The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced December 12, 2007, that Miami Valley Fair Housing Center (MVFHC) has been awarded a three-year performance-based grant for its work

against housing discrimination and helping victims of predatory mortgage loans. At MVFHC's 2007 annual meeting, HUD Cincinnati Field Office Director James Cunningham presented MVFHC President/CEO Jim McCarthy with a check for the first year's installment of the grant.

The grant awarded to MVFHC is one of only thirty-nine multi-year grants awarded to the highest performing of HUD's more than 100 Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) agencies. Multi-year funding allows groups that maintain excellent performance ratings to continue their activities without interruption. Groups not in this category must submit requests for funding each year.

HUD's grant to MVFHC of $275,000 per year for three years, for a total of $825,000, will enable MVFHC to provide complaint intake, investigation and referral for alleged victims of discrimination. Read more and see photos.

National Fair Housing Alliance president to speak in Dayton about discrimination in housing sales

NFHA published the results of the investigation in their 2006 report Unequal Opportunity — Perpetuating Housing Segregation in America. Ms. Smith will provide illustrations of the discriminatory practices found and their impact on communities, and she will offer direction and guidance to real estate agents about ways to comply with the Fair Housing Act.

The presentation, which is open to the public, costs $30 per person; real estate agents can receive CE credit for attendance. For more information and to register, contact DABR at 937-223-0900.

National Fair Housing Alliance releases housing discrimination data and denounces crisis of segregation

The National Fair Housing Alliance released its annual trends report this month, which paints a comprehensive and alarming picture of how illegal housing practices by real estate companies perpetuate residential segregation in America. The report details an egregiously high incidence of racial steering across the United States even now, almost forty years after the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act.

NFHA's 2006 Fair Housing Trends Report describes its multi-year real estate sales testing program in twelve metropolitan areas, which revealed striking patterns of racial steering nationwide through hundreds of tests. In fact, NFHA's tests found racial steering to be the norm, with a steering rate of 87 percent, when testers were given an opportunity to see homes. Whites were limited to viewing homes in predominately White neighborhoods and discouraged from visiting homes in interracial neighborhoods. African-Americans and Latinos lost their right to see homes of their choosing across a wide spectrum of White communities. They were limited to seeing homes in neighborhoods in which their race or national origin predominated.

Now hiring

Anniversaries of the Federal Fair Housing Act and of Miami Valley Fair Housing Center commemorated in local newspapers

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A special commemorative insert celebrating the 40 years since the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act and the 15 years since the founding of the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center Inc. (MVFHC) was produced by Cox Ohio Publishing for distribution March 27, 2008, in the Dayton Daily News and the Springfield News-Sun.

Reproducing letters of congratulation from Congressman Mike Turner and Senator Sherrod Brown, the insert has articles on the history of the enactment of Civil Rights Act of 1968 as well as the history of MVFHC and of the Fair Housing Movement in general.

MVFHC paralegal Nicole Wilson (left) and Enforcement Coordinator Anita Schmaltz discuss work in the office

John Zimmerman,
MVFHC Vice President
of Education and Outreach

In addition the insert includes an article about accommodations landlords are required to make for companion and service animals for the disabled.

The insert is available online here, either in its entirety in PDF format or page-by-page in JPG or PDF formats by clicking the links to the right.

MVFHC's building, located at 21-23 E. Babbitt St.

Fair housing and civil rights groups file federal lawsuit in post-Katrina housing discrimination case

From the

November 12, 2008 — Civil rights and fair housing groups filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and the Louisiana Recovery Authority. The suit alleges that the Road Home, Louisiana’s Hurricane Katrina recovery program, discriminates against African-American homeowners in New Orleans.

The Road Home, an $11 billion federally-funded program, is the largest housing redevelopment program in U.S. history. The suit is being filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of five individuals representing a class of more than 20,000 African-American homeowners and two fair housing organizations, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center and the National Fair Housing Alliance.

“Forty years after the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act, residential segregation still permeates New Orleans,” said James Perry, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center. “Homes in communities of color still have lower values than those in white communities even when the condition, style and quality of the homes are comparable. Louisiana’s program builds on this history of discrimination. Only when housing opportunities are created for all residents of New Orleans will our recovery truly be successful.”

HUD is responsible for overseeing Louisiana’s use of federal disaster recovery funding and assuring that the funds are used to promote equal housing opportunity.

“HUD has the duty, authority, and ability to make sure Louisiana distributes funds for the Road Home program fairly,” said Shanna L. Smith, President and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance. “Instead, HUD allowed a formula that is biased and threatens to undermine the recovery efforts of African-American homeowners. As such, it failed to take into account the legacy of racial discrimination in the housing market, which has resulted in systematically lower values for homes in communities of color.”

The plaintiffs in the case are represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Washington D.C. plaintiff’s law firm, Cohen Milstein, and the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.

“African American homeowners in New Orleans are being unfairly prevented from reclaiming their homes by the discriminatory design and implementation of the Road Home program. African Americans are facing huge gaps between the amount of their Road Home grant awards versus the cost to rebuild their homes when compared to their white counterparts,” said John Payton, LDF President and Director-Counsel.

According to Cohen Milstein’s Joseph M. Sellers, head of the firm’s Civil Rights and Employment Practice, “HUD and Louisiana have perpetrated a cruel hoax on African-American victims of the Katrina and Rita hurricanes by offering assistance that Congress intended would permit them to rebuild their destroyed homes but which falls far short of its noble promise by linking it to the depressed values of their pre-storm segregated housing rather than to the cost of reconstruction.”

The discrimination, in this case, is the result of the formula used to determine Road Home grants. Grant awards are based on the lower of two-values: the pre-storm value of the home, or the cost of damage. Home values in most predominantly African-American neighborhoods are lower than the values of similar homes in white neighborhoods. As a result, the grants for African-American homeowners are more likely to be based upon the pre-storm value of their homes, leaving them without enough money to rebuild. In contrast, white homeowners are more likely to receive grants based on the actual cost of repairs. The lawsuit filed today seeks to eliminate this disparity.

Copies of the case complaint and related materials are available at http://www.gnofairhousing.org.

Issue 5 passes by Huge Margin!

Yes: 64%, No: 36% win signals the end of the debt trap

From

Breaking Ground,
the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio's newsletter

The national payday lending lobby waged one of the dirtiest, most costly and deceptive campaigns in recent history. High-priced lawyers failed twice on petition summary language that the Attorney General found neither fair nor truthful.

Snapshot of a Failed Campaign
Ohioans for Financial Freedom spent approximately $22 million in their bid to continue charging 391% APR on payday loans. Here’s where some of the money went:
Public Relations	$175,000	Advertising	$7,148,000
Legal Fees	$449,000	Polling/focus groups	$213,000
Grassroots	$934,000	Petitions	$3,088,000
Consulting	$123,000	Direct Mail	$1,320,000

Petition gatherers lied and bribed voters into signing. Misleading television ads featured a fake farmer and his fan belt, a soccer mom who clearly wasn’t, and a guy in boxer shorts who ran around the screen like a plucked chicken awaiting the butcher.

The media saw through it all. And while there are hundreds of articles and editorials to choose from that sum up the campaign, the Cleveland Plain Dealer possibly said it best in an editorial that ran November 5:

It didn’t matter how many millions of dollars payday lenders spent in their desperate attempt to continue charging 391 percent interest rates on short-term loans, Ohioans weren’t about to be fooled by their deceitful campaign. Voters Tuesday dealt the payday lending industry one of the most humiliating election defeats imaginable, overwhelmingly approving a measure (Issue 5) capping APR interest rates at 28 percent.

Proponents of State Issue 5 had a lot of help from churches and newspapers (every big-city daily endorsed its passage), but the campaign itself only spent about $500,000. The payday lenders spent about $22 million. But in the end, their dirty money didn’t matter. If the lenders had spent $50 million opposing Issue 5, it still would have passed — big.

The lenders made a pathetic attempt to convince voters that opposing Issue 5 would save jobs. But Issue 5 was never about jobs. It was always about fairness, about preventing the payday lenders from preying on Ohio’s most vulnerable citizens. Ohioans understood that. The payday lenders and their high-priced consultants didn’t.

Ballot measures in Ohio and Arizona doom deceptive tactics and predatory practices

From the

November 5, 2008 — Ohio and Arizona voters saw through the deception of the payday lending industry at the ballot box Tuesday and voted to reject payday lending in their states, as the trade group used dirty tricks and misleading advertising to try to keep predatory 391 percent annual interest rates legal for payday loans.

Ballot propositions initiated by the industry, supported by over 30 million of their trade groups dollars, and featuring measures that prop up their predatory practices, experienced stunning defeats in both states, as voters recognized the deception in the industry and its advertising. Payday lenders outspent the Ohio grassroots coalition by over 60 to 1, and still lost by a 2 to 1 margin in the vote. In Arizona, the grassroots campaign was outspent about 90 to 1.

“These two citizens ballots are really a mandate for cracking down on payday lending throughout the nation,” said Uriah King, policy associate for Center for Responsible Lending. “You can get no clearer message than a huge majority of voters rejecting 400 percent interest loans. A reasonable two-digit cap is sensible, fair, and it works to keep bad apples out of the consumer lending arena.”

Combating millions of dollars of deceptive advertising, spirited grassroots campaigns in each state took on a national industry that depends on making high-interest loans repeatedly to customers who cannot afford to pay them off for good.

Payday loans are systematically converted into long-term, high-cost debt for working families. The average payday borrower has more than eight transactions per year, costing them more in interest than the original loan. Congress passed a 36 percent cap protecting military families from this practice, and 15 states plus the District of Columbia have chosen to control predatory lending by enforcing interest rates in that range.

Ohio’s new law had no sooner passed when the industry initiated a ballot measure that would have repealed the interest rate cap of 28 percent. Arizona’s current law exempting payday loans from the state’s 36 percent cap on small loans is due to expire in 2010, and lawmakers are unlikely to renew it given its negative impact on borrowers and the economy.

The failure of the payday industry to circumvent state lawmakers in Ohio and Arizona suggests not only that citizens are in the mood to crack down on irresponsible lending practices, but also that people are catching on to the deceptive practices of the industry.

The conventional wisdom for ballot measures is “when in doubt, vote no.” Thus the payday lending industry in Ohio had a big advantage by having the “No” vote. This is only the second time in history of Ohio referenda, established in 1856, that the “Yes” vote won, and victory in this bellwether state sends a strong message to policymakers everywhere.

In Arizona, the payday lenders tried to capitalize on the trend toward reform, going so far as to attack their own practices as unethical. Community groups, business leaders, political leaders of all parties, faith groups, military and consumer advocates endorsed the “No” vote, and news reports and internet bloggers helped spread the word that the reform was false.

To learn more about the payday lending debt trap, visit the Center for Responsible Lending’s web page.

Federal Jury Finds Racial Discrimination in Zanesville Water Case

Ohio Attorney General, Ohio Civil Rights Commission Praise Jury's Verdict

July 11, 2008 — A federal jury has issued a verdict in a case against the City of Zanesville, East Muskingum Water Authority, and Muskingum County. The jury determined that the defendants discriminated against 67 residents living in a predominately African-American neighborhood located just beyond the Zanesville city limits by failing to provide the residents with public water service.

"This decision speaks firmly about the importance of treating citizens with equal respect, regardless of race," said Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers. "We are pleased that relief was provided to those who suffered as the result of discrimination."

The jury determined the city and the county violated state and federal civil rights laws in the provision of water services. The jury awarded a total of more than 10 million dollars in damages to the plaintiffs.

The case began in 2002 when residents of Coal Run, filed a charge of discrimination with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission (OCRC). The residents alleged they had been denied access to public water service since the 1950's on the basis of their race.

The residents initiated the case after repeated requests, over several decades, for public water service. Each request to the city, county, and township public water service authorities was denied. However, during that same time period, similar requests for public water service were granted and made available to white families located further away.

The OCRC determined in 2003 that these families had been denied public water service due to consideration of their race and issued a formal complaint of discrimination. The OCRC's investigation confirmed that several nearby white neighbors, also residing beyond the city limits, had been enjoying access to public water service from the City of Zanesville for several decades. During that same year, after the complaint of discrimination had been filed, Muskingum County made the provision of public water service available to these residents.

"We are pleased the jury has reaffirmed the principle that all citizens are equal before the law and should not be marginalized or treated as invisible in the provision of governmental services," said OCRC Executive Director G. Michael Payton. "The plaintiffs, like other citizens in Zanesville, are decent, honest, and hard-working persons who wanted nothing more than to be accorded the same privileges and services as their neighbors. No citizen should have to suffer the humiliation and indignity suffered by the plaintiffs in this case."

Payton commended the work of Attorney General Nancy Rogers and her staff in successfully prosecuting this case. "This is precisely the kind of professionalism and commitment that has earned her staff a state-wide reputation for providing high quality legal representation," said Executive Director Payton. "We also commend our investigative staff who worked on the case for their hard work."

"It was an honor and privilege to represent the Commission in this case and to play a role in bringing public water service to the residents of the Coal Run neighborhood," said Steve Schmidt, Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Section. "I remember being in the kitchen of one of the residents when the water service started and thinking this is why I went to law school."

The residents were represented by Relman & Dane PLLC and Jones Day, and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission was represented by the Ohio Attorney General before Honorable Judge Algernon Marbley in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Contacts for additional information:
Ohio Civil Rights Commission: Brandi Klein (614) 644-0244
Ohio Attorney General's Office: Ted Hart (614) 728-4127

are so many services available on the internet to help you find a roommate, each offering slightly different things. One service might offer to let you write whatever you want, and another service might help you filter out matches based on individual criteria — such as rent amount or location. With any of these roommate services, what might not be clear are your obligations under the Fair Housing Act, a federal law.

Check out equalhousingonthenet.com to learn how the Fair Housing Act covers advertisements for housing or services related to the provision of housing.

Miami Valley Fair Housing Center sues developer of
the Greene for discrimination against people with disabilities

Investigation reveals violations by Steiner + Associates, et al.

April 30, 2008 – The Miami Valley Fair Housing Center, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council and the National Fair Housing Alliance today filed a housing discrimination lawsuit against Steiner + Associates, a national developer of town centers that contain retail, residential and office spaces. The lawsuit alleges that Steiner, et al., failed to comply with federal accessibility standards in the design and construction of their properties.

The organizations investigated apartment units at Gilbert Court at the Greene in Beavercreek, Ohio, Lofts at Zona Rosa in Kansas City, Missouri, and Bayshore in Glendale, Wisconsin. All of the properties, including 272 individual apartments, were developed by Steiner + Associates and failed to meet the accessibility requirements of fair housing and disability laws. Steiner is developing additional properties in Virginia, Texas and Pennsylvania.

The lawsuit also names Mecham & Apel, Architects, Inc., Development Design Group, Inc., Torti Gallas and Partners, Inc., Messer Construction Co., Corna/Kokosing Construction Co., and others. The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to discriminate based on disability, race, color, national origin, religion, sex or familial status.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 51 million Americans (nearly one in five) have some form of disability. Of that number, more than 2.7 million people over the age of 15 years use a wheelchair. Another 7 million use a cane, crutches, a walker or other mobility aid. These numbers are expected to increase as the population ages and wounded veterans return from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The lawsuit alleges that Steiner + Associates, et al., have engaged in a continuous pattern and practice of discrimination against people with disabilities by designing and/or constructing multifamily dwellings inaccessible to people with disabilities. Architectural barriers at these properties include insurmountable thresholds, steps to the bedrooms, narrow hall widths and bathrooms with insufficient clear floor space — all of which prohibit the maneuverability of people in wheelchairs. Apartments also had environmental controls beyond the reach of wheelchair users. In addition, common use areas had accessible routes and passageways, abrupt level changes at thresholds and counter tops that were too high for use by people with wheelchairs.

After an investigation of Gilbert Court at the Greene found multiple units out of compliance with the Fair Housing Act, the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in March 2007. The complaint was referred to the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, which found probable cause to conclude that discriminatory practices had occurred at the property and referred the case to the Ohio Attorney General for prosecution. After the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council and the National Fair Housing Alliance identified units at Bayshore and Zona Rosa that were inaccessible to people with disabilities, the fair housing groups joined to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

"Steiner was founded over a decade after the passage of the Fair Housing Amendments Act, yet after all these years, people with disabilities continue to face discrimination because of Steiner's inaccessible designs. We will not allow them and their partners to continue harming the community and denying housing to people with disabilities by designing and constructing inaccessible housing." Jim McCarthy – President & CEO, Miami Valley Fair Housing Center

"Town centers are being developed and built all over the country with the benefit of integrating housing and retail in one place. People with disabilities cannot be left out. Accessible housing is an essential means of ensuring that people with disabilities are able to fully participate in community life. It is time for builders and developers to recognize their responsibility and comply with the law and construct housing units that are accessible for everyone." William Tisdale – President & CEO, Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council

"It has been twenty years since the Fair Housing Act was amended to include disability. There cannot be a single valid reason for architects, developers, and builders to continue designing and building inaccessible housing. Steiner + Associates must undo the harm they have caused to these communities." Shanna Smith – President & CEO, National Fair Housing Alliance

New markets!
New opportunities!

Would you like a great way to expand your market and create new opportunities for long-term residents?

Have you ever considered what keeps residents in apartments?

Turnover costs average $497 per unit.

Modifications that allow people with disabilities to live comfortably can reduce turnover!

Download this Accessible Housing brochure to learn how to make your housing more welcoming to people with disabilities.

Questions?

Contact the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center
at 937-223-6035

or the Access Center for Independent Living
at 937-341-5202.

Looking for accessible housing? Visit

or call the National Accessible Apartment Clearinghouse Database
at 800-421-1221.

Fair Housing Impediments analysis available

The 2004 Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice - Montgomery County, Ohio and Kettering, Ohio report is now available online.

Montgomery County Consolidated Plan available

The Montgomery County, Ohio FY 2003-2007 Consolidated Plan is now available online.

Predatory Lending Solutions study released

Nov. 15, 2001, 2:30 pm: The study is now available by clicking here.

The Predatory Lending Solutions project has released the results of a study designed to examine the local impact of predatory lending in Montgomery County, Ohio. The study, conducted by University of Daytons Center for Business and Economic Research, examined foreclosures in Montgomery County from 1994 - 2000, and the associated activity among lenders who offer sub-prime mortgages.

Objectives of the study were to:

Determine whether predatory lending contributed to the rise of foreclosures
Define the geographic and demographic pattern of predatory loans
Identify the lenders who are involved with loans that have predatory characteristics

The study found that foreclosures in Montgomery County increased by a factor of two and one half times between 1994 and 2000, and that sub-prime lenders were responsible for a disproportionately high share of that increase. A substantial number of the sub-prime foreclosures sampled showed signs of predatory lending, including high interest rates, pre-payment penalties and balloon payments.

Telephone surveys also revealed that many of the tactics associated with predatory lending at the national level are occurring in the sub-prime market in Montgomery County. These tactics include new fees and different loan terms revealed at loan closing, encouragement to borrow more money, steering people with good credit into sub-prime loans, and inflated appraisals.

Lenders associated with sampled mortgages that showed predatory characteristics are noted in the report. The Citigroup subsidiaries (Associates, Citifinancial, Ford Consumer Finance) and Household International (Household Realty, Beneficial Mortgage, Decision One) dominated the loan sample with 26.27 percent and 24.2 percent. City Loan Financial was third with 12.3 percent.

The study indicated that most of the sub-prime lenders are doing three to four as many loans with African American borrowers, and two to five as many loans with borrowers whose household income is 50% or less of the median household income, when compared with the overall market. Mapping of the mortgage foreclosures between 1994 and 2000 illustrates the rapid spread across jurisdictions of Montgomery County. While the City of Dayton has the largest percentage, suburban communities have experienced an increase in their share of foreclosures as well as those associated with sub-prime loans.

Predatory Lending Solutions is a collaborative project by the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center, Consumer Credit Counseling Service, and the Legal Aid Society of Dayton. Montgomery County has provided strong financial support for the projects initiatives, including a public information campaign that rolled-out in September. The Dayton Foundation provided financial support for the research component, which was coordinated by the project partners with Dr. Richard Stock from the University of Dayton.

Copies of the complete study, and appendices are available at www.mvfairhousing.com/cber.

City of Dayton passes Predatory Lending ordinance

The Dayton City Commission passed a predatory lending ordinance on Wednesday, July 11, 2001. It prohibits practices by some companies which have lead to some properties being over-mortgaged causing homeowners to lose their houses through foreclosure.

Commissioner Dean Lovelace, who proposed the ordinance, said that if it pushes out abusive, high-cost lenders, then the ordinance will have done its job. "I think youre going to see some of the sub-prime lenders that have dominated our market step back," he said.

The city will not monitor all property transactions in the city. Instead homeowners who are signed into home-equity or refinancing loans that violate the provisions of the ordinance can have the terms modified so their loans are no longer in violation.

"At last this sets a tone for the citys position," said Jim McCarthy, director of the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center (MVFHC). MVFHC has added five staff members through a $350,000 grant from Montgomery County to handle complaints from residents who think they may be in an abusive loan. The county administration has pledged to fund two more years of the expanded effort as well, McCarthy said.

Consumers in Montgomery County with questions about whether their loans are abusive can contact the predatory lending hotline at 222-9671. Residents in other counties can contact their local legal aid societies.

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Old news

Presentation on predatory loans is now available

2008 Community Reinvestment Institute program

MVFHC awarded 3-year performance-based HUD grant