In light of the approaching 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act in April, CNY Fair Housing will hold a conference Thursday to discuss the current state of the act.

“Fair Housing Turns 50! Protecting Rights in Uncertain Times” will run from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Marriott Syracuse Downtown hotel. The conference will feature workshops and a keynote speech by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a New York Times domestic correspondent on racial justice.

“There was a lot of progress made during the last couple of years of the Obama administration in terms of new house guidance,” said Sally Santangelo, executive director of CNY Fair Housing. “Unfortunately, now some of that progress is being undone and so we’ll be looking at some of the threats to fair housing now.”

Santangelo said she expects a turnout of about 150 people at the conference, including members of the housing industry, publicly funded housing providers, staff from local human service agencies, community development staff and students from a Syracuse University Ph.D. class on inequality.

Besides federal officials, Santangelo said she believes it’s important that local communities participate in achieving fair housing goals. She emphasized the “imperative” role the private sector, housing professionals and other actors in the housing industry play in ensuring fair housing.

The conference will discuss the current state of federal obligations to the fair housing law for the first hour, followed by three concurrent workshops discussing sexual harassment and domestic violence in housing, disability inclusion and the best practices to build inclusive communities.

Following cases of sexual harassment filed recently and developments in the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development related to domestic violence, the conference will bring in an attorney from Washington, D.C., who has worked on a sexual harassment case, CNY Fair Housing filed.

The workshops on disability will explain physical barriers and measures to improve and increase accessible, affordable housing and acceptance for people with mental and developmental disabilities.

A new addition to the workshops will discuss education and school segregation. Hannah-Jones, the keynote speaker, will speak about education inequality, which Santangelo said is a huge issue in the state.

“New York state has the most racially segregated schools in the entire country,” she said. “Where you go to school is determined by where you live, and what resources a school has is determined by property taxes. Because schools are largely funded with property taxes, you have such disparity in resources between school districts.”

She said housing inequality, segregation and education inequality are not exclusive from one another.

“Housing policy is education policy is housing policy,” she said, quoting David Rusk, a consultant on urban and suburban policy.

Santangelo said she hopes the conference leaves people more well-informed about their housing laws and what’s happening in the local community.

“I think it’s important to bring people together to focus on this issue of housing and to learn more about fair housing,” she said. “I hope people come away inspired to do more. That’s my hope.”

Published on November 1, 2017 at 9:28 pm

Contact: dmurthy@syr.edu