Fair housing advocates have filed a complaint in Massachusetts, challenging the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
According to the head of the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, Vineeth Hemavathi of Longmeadow, those program changes include significant cuts and translate to far less support for groups like his, with some even likely to shutter as a result.
HUD is in the process of making significant changes to a grant program that has helped fund fair housing enforcement efforts throughout the country, as reported by The New York Times,
Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief James Paleologopoulos spoke with the center's executive director about what's at stake.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
James Paleologopoulos: So, as of this week, there is a pretty detailed challenge geared towards the Department of Housing and Urban Development that’s been filed. I realize this isn't the first time something like this has happened with the Mass. Fair Housing Center, but, Vineeth, can you talk to me just a little bit about what's happening?
Vineeth Hemavathi: In the late 1980s, during the Reagan administration, Congress passed the Fair Housing Initiatives Program, which provided funding to fair housing organizations all over the country.
Actually, a lot of fair housing organizations were created because this funding became available - Congress provided this funding because they recognized that although the Fair Housing Act was on the books, there was not enough enforcement of the Fair Housing Act occurring, and so, they wanted to fund organizations that would be able to enforce [the act].
This has been in existence across seven presidential administrations, for close to 40 years. This has been bipartisan, and … on July 3, HUD released the grant application for FY25 and FY26 appropriated funds … that are basically designed to not fund fair housing organizations.
There are aspects of the grant application - and you can read more about it in the complaint - but things like the number of grantees has been decreased from around 50 or 60 to about 13. Preference points are given to fair housing organizations that have never received the grant before: things like that, that are designed to not provide funding for fair housing organizations like ours, that have been in existence for almost 40 years.
Paleologopoulos: With this administration, we've seen a lot of... they call it reforms, advocates have been calling them cuts. A lot of changes in policy, especially when it comes to grant awards.
I know when it comes to federal research dollars, the Trump administration has made movements toward making it so that political appointees are able to pick and choose who gets certain grant funding.
Based off of what I'm hearing, it sounds like there is a degree of “picking” again, but the sheer dollar value is actually going down - do fair housing groups have other avenues for this funding or is [there] effectively a threat of shuttering without these dollars?
Hemavathi: For the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, HUD funding (about $425,000) represents more than half of our budget. We … have received other funding from the state and other grants and foundations, but without federal funding, our lifespan is maybe two years.
[For] other fair housing organizations across the country, their federal funding makes up almost the entirety of their budget. So, without federal funding, there's really nothing to fill that gap - most fair housing organizations will have to shut down.
Paleologopoulos: Walk me through the mission of [the] Mass Fair Housing [Center] … it seems like on a regular basis, I see this group involved in public information campaigns, I see it involved in advocacy for individuals - what does your group specialize in?
Hemavathi: So, [at] the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center … our mission is to end housing discrimination in Western and Central Mass. Our service areas are the five western counties of Massachusetts - the Berkshires, Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden and Worcester County.
More than half of our cases are disability discrimination cases - we advocate for seniors, for veterans, for folks with disabilities to get the modifications and accommodations they need to be able to enjoy full-access to their homes.
Also, our organization [has] championed … or made a big part of our work combatting lead paint in Massachusetts. Lead paint was banned in 1978, but because we have one of the oldest housing stocks in the country, it means that a lot of housing in Massachusetts still has lead paint, and in Massachusetts, there's a law that you cannot rent to a family with a child under the age of six if the unit has lead paint in it.
While this law is well-intended, it has created an incentive to discriminate, where landlords do not want to rent to families with a child under the age of six because they do not want to spend the money to remove lead paint from their homes. So … we have a lot of families that come to us that spend years sometimes not being able to find a rental and they can't figure out why that is.
When they come and they talk to us and they get these denials that really don't have any explanation, we're able to dig a little deeper and advocate for them and get them into that home, in a lead-free unit.
Paleologopoulos: What has it been like operating in the fair housing space under this second Trump administration? I realize the [MFHC] actually… the Ben Carson-led HUD presented its own challenges. I believe there were successful injunctions or an [individual] injunction filed by the center before on other grounds, but… how have things been going, basically?
Hemavathi: It's difficult. I think that to help people understand - I think businesses often talk about how they need a predictable, stable environment to be able to thrive and to succeed. And for us… it's a similar idea. We are not able to function the way that we need to if we're constantly having to worry about where our funding will come from or whether we're going to have to shut down, whether there are going to be restrictions on the type of services that we can provide.
For almost 40 years, there has been consistency across administrations, no matter which party was in power and that has now been upended, and it has caused a lot of instability - not only for us but for fair housing organizations all across the country.
Paleologopoulos: We see fair housing groups appear often during the worst of times, trying to … do the work that you're describing in the face of situations you’ve mentioned throughout this interview… what is one thing you wish more people knew about what happens at the Mass Fair Housing Center?
Hemavathi: It's important to remember that the people at the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center are members of your community. They're members that you know, they're your friends, they're your neighbors - they are people that are in your community and they … work to help other members of your community.
Our clients are your friends, your neighbors - members of the community - and they're folks that need someone to help them assert their civil rights and their fair housing rights. We are here to do that.
Without us, without anyone to enforce the Fair Housing Act… this will strip away the civil rights and the fair housing rights of everyday Americans all across the country, and that's what's at stake here.
I think at this time… what we would really like is if people are able to go to massfairhousing.org and to donate because we need support. This is about being able to have the dollars needed to keep the doors open, to keep … ourselves fully-staffed and if folks are able to, going to massfairhousing.org and providing a donation of any type would be a great help as we try to fight on behalf of all Americans and all fair housing organizations across the country.
WAMC has reached out to HUD for comment.
A copy of the complaint can be found here.
