The grant funds come from the federal government’s fiscal year 2024 budget to support 75 fair housing organizations throughout the U.S. through the Fair Housing Initiatives Program.
One of those organizations is the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan, which works to prevent housing discrimination, remove barriers that allow it to persist, and restore housing choice when discrimination happens.
“We also provide a lot of education about what people’s fair housing rights are.”
Liz Keegan is the Director of Education and Outreach at the center.
“We also work with the housing industry to develop best practices and provide training to help them understand what fair housing violations can look like and hopefully prevent those from ever occurring.”
Keegan says the fair housing center is receiving $425,000 a year for the next three years. This funding will primarily finance investigations into fair housing practices in West Michigan.
“So that looks like helping people file fair housing complaints, helping them understand what violations may have occurred and which laws might apply kind of really walking them through what their options are in terms of accessing housing or keeping housing.”
Keegan says current trends in housing discrimination concern people with disabilities as well as race and skin color, making these funds more important than ever to finance their work.