NW Fair Housing seeks action

 

Northwest Fair Housing Alliance (NWFHA) faces funding losses and staff reductions. Unless funding is received by June 15, it will cut its six employees' hours by 50 percent, with full layoffs to follow within months.

U.S. Dept. of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) grants are 90 percent of NWFHA's annual budget. Its services have been free for 30 years under HUD funding. Two HUD grant agreements end on June 14, and HUD has indefinitely delayed a second-year agreement on already awarded three-year grants and action on three pending grant applications.

Reducing staff hours will limit NWFHA's ability to support thousands of people in Washington who rely on its housing advocacy and counseling to access and stay in housing.

"Our team assists people—mostly those below the poverty line—with pre-eviction advocacy and solutions to housing discrimination, inaccessibility, unaffordability, instability and unsafe/unhealthy conditions," said executive director Marley Hochendorner.

She urges people to contact HUD and elected officials to urge several actions.

• HUD needs to award grants for fiscal year 2024 Fair Housing Initiative Program (FHIP) applications submitted in November. NWFHA has three pending applications that would have been awarded by now. HUD has not communicated about them.

• HUD needs to agree to the second year of NWFHA's three-year FY23 PEI grant award. The first-year agreement ends June 14. It needs an agreement for year two to begin June 15. Congress appropriated the funds.

• Congress did not include HUD FHIP grant funding in its FY26 budget. The Senate needs to add back FHIP grant funding. FHIP grants enable agencies around the U.S. to do fair housing advocacy, investigation, outreach and education under the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, disability, familial status and sex, and which, from 2020 until February 2025, was enforced by HUD to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

For information, call 325-2665 or visit nwfairhouse.org