Announcer 1: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the host of the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

As we continue to navigate the challenges facing our communities, one issue that demands urgent attention is the potential impact of funding cuts to fair housing agencies.

These organizations play a critical role in protecting the rights of individuals and families, ensuring access to safe, affordable and equitable housing.

Today, we're speaking with George Thomas, CEO of the Toledo Fair Housing Center, to better understand how these potential cuts could affect their work, the communities they serve, and the broader fight for housing justice.

I'm Doni Miller, and welcome to the point.

You can connect with us on our social media pages.

And as you know, you can email me at Doni Underscore Miller at wgte dot org.

And for this episode and other additional extras, please go to wgte.org slash To the point I am excited to have with me today, George Thomas, who's the CEO of the Toledo Fair Housing Center.

And let me tell you why.

There's lot there are lots and lots of things being said in the news about cuts to agencies and the impact that they will have on our country and more specifically on our individual communities.

But we're not really talking about what it means if those cuts actually occur.

We're not.

I think it's because we don't understand exactly the impact of those cuts.

So I've decided to ask George here today to talk about one of our most important community agencies, give you a little background on why that agency is so important and the impact should these cuts occur.

And that's the Toledo Fair Housing Center.

Thank you so very much for coming to talk about this.

Your agency, along with many others, including this particular station, face the potential for significant cuts in in fact, this the PBS, NPR is funding has been eliminated, as you know.

But I want to talk about why people should be paying attention to agencies like yours.

George: Right.

I mean, effectively, we can't provide the extremely important services that we provide.

Right?

So we are, the agency that enforces your very basic human civil rights to housing, just to kind of provide some context here.

So, if you want to buy a home, if you want to get access to an apartment, if you want to live in a certain neighborhood, what are your civil rights in that space?

What if you face discrimination based on race, color, disability, any of those other protected classes, familial status, for example, and you can't get access to the home that you would prefer.

And I think that speaks to who we are, really, as Americans, as a society that believes in freedom, as a society that wants to give opportunity, to everyone.

And if someone is cut off from that opportunity, that, rattles something within us.

And thankfully, there's a law, the Fair Housing Act.

It's a federal law that protects Americans against discrimination within their home.

But those laws, all of our civil rights laws, all of the laws that Congress has passed and that people have fought for over the years, those really are only words.

They're only, things on paper.

They really don't have any value unless there's people, people who understand them and people who enforce them.

And to do that, you have to have a budget of some kind that helps provide for those people to be able to understand the Fair Housing Act, to understand how it investigate discrimination, how to go into the community and do outreach and educate folks on their rights so they understand what that even is and what their rights are, and then file actions to enforce those.

That's essentially what our agency does.

Always in this kind of conversation, I always want to pause for a moment to make sure we really emphasize, what we're talking about.

The home, your home powerfully affects every other aspect of your life, right?

So we're not just talking about getting cut off from an apartment, or maybe you're buying the home that you prefer, your neighborhood that you prefer that affects everything else your access to job opportunities, your education, your, your other, access to other opportunities like your health and safety are powerfully affected by it, by housing opportunities.

So that that civil rights movement that we had in, you know, in the in late 60s, early 70s culminated in the passage of that Fair Housing Act.

Doni: I want to ask you if I can interrupt for just a moment.

It's a great segue to to a thought that I had when I, while you were speaking.

And that is, can you put in context for folks who may not remember what the landscape was like that really encouraged the fair housing laws?

George: Yeah.

I mean, we, had this nation that, had this long history of redlining and discrimination.

Our communities were designed they were structured around those kind of concepts of redlining.

The communities that we live in today are still powerfully affected by those same themes of of discrimination and community planning or access to loan products and all of those opportunities that opportunities to access capital, those kinds of things.

And then the vicious cycle of disinvestment that powerfully affected neighborhoods, Doni: that was intentionally George: that was intentionally created.

Absolutely.

So those older redlining maps I'm mentioning that people that are vaguely familiar with that concept of redlining, but those were designed around racial boundaries, around racial demographics and and other types of protected classes as well that we now recognize under the Fair Housing Act.

But they cap people in certain neighborhoods, and they perpetuated disinvestment in those same neighborhoods.

That was all very intentional project of our federal government and state government, Doni: the parts to which we might I'm sorry to interrupt, but which we I'm particularly passionate about this particular subject, but which resulted in I think people should understand, poor school systems, lack of access to health care.

All of those things that perpetuate poverty happened before that and continue to happen.

But but in, in greater to a much greater degree before the creation of the fair housing, George: I think and we mentioned those things too, it's really important to understand that that was in terms of human development essentially yesterday, that was very, very recent in the communities that we live in today are directly affected or directly planned out in relation to those themes.

That was just describing.

So here you have this context where we very clearly needed, something like the Fair Housing Act to end both discrimination in part of the Fair Housing Act to is to pursue larger the goals of the Fair Housing Act to accomplish proactively some of those things that we wanted to see occur, to really achieve, the American dream for for many families.

And I think it's important to to put that in like a larger context of this nation, though I don't want that to be messed.

The this nation was founded on a declaration of independence that was about human rights and a constitution that was founded on certain laws.

And then we fought a civil war.

We fought a world war.

All of those things were fighting against fascism and fighting for civil rights, fighting for freedom for folks.

And then that that that civil rights movement that we're talking about now was in this larger narrative, right, of human, of history, of this country, of what we stood for, what we believe in, and to now see a situation where, the white House comes out with a proposed budget that says that we actually want to eliminate that enforcement of the fair housing laws.

That's a stark moment.

That's a moment that I think is in sharp contrast to that long history and the need for the Fair Housing Act and the civil rights movement that we just recently, developed in our country.

Doni: So, as simply as you can, would you explore what happens to your agency if funding cuts occur?

Now, we should be clear with people that your agency has been aggressive in pushing back.

Along with partners.

You've made some really good headway.

Some positive results have happened for that.

But there's no guarantee.

George: That's right.

And so that some of the really key services that we provide, if we don't have this very, very minimal funding, I should say, is extremely small margin that we and many fair housing groups operate on.

If we don't have that, some of these very necessary functions for an investigation won't occur.

Let me give you one, concrete example.

We have what's called a fair housing testing program, where it was very unique.

Only fair housing agencies really do this, that we will send out, kind of secret shoppers.

That one, let's say one is white, one is black, or one is a person with disabilities and one is a person without disabilities.

They'll go out and try to apply for a housing unit.

And then if they're treated differently, the apply on the same day, they're told very different information about what housing is available.

That's then evidence of discrimination that we can use.

And very often that's the only way that we have to uncover discrimination, because it's time that we live in is, discrimination is often very hidden.

Right.

It's much more it's more difficult to uncover, though.

We know it's still occur.

And we know that from, significant research that HUD and others have done and that we continue to have these really important cases.

That's just one example.

It's like a key kind of service that we provide that no one else does.

And that's really necessary to try to end, that kind of discrimination.

Another piece of what we do is policy advocacy or understanding these issues from a different lens, like we're talking about this in terms of redlining and the history of, of this, of our local community.

And now with that lens, we can kind of understand these problems in a different way and then achieve a different kind of advocacy for changing things or improving things to really accomplish the goals of the Fair Housing Act.

If we don't have that kind of very minimal funding that we need to do that, all of those kinds of services go away.

Doni: Do you find that, the number of complaints that you're getting are increasing or they decreasing?

Are they staying about the same?

george: So nationwide and for us as well, there has been an increase in, fair housing cases and fair housing complaints.

So the National Fair Housing Alliance actually collects that data across the country.

And, we've seen an increase of at least a thousand nationwide.

Yes.

And then in Ohio is also one of the top states, for receiving those kinds of complaints, processing those kinds of complaints.

We, receive at least 2000 intakes every year.

Now, not every one of those results in a case, certainly.

And many because housing is our name and there's this huge need in our community.

So many people are contacting us about housing issues.

We try to help every person that contacts us in some way, and it's not always discrimination necessarily, or we can't necessarily prove that in each case, but we so try to provide some kind of basic level of assistance.

So no question that that seemed, especially in these recent years, things have been getting worse.

So now is the moment where we really need for housing advocacy.

I suggest to the reason why that's really important right now, Doni: I'm going to ask you to hold that thought Okay.

When we come back, we'll start that.

George: Absolutely.

Doni: All right.

We'll be right back.

Please stay with us.

Doni: And welcome back.

You know that you can connect with us on social media.

And you can also email me at Doni Underscore Miller at wgte dot org for this episode and other additional extras.

Please don't hesitate to go to wgte dot org to the point if you've been with us, throughout this show today, you know that we're talking to CEO George Thomas at the Toledo Fair Housing Center.

We're talking about the impact of the potential cuts, that your agency and other fair housing, agencies across the country face frightening, given the history of, given our history on this particular topic and the amazing progress that agencies which, as you mentioned earlier, are working, who are working, which are working with very small budgets, have managed to accomplish.

And now there's this threat of all of that being eroded.

I wanted to to start just to help make this real for people.

Do you have an example of a situation that you guys have a, assisted with lately that was particularly memorable for you?

Yeah, give me a couple of those.

George: So, yeah.

Recently we helped a woman who, really just wanted to buy a house and, went through the process.

She was pre-approved for a loan.

But then.

And then the appraisal, you know, came back.

It should have been fine.

Everything looked like it was green lights, but then suddenly, the, loan originator at the bank started asking a lot of questions, questioning aspects of the of the appraisal in ways that were not normal.

You expect that banks want to issue loans, that the appraisal comes back looking okay.

And then made some statements that were kind of suspect to this individual.

She came to us, we started to investigate further, and we found out the bank had actually later on reported to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act that through this reporting requirement, the banks have the that the applicant had actually withdrawn their application for the loan.

And she said, I didn't do that, I didn't withdraw my loan application.

And that in combination with some of these other statements that the loan officer man, we filed, a case and we achieved a settlement that then later allowed her to, have enough money then to make a larger down payment, actually half the cost of a home that she was able to purchase later on that, that would that gave her the opportunity for home ownership that she would have liked.

Or as another example, we get many disability discrimination cases where someone would really just wanted access to their home and wanted, needed a, door that they could open easily from a wheelchair.

And the housing provider was refusing that.

We we stopped in and have I now have a case pending in federal court that, has forced them in the short term, it's forced them to change the door.

But also, there's there's some other changes that need to be made and kind of pursuing those now.

Doni: So who's the judge who is really protected under this act?

George: Everyone.

Everyone is a member of a protected class.

And I think like in this moment, too, we're in a housing crisis right now, right?

Yes, absolutely.

The price of housing keeps escalating.

And what we do actually helps with that issue to where it helps everyone in a similar way.

Because if housing providers can pick and choose for discriminatory reasons, who to give housing to, then, that increases the demand for housing, right?

And increases the price for housing.

It means fewer people will have access to the housing opportunities they need.

It's not a well-functioning marketplace that can reach appropriate price points.

So we're part of that solution to and we're it's like a tiny, tiny fraction of the overall federal budget.

But the tiny amount that we receive allows us to fix much larger problems and really ends up, really reinvesting back into the economy.

So if someone loses their home and becomes homeless, what taxes do they pay or how do they contribute to our economy?

If we can prevent that and get them into the housing that they need, then that person is functioning in our society and and giving back in ways that benefit everyone.

Doni: So what would you say to that person who says, well, look, if it's such a small amount, why can't you just find other ways to raise the money?

george: We do.

And that's part of what, what makes us efficient, right?

We desperately need those federal grants, right?

That's part of what we need.

But what makes us particularly efficient as nonprofits is that we fundraise and we get other grants to couple with what the federal government does.

We were created, actually, Ronald Reagan signed into law the fifth act that gives us our funding.

It was part of increasing the efficiency of of what are we do with enforcement of basic civil rights laws.

If you give funding to us, we couple it with other sources.

We also get donations, and then we're really able to do the work in ways that the federal government would never be able to do on its own.

Doni: Are you finding it easy to work with partners in this?

There there is more than just the Fair Housing Agency focused on this type, right?

George: We're certainly not alone in this, right?

We've seen the white House ask that our funding be eliminated.

But that happened to other groups, too.

So in this moment, we have seen more of us coming together to compare notes to, to see the real value of our work, the way that our work often meshes in alliance to really solve problems in our community and, how people achieve the American dream in different ways.

So I've seen us really come together in ways that I haven't seen happen before, which is positive.

But I think people really need to understand that this threat is real, this very basic civil rights, basic services like health care, those basic human rights kind of things that we as Americans fundamentally believe in.

Those really could go away if we're not very careful in this moment and understand that.

Doni: So, George, what scares you most about this?

What's happening on the larger landscape?

Yeah.

Relative to the services that you provide, George: I think what's, in my opinion, the most frightening and I think hard to understand, is that the reason given for this is often is that 1 or 2 things either, we're kind of radical advocates in some way that we're not we're really just trying to enforce civil rights for, for human beings.

Right.

Or that the national debt is so bad that we just have to abruptly cancel certain things.

I like to focus on that for a moment, though, because that the idea that the national debt is so bad that we have to scratch out this tiny amount of funding that we give for programs like ours, really just doesn't make any sense.

I mean, the national debt is large, but the way to pay that off is by cutting costs and increasing revenue over time.

Of course, just like if you own a house and you want to pay off a loan in your house, you do that over time in an intelligent way.

What you don't do is just throw people out of the house to cut costs.

And that's effectively what we're doing with programs like this.

If you if you throw people off their health care, if you throw away basic civil rights, you're asking, why do you have this house in the first place?

Why are you why do we have this nation in the first place if we don't have these basic things for our citizens?

Doni: So if you go away, isn't there aren't there other recourses available for folks to, get the same sorts of services that you provide?

Can't they just go to the court system?

George: No.

So fair housing organizations across the country are, behind about 75% of all fair housing cases.

We also are the only groups that provide the investigation that's really necessary to uncover the evidence that you need to then proceed in court.

So, theoretically, could someone just try to file something on their own in court?

Well, first of all, most people can't afford an attorney.

And then second, if they try to do that without investigative resources, without evidence, good luck.

You're not going.

You have the burden of proof.

You're not going to succeed.

And these laws and the investigation are very complicated.

It takes technical training and support to make these civil rights laws meaningful.

Otherwise, like I said before, they're just just words on paper.

I'm.

Doni: So this really sounds like a task that you can, that you could use lots of community support.

What could people who know about your plight do to help?

Doni: Yeah.

Well, I mean, we're always trying to bring more education, more understanding of fair housing laws.

And therefore, I think once people understand these issues, they support us.

Right?

Most Americans, once you understand this basic c rights, you want to give support to agencies like the Fair Housing Center.

So our website, toledofhc.org is a great place to start.

There's a way to make donations there if you'd like to make donations to us and better understand your rights.

And and if your housing provider of course your responsibilities as well.

At the same time we we actually this year are celebrating our 50th anniversary.

Doni: I was just going to ask about that tell us a little bit about your conference and what you're doing.

George: Yeah.

1975 we were founded.

So this is our 50th year.

We're very proud of that.

We're one of the older fair housing agencies in the country.

But importantly, we were also one of the most proactive, very visible groups.

We filed many cases early on when the law was first passed that help guide enforcement of the law to this day, for example, we filed the first, sexual harassment case in housing that was Sean Hammer versus the well.

And I remember that.

And that case was really important that now guides a lot of the regulations that we have today around this basic idea of you can't sexually harass tenants, right.

And housing landlords can't do that.

Another housing providers can't do that.

So an October 4th of this year, we are going to have an event where we bring out a lot of our historical items and our past leadership at Lisa Rice and Shawna Smith will be in town.

They both went on to run the National Fair Housing Alliance.

So we're really proud of that history.

And their leadership.

Doni: Shawna, was the founder of the local and the National Fair.

George: Yes.

She was absolutely.

Yeah.

And then Lisa later went on to do that.

And so we're really proud.

We're very happy to have Shawna in town.

And so on October 4th, we're going to celebrate that the glass pavilion at the museum, tickets are actually available right now, and they're actually only $20.

So, we want it to be a community event that's very accessible to invite as many people as possible.

And tickets are available on our website toledofhc.org and you know, all that.

I think this is an interesting moment, right?

This is our 50th anniversary while we're also facing these attacks.

But and then looking back at the history of what allowed us to be here in the first place, and it's almost like we have to fight these kind of battles again to show why this service is so important.

It's like a it's a basic need that, that we have.

So this is a moment where I think our 50th anniversary is particularly poignant.

Doni: Okay.

We have about 60 seconds left.

What would you leave people with?

Doni: I think we need to remember that this country was founded on civil rights and the demand for human rights, and we can't leave those at whatever is happening with our budget.

Whatever's happening with our politics from day to day, we need to see those things with clear eyes and understand that those basic needs that Americans have need to continue to be about no matter one.

Doni: Absolutely.

And that civil rights are worth fighting for every single day, every single minute.

George: Thank you so much.

Doni.

Doni: Thank you, thank you, thank you for being with us.

And thank you all for being with us as well.

I look forward to seeing you next time on and to the point.

Have a great day.

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