Tickets for this year's Fair Housing & Civil Rights Conference at Western New England University were sold out in the lead-up to the annual gathering, which kicked off on Wednesday, April 10.
Created in 2006, organizer Jamie Williamson says the conference has grown from attracting a few dozen individuals to a massive gathering that brings in hundreds of housing advocates, officials from local agencies, and more across multiple days.
Part of the attraction - getting a chance to touch base with experts and learn about new developments in ensuring housing is available to those who need it most.
It’s also a great time to network and see how others in an otherwise niche field are doing, according to Pittsfield Community Development & Housing Program Manager Nate Joyner.
“Great opportunities to network with other organizations and individuals who are kind of operating in the same space, which can be a little specialized and segmented from kind of our typical community work that we do,” Joyner said. “So, it's great to workwith and communicate with these professionals who work in the same field.”
This year’s conference was the first to return to an in-person format after the pandemic.
Like previous conferences, this iteration featured numerous workshops and discussions.
Events centered on topics such as preventing housing discrimination and re-imagining how organizations approach sheltering the homeless.
Topics also branched off from housing and into other civil rights-related issues, including environmental justice and current challenges to LGBTQ+ rights.
One of the event’s organizers, John Fisher, told WAMC that many of the topics are ultimately related more often than not – and that one important function of the conference is showcasing how they connect, and build understanding.
“We need to work together, we need to realize that - concepts like fair housing - concepts like environmental justice, concepts like civil rights are all intertwined,” Fisher said. “And they affect everybody and - this is a chance for people to see how those things fit together.”
Both state and federal laws prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, disability and more in home sales and rentals of housing. But as many speakers detailed, discrimination still finds a way to keep out those in need of shelter - whether it's direct or inadvertent.
The whole event kicked off with a lengthy discussion on the state of fair housing in general on Wednesday.
Giving a brief summary afterwards, Kristina da Fonseca, executive director of SouthCoast Fair Housing, said as housing shortages persist, many more severe incidents of discrimination are being noted.
“Some of the challenges that we're experiencing, particularly when we're talking about fair housing, is the lack of safe, affordable housing,” she explained. “And what happens when there's a housing shortage is the incidents of housing discrimination, and the egregiousness of housing discrimination increases.”
Having said that, da Fonseca adds she has also been seeing a general rise in awareness of fair housing issues.
Other changes, like the rise of the “Yes In My Backyard” movement, in which community members usher in projects such as new affordable housing, have been welcome developments.
“More and more folks are realizing that they have the power within their own communities to make a real difference and to open up their neighborhoods to folks who have been historically shut out,” she said.
Presented by Way Finders and Western New England University, The Fair Housing & Civil Rights Conference wrapped up Friday.
