The future of fair housing may be decided by what happens with local community organization funding. In this episode of Ten Minute Talks, Allison LaForgia speaks with National Fair Housing Alliance Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey about what recent funding changes could mean for community-based fair housing organizations and what they could mean for lenders, real estate professionals, servicers and communities nationwide.
Bailey explains how local agencies help both educate housing providers and keep them compliant with the Fair Housing Act and why preserving these organizations benefits the entire industry, not just consumers. The conversation explores practical steps housing professionals can take to strengthen fair housing efforts, improve accessibility, and expand access to homeownership. Bailey also provides ways for industry professionals to get involved during Fair Housing Week of Action.
Understanding the history of the Fair Housing Act:
Fair housing enforcement has long been a bipartisan priority. During President Ronald Reagan’s second administration, a bipartisan Congress established the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) to support a nationwide network of organizations dedicated to enforcing the act through education, investigation and compliance assistance. Congress made the program permanent in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 after determining that community-based fair housing organizations are a critical component of the nation’s enforcement system. For decades, FHIP has continued to receive bipartisan congressional support, helping millions of Americans access housing free from discrimination while providing housing providers, lenders and real estate professionals with the education and guidance needed to comply with federal fair housing laws.
Resources:
Link to the Fair Housing Week of Action call to action: https://bit.ly/FairHousingAction2026
Link to additional info on NFHA's Fair Housing Week of Action: https://nationalfairhousing.org/fairhousingweekofaction2026/
Link to the referenced Fair Housing Trends Report: https://nationalfairhousing.org/resource/2025-fair-housing-trends-report/
#FairHousing #HousingCrisis #HousingDiscrimination
Bailey explains how local agencies help both educate housing providers and keep them compliant with the Fair Housing Act and why preserving these organizations benefits the entire industry, not just consumers. The conversation explores practical steps housing professionals can take to strengthen fair housing efforts, improve accessibility, and expand access to homeownership. Bailey also provides ways for industry professionals to get involved during Fair Housing Week of Action.
Understanding the history of the Fair Housing Act:
Fair housing enforcement has long been a bipartisan priority. During President Ronald Reagan’s second administration, a bipartisan Congress established the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) to support a nationwide network of organizations dedicated to enforcing the act through education, investigation and compliance assistance. Congress made the program permanent in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 after determining that community-based fair housing organizations are a critical component of the nation’s enforcement system. For decades, FHIP has continued to receive bipartisan congressional support, helping millions of Americans access housing free from discrimination while providing housing providers, lenders and real estate professionals with the education and guidance needed to comply with federal fair housing laws.
Resources:
Link to the Fair Housing Week of Action call to action: https://bit.ly/FairHousingAction2026
Link to additional info on NFHA's Fair Housing Week of Action: https://nationalfairhousing.org/fairhousingweekofaction2026/
Link to the referenced Fair Housing Trends Report: https://nationalfairhousing.org/resource/2025-fair-housing-trends-report/
#FairHousing #HousingCrisis #HousingDiscrimination
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
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.
Comments