Today I worked in the office of
the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing
Action Center (GNOFHAC), which is a non-profit, civil rights organization
fighting housing discrimination in New Orleans.
I was finishing up research on the issue of relevant evidence in claims
of racial discrimination under the Fair Housing Act, but the more cases I researched,
the more disheartened I became. I wondered
if the dates of these cases were correct...could they really be from as late as
2002, 2008, and 2012? Surely I was
reading about situations that were decades old. Unfortunately, at the conclusion of my memorandum,
it was clear that severe and overt fair housing violations were present all
over the country.
The stories that came from the
GNOFHAC attorneys and from my legal research revealed instances of tenants being
denied the opportunity to rent or buy property because of their race, property
evictions due to the race of the tenant or of the guests they choose to
entertain, or racially-charged insults meant to harass or intimidate. I knew that racial discrimination currently took
place, but I was surprised at the amount of obvious and open displays of racial
intolerance, ignorance, and hatred.
The ray of hope came as I began
to think about the mission of GNOFHAC and the work that the staff does. They not only believe in eradicating unfair
housing practices in rental, sales, lending, and insurance because it is
illegal but also because discrimination “perpetuates poverty,
segregation, ignorance, fear and hatred”. GNOFHAC not only works in enforcement, with
clients who face discrimination, but also in the education adults and children,
in order to help them understand the importance of being able to live where you
choose and to understand what discrimination is and the damage that it
causes. With fair housing attorneys,
counselors, and staff members at GNOFHAC and all over the country working
together to end discriminatory housing practices, maybe a law student, years
from now, when given a research assignment on racial discrimination and fair
housing, will pleasantly discover that the relevant cases are indeed decades
old. I am empowered by thoughts of the
future.
Safiya Hamit
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