of 10 people do not believe that housing is fair in these United States.
09:03So we have an opportunity to work with local community base for housing agencies and make sure that housing is
09:12fair.
09:12So that's one of the things that we can absolutely do.
09:15Another that we can do is we can look within.
09:18We can audit our business practices and determine who is it we're advertising to, who is it that we're actually
09:26reaching.
09:26And we can look at our accessibility practices because as we know, and the data shows, people with disability have
09:34filed nearly 55% of all complaints of housing discrimination.
09:40Every year at the National Fair Housing Alliance, we produce a fair housing trans report based on data from these
09:47local community-based fair housing organizations and also some of our federal partners.
09:52And what the data tells us is that the highest level of complaints are often from people with disability.
09:58So what we can do in the industry is we can look at those practices and make sure that we
10:06are intentionally creating the type of opportunities for accessibility so that none of our neighbors feel excluded from housing.
10:14We can also call our local fair housing partners, as I shared earlier, they are in communities providing technical assistance,
10:22right?
10:23Many places already have very valuable relationships with their fair housing agencies.
10:29In fact, we see some states where realtors have ongoing collaborations with those state fair housing agencies so we can
10:38continue to partner up front and build those relationships so that we can have compliance well before we have any
10:45types of problems.
10:46And then there is this important thing that we need from everyone in the industry.
10:50We need you to advocate.
10:52We need you to let Congress know that fair housing funding is important for our industry.
10:59We need to make sure that these critical programs are properly funded and that instead of closing and changing our
11:08grant processes, that HUD maintains an open and fair grant process that doesn't penalize the people who are effectively and
11:17efficiently helping to bring vital relief to people in local communities.
11:21And people can do that by going to national fair housing dot org slash take dash action and I'm going
11:30to say it again national fair housing dot org slash take dash action.
11:37And it only takes a few minutes to share with Congress why these agencies are vital parts of our communities
11:43and why this community of housing providers wants to make sure we don't do anything that would take them from
11:51being able to effectively continue to serve the communities that they are well serving throughout the United States.
11:59Negitra, as we approach the end of today's episode, if you could leave the Housing Wire audience with one message
12:06about the future of fair housing and why continued investment in local organizations matters, what would it be?
12:14It would be going back to that story about that disabled veteran who might need that accessibility grant.
12:20At the end of the day, they are going to still need to be able to reach someone when they
12:26believe that they've been harmed.
12:28And we need to make sure there is someone on the phone who can answer that call.
12:34We don't want to leave any of our neighbors alone by themselves.
12:37And that's what this work is about.
12:40It is not about a program or something bigger than that.
12:45It is as simply as making sure that there is someone who is reliable, who has a very strong track
12:52record of helping people obtain the relief that they need, and making sure Congress fully funds these programs.
12:58So once again, nationalfairhousing.org slash take dash action.
13:06Fantastic.
13:07Nikitra, thank you for joining me for an episode of 10 Minute Talks to talk about Fair Housing Enforcement and
13:13Fair Housing Week of Action.
13:16We appreciate the opportunity.
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