CNY Fair Housing battles housing discrimination cases amid a challenging political climate
Trump’s efforts to dismantle organizations that promote DEIA initiatives have begun to affect CNY Fair Housing’s operations, despite the organization being a local branch sector of a federal nonprofit. It now faces the elimination of grant funding. Flynn Ledoux | Illustration Editor
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Members of Central New York Fair Housing are worried about the future of their housing advocacy efforts as President Donald Trump works to eliminate grants and initiatives for diversity, equality, inclusion and accessibility.
CNY Fair Housing is a local nonprofit organization that receives funding through grants from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. It responds to tenant or renter discrimination cases by conducting investigations and taking legal action when necessary. But it now faces elimination of grant funding for its education and outreach efforts, which Tysha Martin said its legal team is challenging in court.
“We fight discrimination. We stand up for people based on their race, their color, their sexual identity, their national origin,” Martin, the director of community engagement, said. “So we kind of knew we were going to be a target.”
On February 27, CNY Fair Housing was informed one of their grants was “terminated, effective immediately,” without prior notice, Martin said. Following the elimination of the grant — which funded education and outreach — the team took the case to court, where a judge determined the grant’s removal was illegal and ordered it to be reinstated, she said.
Along with CNY Fair Housing, other HUD Fair Housing Initiative Programs throughout the country received notifications regarding the elimination of 78 grants seen as unnecessary by the Trump administration, eliminating tens of millions in funding. On March 27, federal U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns ordered for the funding cut to be overturned.
However, Casey Weissman-Vermeulen, a former attorney for CNY Fair Housing and an associate teaching professor at Syracuse University’s College of Law, said the federal government is now asking for that ruling to be overturned, therefore taking away the grant’s funding again.
With the HUD grant support, CNY Fair Housing works to address systemic issues in Syracuse, including redlining — the discriminatory practice of creating loan distribution maps that rank districts based primarily on the race and ethnicity of residents. Martin said inequality between districts and segregated neighborhoods are apparent in cities like Syracuse, though redlining has been illegal since the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968.
“We have to look not just at individual acts, but these broad patterns that we see in our community, because they go back further than the laws that outlaw these individual acts,” Alex Lawson, housing policy manager at CNY Fair Housing, said.
CNY Fair Housing’s annual “Run the Redline” 5k race is one of the programs at risk of funding cuts. Through the race, participants can learn more about housing discrimination and its current impact on neighborhoods today. The race also offers anti-discrimination workshops for real estate agents and landlords.
Martin said through educational events like “Run the Redline,” people can look into Syracuse’s history. Through images placed around the course, participants can see the similarities between then and now.
Martin said the organization’s current struggle with funding mirrors what it experienced during Trump’s first term.
CNY Fair Housing’s mission, Weissman-Vermeulen said, extends beyond legal enforcement. He also said the organization also works to raise awareness about how housing discrimination impacts individual families and the greater community.
“Issues of discrimination, and then sort of isolating folks to areas of concentrated poverty, lead to all kinds of problems that we all sort of collectively pay for in terms of folks not being able to access jobs and being upwardly economically mobile or perhaps engaging in crime or non-legal economic activity,” Weissman-Vermeulen said.
Martin echoed Weissman-Vermeulen. For her, being part of the organization means directly helping the community and educating the public on the uncertainty surrounding fair housing under Trump, she said.
Martin said she realized without the education and advocacy efforts CNY Fair Housing promotes, communities won’t be aware of the harm that comes from housing discrimination and lack of awareness about DEIA issues.
“Whole neighborhoods are being taken apart, because of politics, because of people feeling like this is the right thing to do,” Martin said. “We’re in a unique situation to see history repeat itself if we don’t talk about it.”
Lawson said both equitable housing opportunities and resolution of individual housing discrimination cases are critical. The Trump administration has opposed both.
Despite threats to its funding, the nonprofit has fought against Syracuse’s high numbers of discrimination cases since 1991.
When a discrimination case is reported, employees of both different and similar identities — called testers — are sent to the site to assess whether the claim is accurate. For example, if CNY Fair Housing receives a report involving a person with disabilities, it sends in staff members with and without disabilities to take note of potential different treatment. If testers find evidence of unequal treatment, CNY Fair Housing involves its legal team to take further action.
Weissman-Vermeulen said many people who contact the organization suspect they’re being discriminated against, but don’t always have concrete evidence. He said most discrimination tends to be subtle.
“(It’s) one of the most important things that organizations like CNY Fair Housing does,” Weissman-Vermeulen said. “It conducts investigations to uncover evidence that corroborates individual suspicions when there’s not some smoking gun, or someone doesn’t make an overtly bigoted statement.”
The goal of these investigations is to determine whether actions by housing providers, including landlords or real estate agents, are discriminatory. Although some cases go to court, Weissman-Vermeulen said many cases are resolved without legal proceedings, often by securing necessary accommodations.
“If we don’t get our sh*t together and do what’s right for the people of our community, get them the resources, get them the help that they need and support for organizations like us, then I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Martin said.
