• This month’s book recommendation is Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Following the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act in 1968, US politicians ended the practice of redlining and promoted policies to induce mortgage lenders and the real estate industry to treat Black homebuyers equally. In assuming the industry’s concerns were merely about profit and not race, Taylor explains, these policies backfired, creating the conditions for renewed forms of discrimination and abuse. Once the federal government began guaranteeing urban mortgages, the new phenomenon of predatory inclusion emerged, specifically targeting those Black buyers most likely to fail to keep up their home payments and slip into foreclosure. The result was increased profits for the lending industry, tens of thousands of foreclosures in Black communities, and new “evidence” for the champions of deregulation to wield against government intervention of any kind. Narrating the story of a sea-change in housing policy and its dire impact on African Americans, Race for Profit reveals how the urban core was transformed into a new frontier of cynical extraction. More from publisher UNC Press HERE.

• On September 5^th, the FHJC announced the settlement of a race discrimination lawsuit against Charm Equities LTD; its principal officers Howard and Michael Kohn; building superintendent Michael D’Antonio; and owner-entities Highway Realty LLC; and 1723 E 15 LLC. The federal lawsuit, filed in September 2018 by the FHJC and five African American testers, alleged that the defendants racially discriminated against African American prospective renters in violation of federal, state, and local fair housing laws. Read more about the settlement HERE.

• On September 17^th, the FHJC filed a new federal lawsuit alleging disability discrimination in two Bronx buildings known as the Staccato and The Legato, located at 25 Bruckner Boulevard. A testing investigation earlier in the year yielded evidence that defendants Bruckner Tower LLC, Carnegie Management Inc., Karl Fischer Architecture PLLC, and Fischer + Makooi Architects PLLC failed to ensure that the newly constructed housing is accessible to persons with physical disabilities who use wheelchairs. Read more about the lawsuit HERE.

• Last month we wrote about the Trump administration’s proposal to undo key provisions of the Fair Housing Act. The proposal involves “disparate impact,” a legal distinction which states that practices and policies that result in discrimination are illegal, even if that discrimination wasn’t directly intentional. If a company - even with the best of intentions - adopts a policy that turns out to have an unequal outcome with a discriminatory effect, they can be sued under the current rule (which was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 2015.) Unintentional discrimination is still discrimination.

• But the Department of Housing and Urban Development is proposing changes to the rule that would take away this important tool, effectively gutting disparate impact enforcement. With numerous new requirements for plaintiffs and raised standards for burden of proof, this new rule could be devastating to fair housing efforts. In a time when housing providers are relying more and more on third-party software, “algorithmic discrimination” could become perfectly legal, a huge backwards step in the fight against segregation. (See media coverage HERE and HERE.)

• The FHJC is joining other members of the National Fair Housing Alliance in an organized effort to save disparate impact and beat back this assault on our civil rights. NFHA has created a website - www.defendcivilrights.org – where visitors can learn about the issue and leave an official comment during the 60-day public comment period, ending October 18^th. (See our official announcement HERE.) There are only a few weeks left to step up and be a part of the fight against this threat to the very foundation of fair housing enforcement. Please take a moment to leave an official comment, and spread the word among your congregations and on social media. Let’s put some ACTION into this Interfaith Action Network!

• The FHJC has been invited to participate in a full day anti-bias/anti-violence summit in Staten Island. Communities United for Respect and Trust, an outreach arm of Project Hospitality, will be hosting the summit 1619 – 2019: 400 Years of African American History – How Far Are We from Racial Equality? on Sunday October 20, from 2:30-7:30. The event will include several other workshops, a dramatic reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s The Drum Major Instinct, a Keynote address by Deputy Commissioner of the NYC Commission on Human Rights Brittny Saunders, and a free dinner. The event is free, but registration is requested. Click HERE to register and learn more.