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The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

The Nation's Premier Civil and Human Rights Coalition
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights & The Leadership Conference Education Fund
The Nation's Premier Civil and Human Rights Coalition
CommUNITY 2000: Building Community in a Nation of Neighborhoods

The Fair Housing Council of San Diego: Building Community with a Rapid Response System

That the Fair Housing Council of San Diego (FHCSD) accomplished much during the two years of CommUNITY 2000 Phase I — including the formation of a Rapid Response Team to address housing related hate crimes — is commendable.

That the FHCSD did so with a paucity of grant funding is remarkable.

The successes of the FHCSD are particularly instructive for any group or individual looking for ways to reduce community tensions on a tight budget.

The San Diego Council received the smallest portion by far of the $1.5 million that was dispersed among two national and four local partners involved in Phase I of CommUNITY 2000 project. The organization was allocated approximately $20,000 over the course of Phase I.

Nevertheless, this local partner was able to achieve many of the goals that the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund initially envisioned for it, before LCCREF made the difficult decision to reduce the housing council's funding.

The housing council's role in CommUNITY 2000 is an excellent illustration of how much can be accomplished to reduce, respond to and reconcile community tensions regardless of funding availability. The key to the organization's success under these circumstances was the potent combination of a well-established infrastructure, strong local leadership, and clear directives at the national level.

Mary Scott Knoll, executive director of the FHCSD, believed wholeheartedly in CommUNITY 2000's objectives and clearly understood what LCCREF hoped she could achieve. She brought to bear her considerable skills as a long-time grassroots organizer and fair housing advocate to ensure that the housing council accomplished as many of the project's goals as possible. She succeeded.

"It is difficult to imagine what more this local project director could have done in these two years, even WITH adequate funding," wrote Juliet Saltman, a CommUNITY 2000 Advisory Board member, in her assessment of the San Diego portion of the project. "That she did it with virtually no funding is truly remarkable and a tribute to her considerable skills in networking and organization, and her personal traits of perseverance and diligence."

The Fair Housing Council of San Diego opened its doors in 1989. As with fair housing centers across the nation, its mission is to eliminate unlawful housing discrimination in the rental, sales, lending and property insurance markets of San Diego. Knoll was the FHCSD's first executive director.

"San Diego historically was a small military town that didn't have the diverse population of Los Angeles," Knoll said. "But over time, that has changed. Our Latino and Asian populations continue to grow rapidly, with the African American population not far behind.

"There are natural tensions that come with changing populations in communities. We were very interested in the CommUNITY 2000 premise that specific strategies can be put in place to reduce those tensions."

When the CommUNITY 2000 project initially was conceived, Baltimore, Chicago and San Diego were slated to be the local partner cities. These cities represented different geographic regions of the country, had well-established fair housing centers, and had diverse populations susceptible to housingrelated conflicts. Each of the four partners (two were based in Chicago) was to receive approximately the same amount of grant monies.

However, officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), troubled by the inability of the Boston Housing Authority to successfully integrate its public housing developments, decided to substitute Boston for Baltimore as the CommUNITY 2000 local partner on the East Coast. Boston lacked an entrenched fair housing center. Therefore, HUD and LCCREF shifted funds from San Diego to the fledgling Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston (in addition to the funding originally earmarked for Baltimore) in order to help Boston establish the necessary infrastructure.

Nevertheless, the specific objectives of the San Diego local project remained basically the same, and clearly spelled out. They were as follows:

  • To help the general public better understand fair housing laws, and be able to identify housing related hate crimes
  • To create a system for receiving, processing, resolving, recording and tracking fair housing complaints that derive from acts of intimidation or coercion
  • To celebrate diversity as a way to combat negative racial impressions
  • To create a formal rapid response system so that when housing related hate crimes occurred, the system could:
    • Address the needs of victims, using the protections and redress provided under federal and state fair housing laws
    • Intervene with the perpetrators
    • Educate the community about programs and strategies that help create a more open and welcoming environment

Creation of a rapid response team was both the major goal and the major achievement of the San Diego portion of the CommUNITY 2000 project, according to sources at the national and local levels. However, formal implementation of the rapid response team did not happen until the end of the project.

Knoll took the approach that a rapid response system would be useless if people did not realize they were being victimized. The FHCSD would be creating a response team with nothing to respond to. Instead of throwing too many balls into the air at once, she decided to begin by focusing primarily on education. First, she made sure that she and her staff were well versed in federal and state laws that applied both to fair housing and hate crime issues. Second, she began the process of informing the public at large.

"People don't understand their rights here," Knoll said. "There has been a startling increase in the number of hate crimes reported in and around San Diego. This increase corresponds to the influx of minorities moving into neighborhoods. But no one had ever filed a claim that they were a victim of a hate crime that was housing related."

In the first year of the CommUNITY 2000 project, Knoll and her staff moved to offset the education and information void by:

  • Producing English and Spanish informational flyers titled "Hate Crimes in Housing Are Unlawful," which were targeted to buyers, renters, real estate professionals and community organizations
  • Hosting symposiums on housing related hate crimes for property owners and managers, and law enforcement
  • Beginning the planning process for a two-day cultural diversity festival, held in Spring 2001
  • Incorporating a segment on hate crimes in housing for its already established consumer outreach and education programs

The FHCSD also began to set the stage for creation of a rapid response team by becoming a member of the San Diego Regional Hate Crimes Coalition. Once again, creativity and resourcefulness were more instrumental in getting the job done than money.

"As a way of approaching the need for a rapid response system, we came through the back door, so to speak, and aligned ourselves with the coalition," Knoll said. "Eventually, we were able to transform a subcommittee of this group into our rapid response team."

Hector Jiminez, the Deputy District Attorney in charge of prosecuting hate crimes for the San Diego County District Attorney's Office, credits Knoll with making the coalition aware of the relationship between housing and the kinds of tensions that can lead to hate crimes.

"Because we were looking at other aspects of the hate crimes picture, we never considered housing," said Jiminez. "It wasn't even on our radar. That's where Mary came in and opened a whole new door for us."

Through the coalition, the Fair Housing Council began building critical relationships. This has been a hallmark of the CommUNITY 2000 project across the board. The Council became part of a network that included the District Attorney's Hate Crimes Unit, the San Diego Police Department Crisis Intervention Program, the Anti-Defamation League's Hate Crimes Victims Assistance Program, and the California Human Rights Commission.

By the end of the second year of CommUNITY 2000, these groups, working together as the Hate Crimes in Housing Subcommittee, were a bona fide rapid response team. They established an email network that serves as an effective rapid response tool. As an example, the network was able to act swiftly and decisively when presented with the case of a Chinese family being harassed by its next door neighbor.

Hui Cai, her husband Yi Hu, and their two young children moved into a neighborhood in Del Mar in December 2000. Almost immediately, their neighbor began harassing them. He placed a "Boycott China" sign on his property in view of their home; filed unsubstantiated charges with authorities claiming they abused their children; videotaped their comings and goings; and in August 2001, filed suit against them claiming he couldn't stand the smell of Chinese cooking.

Initially, Cai was too fearful of her neighbor to fight back. But a human resources counselor where she worked convinced her to contact the State's Attorney's Office, and officials there put her in touch with the housing council. Using its email strategy, the council immediately alerted the Housing Subcommittee/Rapid Response Team. And the team marshaled its forces to get the family the legal help and victim support services it needed. Backed by the Rapid Response coalition, the family is now fully aware of its rights and resources, and is considering a countersuit.

"If this family had contacted us, and there had been no rapid response team, I doubt we would have been able to give them the help they needed," Jiminez said. "These people were definitely being harassed, but I have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime has been committed. This guy never stepped on their property or physically threatened them. That's why having the sorts of noncriminal remedies that the rest of the response team provides is critical."

The Fair Housing Council accomplished additional goals in the second year of the CommUNITY 2000 project, most notably:

  • Hosting the two-day Unity Fest 2001, on March 27 and 28. The event featured dance, musical and theatrical performances by numerous groups that represented the ethnic diversity of the San Diego area. Festival attendance was modest, but those who came were quite taken with the quality of the performances and the optimistic message of the overall event. In fact, Connie Johnson of Partners for Healthy Neighborhoods, based in north San Diego County, was so impressed with the idea that she currently is working with Mary Knoll and the housing council staff to host the 2nd Annual Unity Fest in 2002. Knoll's feeling is that Unity Fest is a concept that will continue to grow bigger and more influential as the years go on.
  • Producing additional "Hate Crimes in Housing Are Unlawful" flyers in Asian and African Languages.
  • Collaborating with the California Department of Justice to develop a statewide hate crimes flowchart that links all California fair housing centers to state resources.

The CommUNITY 2000 project succeeded in broadening the focus of the Fair Housing Council of San Diego. As a result of national objectives, the San Diego council has built several invaluable coalitions that it will sustain far beyond the life of the project itself. These coalitions — the rapid response team, the Unity Fest partnership, statewide contacts — were cultivated carefully by a committed local partner.

"We made CommUNITY 2000 happen in San Diego by incorporating the objectives into our everyday work," Knoll said.

It is a strategy well worth considering for those interested in fostering good will in their communities without access to significant financial resources.

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