Fighting for Equity

Fighting Housing Discrimination: Expanding Affordable Housing Opportunities for Voucher Holders in Philadelphia

Amid an affordable housing crisis, a Philadelphia woman and a fair housing organization are taking the next step in their source of income discrimination lawsuit against OCF Realty, one of the city’s largest real estate companies.

Jennifer Cooper and the Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania (HEC) allege that OCF Realty and several associated property owners violated the city’s ban on source-of-income discrimination when representatives of OCF Realty told Ms. Cooper, a 44 year-old disabled woman, and HEC testers that the company’s properties would not accept their housing vouchers. HEC, the nation’s oldest fair housing organization, conducted an investigation that revealed widespread voucher discrimination throughout the OCF portfolio.

This lawsuit has the potential to change the lives of the 23,000 Housing Choice Vouchers in Philadelphia, 65 percent of whom earn less than $20,000 per year. A 2018 study from the Urban Institute found that 67 percent of landlords in Philadelphia refuse to accept vouchers—and this rejection rate rises to 83 percent in low-poverty neighborhoods.

“Housing Choice Vouchers are a lifeline for thousands of Philadelphians who need access to safe, affordable housing,” said Sari Bernstein, staff attorney at the Public Interest Law Center. “When landlords refuse to accept housing subsidies, they deny people their right to stable, secure homes and exacerbate concentrations of poverty in Philadelphia neighborhoods. Housing providers must treat all tenants fairly, no matter their source of income.”

Ms. Cooper and HEC are represented by the Public Interest Law Center and pro bono counsel from Dechert LLP.

Read the full press release on our website.

Sparer Symposium: Community Lawyering that Makes Lasting Change

Penn Carey Law School invited senior attorney Claudia DePalma to speak on a panel called “Reclaiming History: Leveraging Originalism to Progressive Ends” for their annual Sparer Symposium. Claudia emphasized the importance of partnership in community lawyering and spoke of how to ensure court-ordered changes are implemented after a court victory.

Delivering Fair School Funding

On February 4, Governor Shapiro proposed allocating $500 million to address the $4.45 billion school funding inadequacy gap identified in the bipartisan, landmark education funding legislation last year. The Law Center’s Dan Urevick-Ackelsburg and Maura McInerney of the Education Law Center-PA reacted to Gov. Shaprio’s address in an op-ed for LancasterOnline:

“Even with the governor’s proposals, the commonwealth is far from finished in its efforts to bring our school funding system into constitutional compliance. One step, filling one-ninth of the gap, did not fix the problem. Nor will two. In places such as the School District of Lancaster, class sizes will remain too large, and student supports too limited, while learning spaces will continue to be outdated and inadequate. Our students need a multiyear commitment to fill the remaining shortfall.”

Save the Date for Our Annual Event

Save the date! Our annual event will be on Thursday, October 9 at The Grand Belle at The Bellevue. For more information and sponsorship opportunities, head over to the event webpage here.

Welcome, Zack!

The Law Center is excited to welcome Zack Demars as our spring intern!

Zack is a 2L and Toll Public Interest Fellow at Penn Carey Law. After growing up on the West Coast and graduating from the University of Oregon, Zack was a reporter for local newspapers in Oregon, focusing on the housing stability crisis and related social issues. In pursuit of a legal career advancing just solutions to community social policy problems, Zack is a member of the Penn Housing Rights Project and co-president of the Student Public Interest Network. He's greatly looking forward to learning from and supporting the Law Center's high-impact work advancing economic, civil, and social rights as an extern this semester.

Black History Month

In honor of Black History Month, we revisited some the Law Center's past cases that have confronted and challenged anti-Blackness and institutional racism. Check out the retelling of the Dickerson v. US Steel and Chester Residents for Quality Living v. Seif cases by Professor Menika Dirkson of Morgan State University.

We're Hiring!

The Law Center is hiring an Environmental Justice Organizer! The Organizer is a full-time employee working with the environmental justice team to develop and implement organizing campaign strategies, with an emphasis on the Garden Justice Legal Initiative and Philadelphia Land Justice Coalition.

Candidates should have 1-3 years’ community organizing experience and knowledge of the legislative process.

More information:

Pubintlaw.org/employment-opportunities/

Donate!

The official registration and financial information of the Public Interest Law Center may be obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of State by calling toll-free, within Pennsylvania, 1-800-732-0999. Registration does not imply endorsement.