The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

The Future of Fair Housing

• Table of Contents
• About the Commission
• Acknowledgements
• Executive Summary
  • Recommendations
• Introduction
• I. Housing Discrimination and Segregation Continue
• II. Fair Housing Enforcement at HUD is Failing
• III. Fair Housing Enforcement at the Justice Department is Weak
• IV. The Need for Strong Fair Housing Programs
• V. Fair Housing and the Foreclosure Crisis
• VI. Federal Housing Programs
• VII. Fair Housing Obligations of Federal Grantees
• VIII. Regionalism and Fair Housing Enforcement
• IX. The President's Fair Housing Council
• X. Fair Housing Education: A Missing Piece
• XI. The Necessity of Fair Housing Research
• XII. Conclusion

Appendices

• Appendix A: Emerging Fair Housing Issues
• Appendix B: International Disapproval of U.S. Fair Housing Policy
• Appendix C:
  • Letter to Congressional Leaders
  • Letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
• Appendix D: Commission Witnesses and Staff

Acknowledgements

The National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity was a collaborative effort of many organizations and individuals over the past year.

First, we thank the foundations, organizations, and individuals that supported the work of the Commission: Allstate; Fannie Mae; The Ford Foundation; Freddie Mac; Bernie Kleina, HOPE Fair Housing (IL); Michael W. Tyler, Kilpatrick, Stockton. LLP; Justin Massa, MoveSmart.org; the National Association of Realtors; Stew Harris, New Media Mill; New Bridge Videography; Rosenberg Foundation; Larry Silfen, Tsq Reporting; Southern Poverty Law Center, and Wachovia.

For logistical, research, and funding support at our regional hearings, we are grateful for the generous pro bono assistance of the law firms of Winston and Strawn in Chicago; Weil, Gotshal and Manges in Houston; Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp in Los Angeles; Dechert LLP in Boston; and DLA Piper and Sutherland at the final hearing in Atlanta. These firms also helped us prepare the essential briefing books at each hearing that gave regional context to the Commission’s deliberations.

We are also grateful for the support of the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP in New York, including attorneys Michael de Leeuw and Megan Whyte, who have assisted us throughout the Commission process and have also provided significant support for the final report.

We also had wonderful volunteer assistance at the hearings from Jim McCarthy and David Lauri of the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center who provided live streaming video of the hearings, and Justin Massa who blogged the Chicago hearing, giving us access to a wider audience.

We appreciated the generosity and hospitality of our hosts in each city we visited: the offices and conference center of Access Living in Chicago; the National Bar Association conference in Houston; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles; Suffolk Law School in Boston; and Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Of course, thanks to our hard working consultants: Julie Fernandes and Kara Forsyth at the Raben Group, who spearheaded the effort on our behalf; Natalie Shear and Associates, who handled all of our hearing logistics; and Sara Pratt and Philip Tegeler (with the Poverty & Race Research Action Council), who assisted in identifying and preparing witnesses and drafting the final report with the Commission members. The authors would also like to acknowledge the research assistance of Jason Small, Westra Miller, Sara Hinchliff Pearson, David Bernstein, Daniel Kotler, Randall Hirsch, Tom Silverstein and Sarah Graham.

And thanks, especially, to our hard working Commissioners, who took on this challenge on a volunteer basis to help us forge a new consensus on the future of fair housing. We are all grateful for the time, creativity, insight, and dedication that each of the Commissioners brought to this important work.

Finally, we want to express our gratitude to the staff of our organizations for their many contributions to all aspects of this project.

Wade Henderson, President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Karen McGill Lawson, President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund

Barbara Arnwine, Executive Director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

John Payton, President and Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Shanna Smith, Executive Director, National Fair Housing Alliance

Next Section: Executive Summary