City Council - Civil Rights, Racial Equity, and Immigrant Advancement Committee Hearing on Docket #1339

Thanks for watching!

Good morning. My name is Minyard Culpepper, City Council District 7 and the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Civil Rights Racial Equity and Immigrant Advancement. Today is July 24th, the exact time is 10-02. This hearing has been recorded and it is also being live streamed by Boston dot gov backslash City Council TV broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8. RCN Channel 82, Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc

that civil rights at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing individuals will be called on in the order in which they have signed up and we'll have two minutes to testify. If you're interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If are looking to testify virtually please email our central staff liaison Megan Kavanaugh at megan.kavanaugh.boston.gov let me just repeat that if you're looking to testify virtually Please email our central staff liaison Megan Kavanagh at megan.kavanaghatboston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list Today's hearing is on docket 1339.

Order for a hearing regarding housing voucher discrimination and fair housing civil rights enforcement in Boston. This matter was sponsored by myself, Councilor Maynard Culpepper and Brian Worrell. Councilor Worrell will be referred to the committee on July 8th, 2026. Today I am joined... I'm not joined. Well, I'll be joined by some colleagues at some point And are there any... There is one letter of absence that I'll read into the record. Dear Chair Culpepper, Mr. Clerk and Council colleagues

I regret to inform you that I am unable to attend this morning's Committee on Civil Rights, Racial Equity and Immigrant Advancement hearing On docket number 1339, order for a hearing regarding housing voucher discrimination and fair housing civil rights enforcement in Boston. I will follow up with any additional questions upon reviewing my staff's notes and watching the record. Please do not hesitate to contact my staff with any questions. Sincerely, Boston City Councilor District 5 Enrique Pepén Good morning, everyone. I want to thank my colleague for that letter of absence and I want

for this important discussion on housing voucher discrimination and fair housing civil rights enforcement in Boston. I filed this hearing order because fair and equal access to housing is fundamentally a civil rights issue. And I have become increasingly concerned by reports of housing discrimination in Boston In a city where finding an affordable apartment is already extraordinarily difficult, no qualified renter should face an additional barrier simply because of their race, source of income or the lawful rental assistance they use to pay their rent. Another one of the primary reasons I filed this hearing

were the findings from the Fair Housing Report produced by Suffolk University Law School's housing discrimination testing program, The Boston Foundation and analysis group titled Qualified Renters Need Not Apply. The findings were deeply concerning. Through matched pair testing in Greater Boston rental market, researchers found evidence of voucher discrimination in 80% of the tests and race-based discrimination and 71%. White market rate renters were able to view apartments 80% of the time compared with 48% for similarly situated black market rate For renters using vouchers, those rates fell to just 12% for white voucher holders and 18% for black voucher holder. The City also recognized the importance of continuing this work

During the fiscal year 27 budget process, through a budget amendment we successfully secured $100,000 to continue Boston's fair housing testing program. Testing is one of the most important tools we have for identifying discrimination that may otherwise go undetected. And today I want to better understand how we can build upon that investment. What is especially troubling is how early in the housing search this discrimination can occur. The report documented voucher holders being ghosted after disclosing that they intended to use a voucher being told about fewer available apartments, being shown fewer units and being less likely to receive an application or follow up communication. In other words a qualified renter

may be denied a meaningful opportunity to even compete for an apartment before they ever submitted an application. That report was published six years ago Today I want us to understand what has changed since then, and more importantly, what has not. We need to understand What residents are currently experiencing How many complaints have been reported Where those complaints go How effectively they are investigated and resolved, and whether our existing enforcement system has the resources and authority necessary to hold housing providers accountable when discrimination occurs. Today's hearing is also an opportunity to look at the entire Fair Housing Enforcement System, The City of Boston, The Boston Housing Authority, The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination

Legal Services Organization, Fair Housing Advocates and housing providers all have roles to play. We need to understand where those responsibilities overlap, where gaps exist and whether residents know where to turn when they believe their rights have been violated. My hope is that today's hearing gives us a clearer picture of the scope of housing discrimination in Boston today and identifies concrete steps we can take to strengthen education, testing, reporting coordination and enforcement so that a housing voucher actually provides access to housing not another opportunity for someone to be turned away. My final reason for this hearing today is when I was the regional council at HUD and this report came out,

We were looking at ways to file a suit based on some of the information that was gathered in the report. One of the challenges we had as regional council, I was looking for a larger apartment complex to file suit against. We didn't find that larger housing complex and before I could put the suit together, I had resigned or retired and was running for the Senate. I didn't win that race, but I came back to run for city council. And lo and behold, I end up sitting here this morning in my interest This Section 8 discrimination has not waned at all. One of the things I hope we can talk about that I did see in the report was where it listed that a team wanted to come together to file We have two other panelists who will be

And then we'll move to panel one, to the city's... They here? Great. So let's start with the two panelists on Zoom Gilwin Linson, Esquire, Senior Attorney with Deloitte Civil Rights and Brooke Simone, Esq. Brooke? Are you there, Brooke?

Councilmember Culpepper can you hear me?

Great, I can hear you and I can see you.

Great, it's actually just going to be me, Jillian Lenson, who's going to testify.

Okay, well you have six minutes and... You can start right now. Thank you.

Great, great thank you Councilmember Culpepper and thank you to the entire committee for holding this important hearing and for inviting Lawyers for Civil Rights to testify My name is Jillian Lenson. I'm an attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights, and I am proud to be here speaking on behalf of an organization with such a long record of fighting for housing opportunities for communities of color in Boston, including by securing more vouchers for Boston residents through our landmark NAACP v. HUD litigation and more recently by bringing a lawsuit against over 20 Boston area landlords and real estate brokers for voucher discrimination. for Civil Rights is also grateful to serve on the city's critical, and this is a mouthful so bear with me, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Community Advisory Committee. Before diving deeper into voucher discrimination, I would be remiss if I didn't name the unique moment the city is in. Last year Boston became a target of a baseless federal fair housing investigation because of its efforts to combat deep-rooted housing inequality.

As lawyers for civil rights have set forth in a letter to the city, HUD's investigation has no basis in law and no basis. In fact, what fair housing law actually requires is that Boston remain firm in its commitment to provide housing opportunities and overcome segregation for communities of color. We implore Boston to stand on the right side of law, and of history in responding to HUD's investigation. Pivoting back, the topic of today's hearing could not be more urgent. Housing inequality in Boston is endemic and as a 2020 fair housing report that you just mentioned council member Details, racial and voucher holder discrimination which exists and persists at an alarming degree is a driving force of this disparity. In the midst of a statewide affordable housing crisis which disproportionately harms communities of color, vouchers are a critical tool for combating housing inequality and integrating communities.

But discrimination against voucher holders by real estate brokers, landlords and property management companies alike is pervasive even though this type of discrimination is illegal under both state statute and Boston's municipal code. In fact, the reason we could not testify in person today and we appreciate you accommodating us on Zoom is because housing subsidy providers in Worcester asked us to conduct a training on this very issue this afternoon. The pervasiveness and normalization of this type of discrimination is a moral crisis. By definition, voucher holders are members of a vulnerable population often moving out of shelters or other unstable housing conditions and are relying on the ability to use these subsidies to house their families. Sometimes, these families sit on wait lists for over a decade only to have the door literally slammed in their face during the limited window they had to use their vouchers.

At its heart, voucher discrimination is fueled by baseless stereotypes about the types of people who rely on them and the types tenets they will be without any regard to who these individuals are let alone the circumstances they have endured or the resilience they've exhibited. Voucher discrimination is also one of the areas where housing providers are most emboldened to explicitly discriminate against applicants or exploit tenants. Individuals are told point blank that voucher holders aren't welcome, and they are subject to legal conditions to prove that they're deserving of housing units. Or as council member you mentioned They're ghosted time and time again before they can even schedule a tour. Just this month, a multi-state enforcement action was filed against a national property management company for over 100 documented instances of this type of explicit illegal action.

and because of the time pressure and vulnerability associated with housing vouchers and other subsidies we hear from community members that even when they face this type of explicit discrimination They don't feel like they can advocate for their rights because they have no choice but to move on and try and find housing for their families before their subsidies expire. In short, this is an urgent problem that requires an urgent response from Boston and its Fair Housing Commission. And to this end, we support the important recommendations in the 2020 report. Specifically, the Boston Fair Housing Commission should prioritize training and public education to ensure that housing providers know their obligations and tenants and housing subsidy administrators know their rights and they know how to advocate for them. and the Commission should ensure meaningful mechanisms to hold bad actors accountable, including increased penalties for real estate providers who discriminate and fast-acting enforcement.

The City should commit resources for testing and to support impact litigation to change policies through affirmative lawsuits, interventions, and amicus briefs. and critically, the city should support families who are at risk of losing these subsidies because of discrimination including by maximizing program flexibilities and by investing in staff and resources to help tenants quickly advocate. Voucher discrimination is not unique to Massachusetts, but as the first state to include source of income discrimination in our civil rights statute and with Boston following shortly thereafter with its own prohibition. Massachusetts and Boston have both held themselves out as leaders in this space. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, having a law on the books is not enough. Boston must invest the resources to meaningfully combat voucher discrimination and in turn help address housing inequality and segregation within the city. At Lawyers for Civil Rights, we will continue to fight relentlessly to further housing inequality for communities of color and low-income families.

And we look forward to your continued partnership in this effort. Thank you.

Thank you. I know you're short on time, and so I've got a few questions that I wanted to ask you. You mentioned that you had filed suit against 20 owners. And talk a little bit about that suit. When did you file the suit? If you can, talk about who the owners were and the basis for that suit. Was that one suit against 20 owners, a class action?

Yes, it was filed in 2024. It actually predated my time with Lawyers for Civil Rights but yes, it 20 Boston area landlords and real estate brokers for voucher discrimination and the type of an included testing component. And it was the type explicit discrimination that I just discussed, and that you mentioned as well Landlords and real estate brokers who were willing to explicitly say that voucher holders weren't welcome, and would ghost individuals who were trying to find properties. and would do so directly to tenants. Unfortunately, this case was dismissed on a procedural motion but we continue to look for avenues to further this enforcement because as I just discussed, it's pervasive and we need lawsuits like this to continue.

So the case is not pending any longer?

Unfortunately no, it was dismissed.

Okay, and you made some recommendations to the city. I just wanted to make sure that I caught all of those recommendations. Can you talk about them a little slower? So I can make sure I go in.

Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing I discussed and a lot of these are also in the 2020 report but the city should really prioritize training and public education because one thing that we see with voucher holder discrimination is For whatever reason, landlords and real estate brokers and property management companies, some of them just don't know. They think it's okay to discriminate against this population maybe because it's not in the federal Fair Housing Act And so we really need to affirmatively make sure that all of the folks who are gateways to accessing housing for voucher holders know their rights and obligations, and know they will be held accountable. investing in that affirmative training and public education is going to be really important both on the housing property management I'll say that as a collective term side, and then on the other side

That advocacy for tenants and voucher holders to know that they do have those rights, and how they can advocate knowing that they can file free complaints. Knowing that that they are entitled to access properties without this type of discrimination is really important. So, that public education and training and a real meaningful investment in that and then meaningful mechanisms to hold that actors accountable. I think even though I said there are some housing providers who don't know this is legal, there are a lot that do but they think this has become so normalized that they can continue to behave this way and if there are increased penalties, one of the recommendations that was in the 2020 report that I think is really important is increase penalties for real estate providers. They're kind of the first and many more.

increased penalties for real estate providers who are caught doing this and an easy way to do that. And then also fast acting enforcement, as I talked about these These subsidies are time limited, and so even though you can wait for over a decade, you may only have a matter of months to use them. And so if there isn't a way To follow up with a landlord or have support advocating and to hold landlords accountable quickly, not through like a two-year investigation but something that quickly says okay this is an explicit discrimination we need to step in here. It's not going to get better. And then the other recommendation that I talked about was for the city to commit resources for testing and to support impact litigation, to change policies so by supporting affirmative lawsuits Itself, or intervening in lawsuits or filing amicus briefs when this issue is being addressed. And then

A way to support families directly who are at risk of losing these subsidies, even though they've waited for years to access them. Are there ways that Boston can provide program flexibility? So if someone has been subjected to discrimination, can they have some additional time to use their subsidy or are there other flexibilities we can use to make sure that folks aren't losing these subsidies just because of the discrimination they're facing and really having the staff and resources kind of quickly address these issues because of that time pressure. I think the report described this as a strike force, I think that's a great idea. A group of people who know how to advocate can quickly do that and to try to place people because we hear directly from the amazing community organizations who are trying to place folks They don't have the time and resources to advocate because they're just trying to place folks and do it as quickly as possible, and so they really need that support.

One of the things that would be helpful for me is to get a copy of the case, the dismissal from the beginning to then. I just want to see the complaints. How they moved to dismiss and then I just want to look at what housing providers you filed suit against and maybe talk a little bit about what evidence you had that formed the basis for the complaint.

And I can also send you the multi-state enforcement action that was filed earlier this month.

Great. Where was that filed? Superior court or in federal court?

It was actually not filed in Massachusetts. I believe they're all administrative complaints to start, but hopefully we'll turn into lawsuits.

Where were they filed?

It's like 10 different cities.

I mean, you can get it to me when you get a chance. Okay. I'd like to see that too.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do you know what states were involved in this suit?

Yeah, it was California, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia and DC. And it's against Graystar LLC who is the largest Was that the lawyers committee that filed that? No. Okay. Who filed it?

Oof.

It was Housing Rights Initiative and Cohen Milstein, which is based in D.C. Lawyers Committee, you're not part of that too? Not this specific suit, but we are actively looking at this issue including by going out to Worcester today to help folks advocate.

Okay and so if you could just give us the docket number all the information regarding that suit what state? was filed in. Administrative complaints not in federal court?

For this national multi-state enforcement action, yes. Our case was initially filed in Suffolk Superior Court and then it was moved to housing court.

Who was the administrative case filed with? The multi-stake case?

All of the different civil rights agencies among the different states.

The different agencies in the different States?

So, yeah, so it's a multi-state...

They weren't filed against landlords?

It was filed against Graystar LLC, who's a national landlord and I believe has properties in Massachusetts. It was filed all at once with evidence across states, but in different state civil rights agencies is my understanding. This isn't our case so bear with me I'll get you the information

Not with any federal agencies, but with the specific state agencies for each state.

Exactly.

Okay. It would be helpful to see that information. Thank you. You have any closing remarks?

No, I just want to thank you again for hosting this hearing and calling attention to this really important issue. Again we hear about this all the time from community members and I think you mentioned before It's hard to find mechanisms to provide accountability. And so I think the more resources we can invest in this and the more we can all work together to try I'm sorry, I can't be there in person but I look forward to connecting with you about this issue and any other of the panelists there today.

No, thank you for taking the time and thank you even being on Zoom. We appreciate that. And we will be in touch with you. Thank you. Great.

Thank You Council Member.

I'd like to now... So we're pivoting now The administration's witnesses will come back to the second panel when we finish the administrations. Witnesses, I think they're also on a real tight schedule so I'd like to call Chief Severa, are you here? Commissioner. Chief of Equity and Inclusion. And is Virginia Albert with you? Come on, Virginia. Assistant Director of Civil Rights for the Boston Housing Authority. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule And each of you will have six minutes in chief.

If you're ready, we'll start with you. Good to see you.

Thank you, Councillor. Good morning everyone. I am here as the Chief of Equity and Inclusion who oversees multiple departments, including the Office of Fair Housing. Councilor, last time I was here we had an exchange with regards to You know, why don't we have up-to-date data? Why haven't we hired an executive director? And so I want to start with sort of just like honoring our great Bob Terrell who is dearly missed. So I'm going to start very high level. What is the Office of Fair Housing and Equity? And then my colleague from the Boston Housing Authority will do her piece, and then we'll stay for obviously questions.

Great, thank you.

Thank you. First, what is fair housing? and I want to just start with like the basics here. And Councilor, not for you because I know you are one of our experts here. You can probably teach me a thing or two about fair housing but I wanna make sure that the members of the public are aware of what we're talking about here Fair housing is a fundamental element of the civil rights movement and of our civil rights in our country that are currently under attack, and we as a city are now backing down. We are focused on addressing discrimination and affirmatively furthering fair housing. The What We Do piece is we investigate potential cases of housing discrimination. And you heard this from our panelists, we engage in outreach to the public

And so I appreciate a lot of the recommendations that were already made with regards to this, to make sure that people know their rights and responsibilities both as tenants and as landlords. But this is a little bit of the work that we do is related to investigations in order for people File a complaint with our Office of Fair Housing. The discrimination must happen in the City of Boston. An affected party must belong to or protect a class, which I'll get to in a second, and it must be filed within 180 days of the discriminatory act. And when it comes to our outreach, we are focused on implementing the assessment of fair housing, offering trainings and engaging with different fair housing organizations regionally as well as nationwide.

I'm glad to hear from the panelists earlier that there is perhaps a misunderstanding or just the knowledge hasn't reached all parties, but we have our federally protected classes as well as our state-protected classes. And so I don't need to go through this, but I know that today's focus is around vouchers holders and income and race as well. Case frequency. This is very small for us to see, but we tried to give us a little bit of data broken down by the different protected classes since July 1, 2020. We are looking at a total of 412 complaints. If there are more questions about that, I can get into the details of it but here we broke it down per protected class and you will see that majority of them fall under the category unknown or not categorized protected class.

And just to state what we are hoping to one day make and many more. What is fully true in the City of Boston is that nobody may discriminate against any potential or current tenants based on receipt of public assistance Section 8 Voucher Program or Rental Assistance Programs, or anything of that nature. My hope today is that we as a city get whatever questions, recommendations you may have Councillor or maybe other Councillors that show up. Other experts because as we've said in the past we are getting very close to logging in our next Executive Director who will be receiving a team that has been skilled up in the last year, ensuring that they have what they need as investigators. Our intake process that is not only and so on.

The incoming Director of Investigations, who will be starting in the next couple of weeks. And a testing program that we've also discussed in the past and so my hope here today is to get whatever Further recommendations we have so that our future new executive director does get everything that the person needs to have an effective start to the job. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chief. And a few questions. I want to talk just a little bit about The assessment of fair housing that's in your presentation. I just want to talk a little bit, how is that being implemented? Affirmatively furthering fair housing

I am not going to be able to give you a response in detail, but I will say the work that our colleague Joyce, who is no longer with us has found better opportunities in other places. Has been doing up to this date, has been working with our partners across Bosnia Housing Authority planning et cetera to ensure that we are furthering Our goals, everyone is aware of what their goals are. And even with this pending alleged HUD investigation we remain committed to the work. But I will, any further detailed questions. I'll make sure that either unless my colleague here can answer on the side of Boston Housing Authority, I'll get you answers after.

Okay and I wanted to just Well, I asked if you know about the community advisory committee that was set up. Whether they're in operation now? How it's working? Is it more appropriate for you

If I can ask maybe members of my team to refresh my memory here, but are members of the CAC If I may, even within Fair Housing we have our commission, the CAC, the monitoring committee and so I am getting my groups mixed up right now. I don't want to answer this wrong. If you may.

If I may.

Why don't we hold that until you take your six minutes, you can make your presentation and then you can add that into the presentation. We can pick it up there. Because I know the chief has to go. I know she's on a tight schedule. I wanted to, Chief if you know about the cases that were filed between July 1, 2020 and 26, 412. It seemed like the largest percentage 33% were unknown or not categorized. And so, how does someone file a discrimination case and not have a basis for it or not have category for it?

I have in this chamber a colleague of mine who is an investigator, who can answer that question better than I can. Are you OK if I ask him? Do you want to bring him up? Yes. Absolutely. Julio, would you mind? I know who the experts are. I'm not an expert on everything, so bring the actual experts to come answer that question if you don't mind.

I do want to say to everyone here that I've been joined by McAuley, Councilor Rusi, Louijeune. And council when I finish with our chief surveyor then we'll come to you Give you five minutes to make your opening statements. If you have questions of her before she leaves, I'll ask her to just stay for your questions then we can move on. Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning So to answer your question, some of that data might be marked as uncategorized simply as a reporting issue and so having only been in the position for about six months I know that currently we use one Thank you. and so on.

Are you telling me that when they filed the complaint, they didn't file under a protected class?

They did file, and the protected class under which they filed would be reflected in the documents itself of the case and the investigation. But it would not have showed up in the And so if someone filed and there was a reporting issue,

What happens with the unknown or not categorized cases that were a system issue and not an issue caused by the person that filed the complaint?

So the fact that it is not marked does not indicate that it was not investigated and adjudicated. What that is, at the point of data entry whoever was doing the data entry of the case would not have put that in or it would not shown up. It's a technical issue, not an issue of administration.

And I guess my point is it's in the category of not categorized What happens to the case from that point?

So, the case will have been because of a protected class and it will have processed and investigated and adjudicated if it made it to a hearing. At the point of data entry for reporting, it may not have been input. And so that is the reason that it's showing up like that.

But the case is still pending and it's still being investigated, and it is still being processed?

Yes. It could have been. That's not an indication that it was not processed.

OK. Chief Salas, just a couple of more questions. And maybe you can or you can't answer these, but so we know that Boston is a pretty segregated city with regard to this country. What specific initiatives of being prioritized to break these patterns.

We hope to come back to the council with a full presentation about our, I know that you obviously know All of our goals within the AFFH. But in this moment, something that we are significantly considering is the testing program. We are not letting up and we have not launched the program but we will continue to engage in that.

Let me tell you what I'll do. I'll submit these questions to you, and then you can provide answers for the Fair Housing Committee. Why don't we do that so we don't continue to go through these questions they have? probably better suited for a specific, they have the experts. And young men, I'm fine. We're gonna move on to will give her five minutes to make opening statements. And if she has questions of you, I'll give her time to ask her questions of you. And then we'll move on to Boston Housing Authority and Virginia Albert

Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you to the Chief and to Council Albert for being with us really appreciate your presence and having you here I want to also lift up the incredible work of Bob Terrell for all that he did in sort of making sure that we understood that fair housing and fair housing understanding and effectiveness really is dependent on a and on the gold standard of paired testing Something that I want to make sure we accomplish is actually having a testing system, whether it be something internal or whether we do something in partnership with an outside organization. I believe we've been asking for it for the past few years here on the council to make sure that we have paired testing. It's something that Bob Terrell often would speak on, you can have

People make claims, but you need to be able to investigate and that investigation is made stronger. And legal claims are made stronger when you have paired testing So Chief, if you could just please describe to me right now what the Office of Fair Housing and Equity, what it currently looks like. Who are the current employees? What does the current staff look like?

Yes, so we have our Dwayne Watts who's our Deputy Director We have four investigators. Soon we will have a director of investigations. Julio is one of our investigators in the team who just spoke, We have Alizé Kerber, who is our intake coordinator. And we As of last Friday, we had Joyce Rivera who was the coordinator of our AFFH program. And I hope I named everybody at this point.

And AFFH lives in the Office of Fair Housing and Equity? The coordination of all stakeholders, yes. It lives in that office even though a lot of it is within sort of the realm of planning Yes. Okay, is the Boston Interagency Fair Housing Development Committee still meeting?

What's the acronym there?

BIFDC. It's tasked with reviewing developer submissions for new projects to ensure that they align with the city's fair housing goals as part of AFFH in zoning.

We do not own that, but they are still meeting.

They are still meet?

If I'm not mistaken, that's under MOH.

Okay and do you know if there have been any planned changes If they have any plan changes or recommendations with respect to Article 80 modernization, like how are they happening in tandem? I understand that this may not be sort of . Yeah.

Please record that question.

OK.

I will make sure that I send that question through the chair. I came in late, but had the pleasure of listening into the testimony from LLCR. And I just want to continue to highlight that obviously we have a federal government that's retreating from fair housing oversight HUD terminated the 2021 AFFH rule and the president has directed federal agencies to curtail disparate impact enforcement, and administrations proposed eliminating CDBG funding altogether. which would be a travesty for us and would be the travesties for how we fund our housing needs affordable housing for our most vulnerable communities. What are you thinking that the city should institutionalize so that this work continues regardless of administration. So how are we continuing to make sure this work is happening despite the federal investigations that are, um, that are happening?

Um and uh What are we doing to ensure that the work continues outside of, you know, the attacks?

Yeah. I want to first state that the staff and I have had some conversations about Even their own disappointment about the fact that we have not been able to move forward with the search of a director. And why is that? Primarily, losing an executive director is not something that somebody walks you through and helps you get through. And it's been a collective grief because Bob Turrell is such an important member of our community So I'm going to go ahead and take the fault for the first year of delay. And then we've had a hiring freeze for the last six months. So that's something that we are committed to, and we are very close to announcing our new director. As well as the Director of Investigations. Once we have our new Executive Director, that person will have the resources to also hire for the person who will be in charge of the coordination of the AFH work

as well as the Outreach and Education Program, which we heard is a major recommendation. I cannot speak to sort of like what other things the city needs to be doing. I'm hoping that our experts are the ones making those recommendations, but the work is not stopping.

Oh, sorry, Councilor. I also didn't really formally give an intro. Okay, thank you. Because I think that was my time for my opening.

I want to make sure you get your questions in.

Thank you. When a voucher holder reports discrimination today either to BHA Do they report voucher discrimination directly to the Boston Housing Authority?

Yes.

And what happens? What is the life of that initial complaint? What does a BHA do?

Yes, I do have that in my presentation. Oh, OK. So we're still waiting to get on your presentation.

All right so I'll hold off on that. Is there anything, like how do we work with the state? Because oftentimes you know discrimination when it happens people are looking maybe they're looking in Boston and then maybe they'll be looking at Arlington Cambridge Chief, do you know how we coordinate with the state or what is the office's vision in coordination with the State to really address fair housing issues?

That is something that I would also like an expert to answer. In this moment, my hope is that our new director will set that vision. But I know that under our deputy Duane Watts there has been a lot of Coordination with HUD, with the regional office in HUD as well as the MCAD at the state but that's all I can answer at the moment.

Is a deputy here?

No he is unfortunately in a medical Handling a Medical Emergency.

Okay, I think a lot of my questions are pretty detailed and I would want to have someone who can answer them so those are my questions right now.

We were hoping to have him actually just started with that we were hoping

We did at one point... Actually, I actually don't know if that's true. I remember meeting with Bob Terrell on several occasions during my time and I've been here for now in my fifth year Have we had a testing program? Have we partnered, have we had one internally or have we partnered to have a testing programme externally because I know Suffolk used to have one. I don't know the status of their testing programme but have we in the city had a

Not under... We've had a lot of leadership turnover in that office, if that's the right word to say. So no, not in the last four and half years.

And then I guess could I still have someone, I was just gathering my notes when I believe Councilor Culpepper was asking questions. The person from the investigator, if I could just have him explain the life of an investigation. If you can come out and explain that again, that would be really helpful. And once there is a finding of probable cause, what is the next step?

Yeah, so an investigation begins at intake. Our intake unit takes in the allegations of a complaint and establishes jurisdiction for that complaint It's then assigned to an investigator who conducts that investigation as a FAP agency contracted with HUD. We are...

Sorry, sorry, can you move?

Sorry, as a fair housing assistance program contracted with the Department of Housing and Urban Development our goal is to investigate an issue of finding in response to a complaint within 100 days. That's if practicable. Oftentimes the cases will go on longer for one or more reasons after a finding and depending on what that finding is there, there is a hearing it's either an appeal hearing if we do not find in favor of the complainant or an administrative hearing if we do find a favor with the complainant and so against the respondents. It's at that point that either party can elect an administrative, which is here in City Hall in front of the Boston Fair Housing Commission or opt for civil action, which is with the Attorney General's Office.

When was the last time there was a hearing from the Fair Housing Commission?

So I've only been in the position for six months now. And in my time, I don't know if there has been a hearing. I don' schedule the hearings but I myself as an investigator have not I know that there is one in the works now. I will say that oftentimes these complaints, even if we do issue a finding of probable cause meaning that we find reason to believe that there may have been discrimination often don't make it to a hearing because baked into the investigation process from beginning to end is the idea of settlement or conciliation. We are empowered to settle these complaints by either resolving the housing matter at hand, among other things. Oftentimes before a hearing either the respondents will often want to settle which closes the complaint and eliminates a need for hearing.

Who opts to settle? Is it the complainant or...

So either party can make a proposal. Complainants are often making proposals to either resolve their housing issue or they can also ask for damages, monetary damages. The office will also put in public interest measures into that which conclude Monitoring of a housing provider's operations, having them rewrite their policies to be less discriminatory, mandating that they take fair housing training among other things.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I just had a couple of questions You said that a case was being ready for hearing?

That's right. I believe we have one in the pipeline right now

And knowing there's no director, who would hear the case?

So the Director of Investigations does not hear the cases to begin with.

The case is... No, but who would hear the case?

The Commission does.

We don't have a director of the office. Who would hear that case? And you can't tell us when the last hearing was held?

I don't know myself, no.

Okay.

I don' t have any further questions of you. Chief, thank you so much for Taking the time of your schedule, we'll submit these questions to you. And I do want to thank you for making an effort to hire a Fair Housing Director. I know I've been on here about that. I do appreciate you kept your word saying that we have one by the end of this summer, so thank you so much for that. Looking forward to working with the Fair Housing Director that you're going to announce next week? Not next week. The week after?

Sir, I've learned not to share timelines in public anymore.

But you will have one within several weeks.

Several weeks.

Thank you. Ms. Abbott, you have six minutes.

Good morning, Councilor Culpepper and Councilor Louisa Thank you for having me this morning. My name is Virgina Albert, I am the Assistant Director of Civil Rights at Boston Housing Authority's Office of Civil rights. My role involves investigating housing and employment discrimination cases from BHA residents applicants, employees and visitors to our developments. I also lead the agency's internal Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing initiatives that help implement the assessment of fair housing that this city implemented. BHA's Office of Civil Rights works to implement our civil rights protection plan, which I believe Councilor Culpepper you helped draft. The plan is to protect applicants, residents, visitors and employees from threats of harassment Violence or abuse while on BHA property. During our investigation, we address these allegations completely and expeditiously.

BHA is committed to administering all aspects of our housing programs Free of discrimination based on all protected classes. We have about 16,000 voucher households with our BHA portfolio compared to over 8,000 household in our public housing developments And so allegations of civil rights violations raised by voucher residents are referred to the Boston Fair Housing Commission and the Office of Fair Housing and Equity for investigation. OCR also recommend any voucher holders that reside outside of the city of Boston, given that the jurisdiction of FHE is only for residents within the Boston You know, limitations. So any resident who have vouchers that live outside city lines we recommend that they contact our colleagues at MCAD or HUD and so

With BHA, the offices of rights, our authority is quite limited when it comes to investigations that come from voucher residents. We do not have the authority to investigate and adjudicate those allocations given that they're against private landlords. BHA acknowledges that the Office of Fair Housing and Equity possess investigatory capabilities compared to those of HUD, entrust its abilities to handle discrimination complaints. And since 2020, BHA has established a protocol with Fair Housing and Equity to refer complaints received by BHA for voucher residents to FHE. And we have created an intake form that BHA uses to facilitate that process. From the earlier speaker, through our work with the AFFH in 2022, BHA was the one that helped introduce Housing Rights Initiative to the Boston and Greater Boston

and they did the testing that ended up leading to the lawsuit Speaker spoke about. And we were pleased to see that lawsuit led by lawyers for civil rights, which was filed in Suffolk Superior Court alleging that 20 landlords and property management companies discriminated against voucher holders by stating that they do not accept vouchers. The lawsuit had included screenshots from testers documenting instances where landlords and realtors explicitly stated that vouchers would not be accepted. Unfortunately, as mentioned the lawsuit was dismissed but we were pleased as BHA to have been at least part of that effort BHA also recognizes that there is an information that exists from both landlord and residents with vouchers.

OCR created a Voucher Discrimination Guide to share with our voucher residents so they can be better equipped to combat misconceptions That landlord may have about vouchers. In addition, our expanding choice and housing opportunity also known as ECHO that team has done extensive work building relationship with landlords and hold regular inference sessions to create landlord participation in the program, increase that participation The team also conducts engagement sessions including housing search information sessions, new tenant briefings, workshop for new landlords and sessions for existing BHA landlords. Families using vouchers have faced several barriers including bureaucratic inefficiencies, unaffordable rents and past evictions to just name a few. Residents having to provide first last in security deposit is unafforable

and BHA's primary strategy for assisting voucher residents with these upfront costs is to request that landlords waive security deposits In recent years, BHA has also partnered with nonprofit organizations to provide financial assistance for security deposits and moving costs. So for example, Bha collaborated BPS to help eligible voucher residents cover their security deposits. And for pass eviction, OCR has an Eviction Ceiling Guide that we created last summer and has assisted residents in submitting a petition to seal a passive eviction, especially in collaboration with our ECHO program. Additionally despite recent laws current listings still subject residents to additional fees during the housing search process and so the recommendation is to increase enforcement against blatantly non-compliant landlords. Thank you, and I welcome all questions.

Thank You Ms. Albert. Councilor, you have five minutes.

Thank I guess, thank you Director Albert. What does it look like? When do you refer, or do you offer cases to the Office of Fair Housing at the AG MCAT or not at all?

Yes. And so when a voucher resident calls our office we do the intake If the resident indicates that they live within this city or Boston area, we complete the intake form that we have in partnership with the Fair Housing Office for the City.

Is it the same intake form? Do you use the same form as Office of Fair Housing and Equity?

No. They created an intake specifically for the referral process, so it's a specific intake form just to facilitate the referral. and we only have that with the city. We do not have an official referral process with MCAD or HUD, we normally just provide that contact information to the resident that is contacting our office

Okay. About how many intakes are you seeing a year?

I do not have the data in front of me, I could follow up with a dataset if

Okay, what do you think like what is there a cycle? You get this information about intake. Like how does that how does information about people complaining about discrimination? How does that impact or how we do the work? Yeah What does it change, what does it teach you? What does is force you to internalize?

Yeah. So through those complaints it was why we actually created our guide to begin with Thank you. and 2022 collaborate with HRI to kind of indicate like, no there's a problem in Boston. And so they came and did the testing which led to the lawsuit. So it really allows us to do more advocacy work but we're not in charge of enforcement, unfortunately. And so the enforcement piece belongs to whom? Our sister agencies. So the city, MCAD, HUD, Yeah, at least for voucher residents. For our office we do the cases for public housing residents. Okay. All right thank you Mr.

Chair those are my questions

Thank you, Councilor. Miss Everett, I've got a few questions for you. You mentioned that you were involved in the soup where Lawyers for Civil Rights.

Yes, we helped make the introduction that led to that lawsuit. So BHA was involved in that introduction.

And there was private owners? Yes. You don't have the authority to investigate Section 8 complaints against private owners?

Yes.

So, how were you involved in that suit other than... That was the extent. And I just want to follow up on Councilor Louijeune's question with regard to when in Section 8 Voucher holder comes to you with a complaint that you can't handle. What support do they get or extension does the BHA give them With regard to the exploration data, that's Section 8 so they don't lose it.

Yes. So we do have an internal policy that if you are experiencing discrimination and you have a voucher, they get more time. So at least for BHA we're quite mindful of that.

So that's for all Section 8 holders? As long as they indicate, yeah. Whether you investigate it or not?

Yes. They just have to, because obviously we get the internal information because we complete the intake and so we pass that along if it's necessary to their housing specialist.

And is there a time limit or length You give them to pursue that complaint?

I don't have an exact time limit. I don' believe one exists, but I might be incorrect. I could follow up on that question for you.

And I do appreciate you Referencing that civil rights protection plan that we developed years ago. Yes. That was at the result of a case when I filed suit against the city, the Boston Housing Authority and we settled that case We put that civil rights protection plan together and it's good to hear that you're still using it.

Yes, it's our guiding principle.

Yeah, it went national and many housing authorities across the country wanted a copy of it once they heard I appreciate that you're still using it because it was a helpful manual and we did put a lot of work into it. If you read the report, The qualified renters need not apply. And you saw a reference in the report to illegal strike force, legal stricter force, Reference N and the investigation itself. And I was wondering whether BHA would be part of that legal strike force that was referenced in

I don't believe BHA has the capacity to be part of any sort of strike force given our position in terms of our interactions with voucher residents and the limitation and the OCR. If there's a recommendation as to what the strike work would look like, I'm sure BHA will review. I don't know if you'll be here to listen to the second panel, but we'll talk more about it with the second

How do you vet the landlords and brokers who list on their preferred partner sites to ensure that they're following fair housing laws?

The question is about vetting?

Right. Our neighborhood list is really following the fair housing laws and whether or not they have had fair housing complaints filed against them.

I don't think I have the ability to answer that question only because I'm not too familiar with our vetting process.

Can you look into it? Yes, absolutely. Because I think it's something that the BHA if they don't vet that preferred a partner site they may want to start looking at who is on their list and Looking to see whether or not they have had complaints filed against them, whether the complaints are pending or whether suits are pending. Is a BHA collecting data on success rates of voucher holders? and different Boston neighborhoods to identify.

Sorry, go into here.

Just are you collecting data in the different neighborhood to identify where discrimination is most rampant?

I do know the assessment of fair housing did that assessment. So, the huge document that the city adopted has a whole section indicating where discrimination is like most rampant, I believe VHA, I don't believe we have.

Are you collecting data now?

I'd have to take a look.

That's something that if you're not, you may want to begin collecting the data so you can identify whether there's Significant discrimination taking place in one part of the city or another part of this city because that data can be used and be helpful for future lawsuits. So you may want to start collecting that data And the report states that BHA should explicitly list encountering discrimination as a reason for voucher extension. Has this been implemented?

I'm sorry, I was writing when you started the question so I missed the first half of the question.

The report suggests that the BHA should explicitly list encountering discrimination as a reason for voucher extension and has that been implemented? And if it hasn't, it may want to be something that you might wanna implement. And then keep data on that also.

And you're talking about the goal in the assessment is that correct? That's the one you're reading?

Not just the goals, but a voucher holder that comes in and they're encountering discrimination whether or not You list that as a reason for the voucher extension. And if so, if you're not keeping data on it, you may want to begin to keep data And there was discussion earlier, and I think Councilor Louijeune raised it. BHA landlords Do they get any training from the Boston Housing Authority about discrimination and Section 8 discrimination in particular?

So the landlords who work with our ECHO program, yes they participate in workshops and there's a coverage on.

And what's an ECHOProgram?

The Expanding Choice and Housing Opportunity.

Okay, is that the preferred partner site list or is that separate? Are these preferred landlords, a list of preferred landlords?

No, the ECHO program sort of reaches out

And they're doing training on the stigma associated with?

When a landlord works with BHA, with the ECHO program. Yes.

Okay. With the source of income being a protected class in Massachusetts, what specific warning signs should housing authorities report to commissions when they see higher rates of voucher denials and certain zip codes?

The warning signs, that's the question?

Yeah.

I don't believe I have an answer for that question.

So as you identify... The question and maybe the recommendation to you is that A specific zip code to the commissions that are overseeing those?

We do currently refer those cases.

Okay, okay. And are you keeping data?

I'm not really sure. I don't do the data, but I can definitely follow up on the data questions.

And if you don't, you may want to recommend that they keep data because that data can give you real information about where Section 8 discrimination is taking place what landlords have historically been sued or complaints filed against them for discrimination and as you look at your ECHO program list and as you look at the preferred partner sites, you can begin if there are some on there to deal with that in a different way than your right now. I guess that's all I have for you, Councillor. No additional questions, thank you. Thank you Ms. Albert.

Thank so much for your time.

I'd like to introduce the second panel. Andrew Espinoza, Deputy Chief of Investigations for MCAD, Sonia Gupta. Sean is Associate Vice President of Community Wealth, Boston Foundation. Thank you for coming. Kelly Vieira. Kelly is a visiting assistant professor, former director of investigations and outreach. She's at Suffolk University Law School Center for Housing Policy and Ashley Grant.

Director of Fair Housing Enforcement, Suffolk Community Law School Center for Housing Justice and Policy. Thank you all for coming to participate as we look at This report and how we move forward from this report, especially with regard to updates issues that have been identified since the report. We know the report is a few years old, but let's talk about and you'll each have six minutes. Let's talk I'm sure you have better information since the report was issued. Ashley?

Grant, you want to start with you and then we'll move to Kelly, Vieira, Sonia Gupta, Andrew Espinosa. You each will have six minutes.

Culpepper, if it's okay I'm going to have my colleague Kelly start because she's gonna give you a little bit of context about the testing that happened immediately after this report.

Great great any other changes in what I just said? Great. Kelly, you've got six minutes.

Thank you, Councillor. Good morning, Councillor Culpepper, Councillor Louijeune and all members of the Boston City Council. My name is Kelly Vieira. I'm a resident of the city of Boston, and I previously served as the director of investigations and outreach at Suffolk University Law School's Housing Discrimination Testing Program, which has now expanded and has a new name, the Center for Housing Justice and Policy. I want to assure the council that despite the name change, Suffolk Law's testing program continues to go strong as it has since around 2012. We continue to test In fact, we are very experienced testing program having conducted over 1,000 discrimination tests throughout Massachusetts in the time of the program. I'm here today to talk about The testing that occurred immediately after the research study. And I truly appreciate the opportunity to speak about this issue as housing discrimination, voucher discrimination and fair housing in Boston remain critical

and particularly I want to emphasize the critical role that the city of Boston itself plays in this particular issue. So as you all know, Qualified Renters Need Not Apply was a research study that documented widespread discrimination against renters using housing choice vouchers, also against black renters in the Boston Metro rental market. That data provided a light on what many residents of Boston already knew That this sort of discrimination, housing discrimination is not a thing of the past but rather something that continues to happen to this day. It's a very real and current problem In response to the alarming findings that were exposed in the research study, the city of Boston funded a dedicated testing project to examine both voucher and race-based discrimination in the city of Boston within City of Boston limits. I'm here today because I was the one who personally oversaw that project from start to finish, and that project occurred approximately

Two years from 2020 to 2022. I want to begin by saying that the city's investment in that project is what made the work possible at all. Federal funding cannot be used when it comes to voucher race discrimination or enforcement. And, when it come to state funding, it remains limited and inconsistent. Without the city's support, we would not have been able to investigate these two most common forms of discrimination through our fair housing work. And I also want to emphasize that this project was a partnership with the Office of Fair Housing and Equity under a previous director Will Onoa and this was a partnership that we had with the city to conduct testing on the city's behalf. Throughout this city-funded project, we conducted targeted tests across multiple neighborhoods We tested different brokers and property managers and landlords. What we found was deeply concerning, but unfortunately not surprising based on what the study found.

The patterns that we documented in 2020 were still present when I did testing All the way through 2022 in the Boston rental market. So here's what we saw. We saw that voucher holders were ignored or ghosted. We solve renters being told that units were no longer available if they had a but testers who did not have vouchers were invited to view those same units. We saw different requirements being imposed on voucher holders, for example, voucher-holders would be told that there are higher income requirements, they would be asked for additional documentation They would be told statements like, the owner won't take Section 8. We saw voucher holders were shown fewer units than those testers who are not using vouchers or not saying that they're going to use a voucher They were offered fewer options. They were given less follow-up communication after interacting with brokers, real estate agents, etc. These were not isolated incidents.

evidence of a systemic pattern that denies families to the housing that they deserve, that they're qualified for and it perpetuates segregation across the city of Boston. I'd like to highlight some specific testing that I completed during this project that I think highlights the issues we continue to see. I selected a large apartment building completely at random in Boston and conducted a series of paired tests where I sent white women and black women. Each of the women that I sent, the testers had identical financial profiles they were Looking at the same rental properties, they had very similar if not the same, rental histories and housing preferences. And they all asked about apartments that were available in this large complex across all tests. And I ran multiple tests of the same building The white testers who had names like Anne, Sarah and Jill were consistently receiving better customer service.

And we're told more information about the apartments available than our black testers, who have names like Latoya, Ebony and Tamika In every test of that same building the white tester was shown more units than the black tester. The test also uncovered a pattern in how incentives were communicated to testers based on race. White testers were told about rent specials, free months of rent, free parking while black testers either were not told about this information at all or the information was buried in an email that they received after the tour. In one particularly striking example, our tester named Ann was offered savings that would total up to $4,440 through a combination of rent specials, getting a free first month of rent and free parking spot for the year. These were things that the property manager offered Anne. Then we had Latoya tour the same exact apartment and none of these things were offered to LaToya.

We also saw that black testers were told about background checks, and even something like a sex offenders check which our white testers we're not told about at all.

No continue.

I'm sorry for going over time. No, no. I will be brief in summing things up. These are just some examples of what we saw testers going through and we really want to emphasize to the city that funding matters Voucher discrimination remains pervasive. It disproportionately harms disabled renters, families with children, low-income households and because federal funding cannot be used to Do voucher discrimination work? City funding isn't supplemental for testing programs. It's foundational We need the city funding if Boston wants to prevent this sort of discrimination it's critical that the city invests in testing enforcement and education And without this local funding, programs like ours, testing programs that have so much experience finding this evidence of discrimination will not be able to continue doing this really important work. So I thank you for your attention on this issue and I'm happy to answer any questions.

What we'll do is, we will hold questions until the end of all your presentations. And then we'll start with Councilor Louijeune with questions. Thank you. Ashley, we've got six minutes.

Thank you so much, Councillor Culpepper and Councillor Louijeune. Thank Ashley, and the Director of Fair Housing Enforcement for the Center for Housing Justice and Policy at Suffolk. I want to briefly say a little bit more about what CHJP, which is what we call it, what we do. As Kelly mentioned, we conduct testing that illuminates patterns of discrimination and can be used in investigative reports to impact policy We also train housing authorities and community organizations and providers to recognize housing discrimination, what to do when they see it and many more. We provide free legal representation to victims

Informal advocacy, filing complaints with the Mass Commission Against Discrimination or with local city organizations like the Boston Commission. And we provide full representation in housing court for discriminatory evictions and affirmative cases in superior court. So we prevent discriminatory evictions and ensure that voucher holders and other members of protected classes can access The housing that they need because what we've learned is that in the middle of a housing crisis it's very difficult for someone to also navigate bringing a complaint without receiving assistance. And I want to talk a little bit more about what this testing means for the residents of Boston, because it's one thing to identify discrimination. In the abstract, I think we all know that discrimination happens in the city of Boston But this is also real people that we're talking about.

And so I just want to tell you about a couple of the folks that CHJP has helped illustrate what this kind of discrimination really looks like for folks in the greater Boston area. One of our clients was a disabled veteran who had what we call a HUD-VASH voucher, which is a voucher that is specific. It's like a Section 8 voucher but with additional services for veterans. He was losing his housing and at risk of homelessness, and he found an apartment that he applied for. But he was denied because they said he didn't meet the rent to income ratio. But this client had a voucher that was going to cover the vast majority of rent. And so he should not have been denied for that reason. We conducted testing when he contacted us and found that was a regular practice of this building.

We promptly filed an MCAD complaint on his behalf, and we were able to get him into the housing and to have that housing provider change their policies so they were no longer requiring the rent-to-income ratio of voucher holders. Another one of our clients was a family that was living in a homeless shelter with their six-month old, and they received a home based subsidy which is to help families transitioning out of shelter. They were thrilled to get this subsidy and to be able to move out of shelter. They had been anxiously trying to do that. They were vigilantly searching for housing We all know how difficult that is in the city of Boston and around the City of Boston. They found an apartment and were accepted, but when the landlord found out they had home base And he was required to provide a lead certificate showing that the unit was lead safe for children under six.

did not have a certificate for that apartment and the family could not move in. They had to remain in the homeless shelter another six weeks with their St. Louis, New York City. They contacted us and we were able to contact have them require them to get a lead certificate that family was able to move in and that unit now has a led certificate so that it's available for families with children. So these are just a couple of stories, but this happens every day in the city of Boston. The tighter the housing market is, the easier it is for landlords to discriminate. We know we have an incredibly tight housing market right now and the people who really pay that price are people of color, voucher holders, people with disabilities. We get over 300 calls or nearly 300 calls

A year to our intake complaint line and we can only help a fraction of those. And the situation is more dire than it has been because There was a lawsuit filed yesterday by the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center against HUD for What they believe will be restrictions on the ability of any fair housing organizations to get federal funding to fight discrimination. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts also recently ended its funding for the Fair Housing Alliance of Massachusetts, of which CHJP was a part. So we will no longer come January 1st, we will not have that funding from the state and This work is more important than ever.

Our voucher holders, our residents having a voucher can Be a huge opportunity for people and can do a lot to undo those patterns of segregation in our communities but not if people are not able to use the voucher. So I would encourage the city of Boston to continue making these commitments to ensure that we can keep doing this work, keep doing testing and enforcement. Thank you so much.

Sonia, am I pronouncing it right?

It's Soni.

Soni, you have six minutes.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper, Councillor Louijeune. I'm Sonie Gupta, Associate Vice President of Community Wealth at the Boston Foundation. I also want to say I'm joined by my colleague Sam Chambers, Public Affairs Manager in the audience here. The Boston Foundation is the community foundation for Greater Boston. Our mission is to close the gap on this region's and to help build a better Boston. I know this study needs no more introduction, but I want to say anyway that in 2020 the Boston Foundation partnered with Suffolk University Law Schools formerly known Housing Discrimination Testing Program and the analysis group on that groundbreaking study that documented widespread discrimination against black renters and voucher holders in greater Boston's rental housing market.

You all know that the study found high levels of discrimination existed throughout including pre-rental application process against both black people and individuals using vouchers. beginning with the very first interaction between a prospective tenant and the person advertising housing. Black fair housing testers faced greater discrimination in 72% of interactions Fair housing testers who said they had a housing voucher face discrimination in 86% of interactions and nationwide discrimination on the basis of disability, housing vouchers status, and race are the most common forms of housing discrimination. Although the study was released in 2020, there's clear evidence that rental voucher discrimination remains a persistent barrier to housing access. in Greater Boston, despite being illegal under Massachusetts law. As Gillian Lenson from LCR pointed out

The Housing Rights Initiative filed a lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court in 2024 against 20 Greater Boston landlords and real estate agents, alleging that they unlawfully refused to rent to prospective tenants because they used housing vouchers. Yet we know that housing voucher are highly effective at reducing homelessness, housing instability and overcrowding and improving other outcomes for families and children In addition to administering federal Section 8 vouchers, Massachusetts is only one of a handful of states that also funds a state rental voucher program known as MRVP. And every year housing advocates and coalitions ask for an increase in state funding for MRVP so that more families can receive housing assistance. The Boston Foundation has supported all of these efforts because we know the power of rental vouchers in furthering housing equity, affordability and stability.

However we need to address the discrimination that is undermining the use of rental voucher programs and limiting the impact of our collective investments in them. Housing advocates have pushed for legislation at the state level and on February 12th of this year, the Senate passed Massachusetts Senate Bill S-2947 titled and act regarding fair housing practices in the Commonwealth, and it is pending with House Ways and Means. The bill mandates fair housing training for real estate professionals increases license suspensions for repeat discrimination offenses and expands public reporting of complaints. Under existing law, only the MCAD is authorized to refer cases to the board for suspension and the bill will allow for three additional agencies that would be authorized to refer cases to the board, including the Boston Fair Housing Commission.

So the city of Boston has a critical role in preventing identifying and responding to housing discrimination As again, my colleagues have said the important parts are enforcement which include conducting compliance testing help with reporting of complaints to ensure that agencies like the Boston Fair Housing Commission and legal organizations have sufficient capacity. And then education and outreach for real estate professionals and landlords on fair housing issues, and also for tenants on their rights in the avenues for reporting discrimination. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak here.

Mr. Espinosa, you have six minutes.

Thank you Commissioner or Councilor Culpepper, Commissioner Lujan and the entire committee for holding this hearing on such an important topic. I find it really striking that the report is now, I think six years old and it still continues to foster these conversations. It's, I mean, the impact that the was groundbreaking at the time, but the importance of this work has not been diminished at all. This is one of the most common types of discrimination that exists anywhere in this country when it comes to housing Before I get into some stats that I have about public assistance discrimination as we call it on the state level, my name is Andrew Espinosa. I'm the Deputy Chief of the Investigations Division at MCAD I was formerly of the Office of Fair Housing and Equity with City Hall. I was the director of investigations there, and I actually worked with Kelly on the testing program that was stood up directly in response to this program during the pandemic.

I worked on the city side to coordinate which investigations we could file and investigate as a result of the testing that were soliciting from Suffolk. It was a really impactful project during the time that I was involved in it. MCAD, as you hopefully already know is the state civil rights agency. We enforce civil rights law throughout the Commonwealth. We have our main office right here in Boston and those civil rights laws include the state's fair housing laws. State law recognizes within fair housing 18 distinct protected classes, protected categories and that includes, as I stated before, public assistance which is how voucher discrimination is referred to as a protected class in state law. Within my division we have our dedicated fair housing unit which is one of the units that I manage in my current role.

That unit is comprised of a director, six full-time fair housing investigators and administrative support staff Our process in a nutshell is pretty similar to the gentleman who spoke before on behalf of FHE. We are a FAP agency, a Fair Housing Assistance Program. Most FAP agencies' process is pretty But just to resume what he had said, to summarize. Our process starts at intake. Intake is basically when the complaint is received by the agency. We have different channels. It could be through the mail, it could be during an in-person interview that we conduct with the person and then we also have a our regulations were just updated on a few weeks ago so we have a new online filing portal that currently is open to attorneys but within the next few weeks we anticipate we're going to be allowing

to file their own complaints directly with the agency without having to go through an interview process if they don't want to. So we're expanding access virtually to allow people, especially in the more rural parts of the state that have less access to visit an MCD office. So during our investigative process, basically we take in the complaint, we ask the responding party of the respondent to respond to the complaint We collect evidence, we conduct interviews. Sometimes we do on-site investigations depending on what has been filed. We also have our ADR unit which conducts mediations especially in housing cases We try to conduct mediations on as many cases as possible. And then we also have within the MCD our training unit that is chiefly responsible for community outreach So they attend trainings and outreach events on fair housing issues and other anti-discrimination events throughout the state.

They also have their own suite of training, such as Know Your Rights trainings for People that are voucher holders or other types of people entering the rental market and they conduct landlord trainings on their civil rights obligations, fair housing obligations. At the end of an investigation, if the case hasn't settled there's two routes as was explained by the gentleman from FHE. There could be either a probable cause finding which means there is sufficient evidence to move the case forward or there could be a lack of probable cause finding, which case the case is dismissed and then there's the opportunity for an appeal. If there's a probable cause-finding we do another attempt at settlement. At that point it's called conciliation If conciliation isn't successful, then it gets what's called certified. And once it's certified to public hearing, then that's when there is an actual administrative enforcement process. That's before one of our hearing officers or at times before a member of our commission, but it's generally before one of our full-time hearing officers.

Housing cases are unique under state law in that if there is a probable cause finding, the respondent has the ability to remove that case to court at that time. And due to that I wanted discuss briefly our certain community partnerships that we have. So the first thing I'll discuss is, we have a partnership with the Attorney General's Office They have, they share some jurisdiction over fair housing enforcement. And that's a very specific areas that when the respondent chooses to go to court we refer those cases to the Attorney General Office's Civil Rights Division and they handle either more settlement attempts or if settlements unsuccessful, prosecution on behalf of the complainant in the Commonwealth. We also have longstanding relationships with private fair housing legal advocacy organizations, including FIPP agencies such as Suffolk. Mass Fair Housing Center, which is in Western Mass. South Coast Fair Housing is in the south coast region.

We routinely will request testing from some of these FIP organizations such as Suffolk and they will refer their testing results back to us. And we can evaluate whether we can add that to the complaint or sometimes we will even file a commission initiated complaint based on evidence like that, um, that we've found without a flesh and blood complainant basically our commissioner can stand in for a complainant We haven't done a public assistance commission-initiated complaint that I'm aware of, but we did one last year based on assistance animals like a support animal. That was a disability fair housing case. We also, there's a new state office that I wanted to mention because it's of interest to this topic. It's called the State Office of Fair Housing. EOHLC, Housing and Liberal World Communities. They have this new long name but they are a I think of them as a statewide fair housing clearinghouse.

They are coordinating funding for private fair housing organizations, and they're also doing a lot of state-wide awareness campaigns. For example, I participated with them on a series of fair housing listening sessions all throughout the state last year and into early this year. And I think that office has potential for really good impact in terms of raising awareness on these topics. So in terms of what MCD is actually seeing, I kept these stats to FY26 because I wanted them to be as recent as possible. In FY26, MCAD received 655 fair housing claims which were filed with our office Out of those 655 claims, the five top most commonly filed protected categories were disability, retaliation, public assistance which includes voucher and National Origin. So public assistance, therefore was our fourth most frequently filed claim type in FY26.

And that represented 70 claims of public assistance discrimination that were filed during the fiscal year and then narrowing that data even further, 30% of those cases. So it was 21 out of the 70 were cases that dealt with respondents whose properties were in Boston So just from that data alone, I mean obviously it's affected by the fact that Boston is our largest urban area. But a huge chunk of these cases, 30% of these case statewide are originating just within the city of Boston. I want to mention though disability is year in and year out our most commonly filed claim type, especially with reasonable accommodation denials and service animal support animal cases. We're dedicated to this work it's not without its challenges

No, keep going. You can finish.

You know, I mentioned this data. It's a large number of cases, it's hundreds of fair housing cases that are filed every year, thousands of cases overall that, you know, a challenge that we perennially have to deal with is managing these cases with a relatively small staff even though we are a state agency. We've been committed to revamping our processes in the last year plus which includes the updating of our regulations to be able to have We have a new mechanism for looking at these cases, evaluating them much sooner than was possible generally. We're hoping to be able to get action and investigations happening much sooner then has been done previously under this new model that we're adopting with the new regs. We also have historically relied on federal funding, which my colleagues have mentioned is a challenge for all fair housing agencies, FIPFAP, et cetera. The state has given us level funding for the first time. It's not an increase in funding.

but it is funding now to represent the money that we would have relied on from the federal government because of what's going on federally. We don't know if we're gonna be able to rely on HUD, for example paying us some money that they've paid us yearly for our cases as in the past There, HUD is not in a good place right now. I think everyone in this chamber probably knows that but they've been actively rolling back support animal protections. They're no longer recognizing vital protected classes such as gender identity, which used to be able to be recognized under a claim of sex They're withdrawing guidance in general that agencies like ours relied on to look for how to do our work and best practices. And as I think was also mentioned, Grants, as of a recent announcement, seem to be made now subject to complying with Trump's 2025 executive orders such as not using your resources to promote DEI. and I won't get into that but that is anathema to our mission.

And so any question of applying for a HUD grant, for example which could be used to support a testing program in the future, for now with that money's out of the question. I could keep going on. I know I'm over time, so I will end it there. I thank you so much for your time and I thank so much raising this topic in this forum.

Thank you. Councilor, you have five minutes

and thank you to all the panelists for your testimony. I guess my first question is for Professor Vieira, when you laid out sort of the testing program what I missed was Has Suffolk University ever been contracted with the city to do testing work?

Yes.

And when was the last time that

I believe the last time we were contracted was either late 2022 or early 2023.

Right, and that was to do the pair testing that you had discussed? Correct. And for what time period and for what purpose?

So the purpose was to essentially take what we found in the study and see what we've found specifically in the city of Boston. covered the Metro Boston area, so included places that were not in the city. So the City of Boston contracted us through OFHE to do testing in Boston proper and I did 100 tests and that was where I was able to find that evidence of discrimination. And then we did do kind of a follow-up, where I believe it was either 75 to 100 more tests where one of my colleagues took over and that I believe went into 2023. And that's when our partnership, that was the scope of the partnership.

And do you know what happened as a result of the data

Yes, so it wasn't just because it wasn t a research study. It was meant for enforcement. Several complaints were filed through OFHE leading to Gosh, I wish I had the total amount of settlement. I believe it was over $70,000 in settlements total came from testing specifically that I did through this project. The OFHE would initiate complaints, and those complaints largely settled to different amounts. And that money would either go back to the city or some might come back to us for further testing And then in cases where there was a live person who was the complainant, they would receive that settlement money.

And is there a schedule of fines or fees somewhere? Does anyone know in federal legislation, state legislation about fair housing and what are those scheduled fines?

Yeah, so there are fines both under 151B that MCAD and Andrew can probably speak to this per fair housing violation. And then there's... And there's also under the federal law, there are civil penalties. Our office often brings cases as Andrew mentioned to MCAD that then get We partner with the Attorney General's office and the Attorney general can request those civil penalties. I believe it is $5,000 per incident of discrimination. that the state can fine as civil penalties. And Andrew, I don't know if you can speak more to what penalties the commission can ask for but...

So the actual numbers, I don't have the schedule offhand. I do believe they increase if it's not the first violation though.

Yes.

But then if there is an actual complainant, so it's not a commission-initiated complaint. There can also be an award of emotional distress damages

I'm trying to remember what other type of... Lost housing opportunity, out-of-pocket expenses.

And if they are represented by council there can be attorney's fees that are awarded as well by our commission.

Great. Thank you. And how often are affirmative lawsuits filed? I know there was some mention of a few, but how often do you see that route happening either in superior court or

Um, so I can say that my office right now we have Currently, four cases in Superior Court that we are litigating with the Attorney General's Office. We have a number of cases with MCAD We have a couple of housing cases in Housing Court, so we sort of have them all over. I think our Housing Court cases are probably Summary process, so they're not affirmative.

That was my next question. So you're involved in cases in housing court where you bring up discrimination as a defense or as a counterclaim? Yes. Exactly. Yes. And what, like it's either no-fault eviction or fault eviction nonpayment and you allege as a counterclaim I mean, it wouldn't be sort of because they're already living in the... Yeah.

So sometimes there may be a claim, a counterclaim of discrimination where for example The client has fallen behind in arrears but is trying to use RAFT and the landlord is refusing to accept a RAFT payment. or they're being evicted because they have an animal but it's actually an assistance animal that they need due to their disability and so there would be a counterclaim for discrimination based on them.

Thank you. I believe that's my time, but I just wanted to thank you all. This is a very challenging time to be working in the important worker fair housing we and the city have become a target because of our commitment Routing out discrimination based on voucher, race, gender identity. And so I think that it's important for us to recognize that this is not an easy moment and so I want to appreciate All the work that you're doing, aside from sort of the federal government retreating from the Affirmatively Fair Housing or from being like a steadfast partner in What do you think is missing in the city of Boston from the fair housing framework? Imagine that we were not dealing with the federal government as-is. What is missing from the framework? And then I do have a second question about how do we compare to other cities.

I always want to think about sort of that dynamic as well

I mean, I can always say I'm always going to vouch for more testing. There is research kind of nationally to show that cities that have a greater presence of discrimination testing see a decrease in discrimination because the Housing providers know that they're essentially potentially being watched. They need to be on their better behavior. So I think if Boston has a more robust testing presence, that in itself would have a positive effect Just in terms of deterrence, but also discrimination is hard to prove without testing. So for a lot of folks they believe they were discriminated against, they often were, but it's hard for them to show concrete evidence in the way that testing can. So that would be my pitch. And testing requires funding, it is an expensive thing to do so that would

Yeah, I would just echo obviously what Kelly is saying and also say funding for testing and funding for enforcement. Although we do have the Boston Fair Housing Commission as I said And I think as Kelly was making the point, it's sometimes very difficult to bring cases without testing evidence. But also It's hard to put that on the backs of the victims of discrimination. To go through that alone, it can be a long process particularly if they don't have representation and the idea when we bring cases What we're looking for is not only to try to make the victim of discrimination whole again, but also to get affirmative changes from those landlords. So a change in their policy to ensure that this isn't going to happen again. And the more we do that and the more it's, um, that we get results that aren't just a slap on the wrist

The more we get substantial damages for our clients and substantial injunctive relief, meaning Thank you. We have to have funding to be able to do that work, so I would echo what Kelly said in funding for testing and enforcement.

I just completely second that. I think Suffolk has been such a terrific partner on identifying that and the MCAD in sort of the discrimination claims. We just need to have more vouchers available, period. It's a critical fight for affordability and for those vouchers of course to work we need to make sure that there isn't discrimination but I you know just remind everybody There aren't enough vouchers to go around. It's one in four families that are eligible that receive a voucher so That is also a core fair housing issue Say that awareness that

The public assistance discrimination is still illegal on the local and state level You know, HUD is no longer going to be trying to do anything about voucher discrimination. A lot of people take that at face value and think that voucher discriminations now legal in Massachusetts it's not, in the city of Boston it's but every year we see cases where the landlord tries to defend against a complaint by saying that they're not doing anything illegal. These small-time landlords especially, a lot of them legitimately don't know that these protections are out there. But then conversely, the voucher holders don't know and so even if they have the ability to pursue their claims, they don't now that they can So I think increased awareness and public training, either from the city or my office will continue on what it's been doing. I think that needs to be always happening.

Well, that's great because of the things that I've been fighting for Pair testing from the gold standard, from the very beginning. We are always fighting for more vouchers and I do think Bob Terrell always advocated for and once you have a robust office, we have to do the work of education campaigns to make people know that discrimination against voucher holders all types of fair housing discrimination is illegal. I want to thank you for your work and then I guess any other cities that are doing pair testing well?

Oh, any other city.

Do you know any cities that do this well?

Yeah, I would say New York comes to mind. New York has very robust testing and they've had a lot of success kind of speaking to what Ashley mentioned earlier with getting large damage amounts to the point where it's not just a slap on the wrist that You know, the housing provider might consider a cost of business. That's always our worry if it's you know Hundreds of thousands of dollars that sends a bigger message and we're seeing that more often in New York

Thank you. Those are my questions.

Thank you, Councilor. I've got a few questions. First, thank you for all the work that you do and how Thank you very much. information is six years old do you think it's time and sony and kelly or ashley or any of you can answer this do you Testing to take place, to really focus on what's taking place so that if there are legal organizations ready to file suit they would need Fresh information and then...

I guess everyone seems to be agreeing, but Sonia you wanna talk about it?

Well, I'll say that We are always interested in testing, and we continue to use testing as a possibility to identify discrimination in other areas as well. So we absolutely believe in the power of testing. As you can see, this report six years old it led to a coalition I mean we're here at this hearing it led being formed against housing discrimination that came up with that legislation at the state level and continues to advocate for policies and programs that will help You know, fight discrimination. So you can't say enough good things about testing and especially the way that Suffolk carries it out. It is a long process

and it's incredibly detailed, and I'm always amazed at the thoughtfulness with which it's carried out. And I think we need to be doing things alongside The testing, so perhaps collecting data on the number of complaints and you know the various stages Enforcement and Learning. I think that certainly has been on my mind this entire morning is perhaps it's a compilation of data from all of the various agencies that are involved on cases and other things that have evolved since then. And perhaps we turn to testing again at a suitable time when, to sort of see how the city is done.

Boston Foundation prepared to fund another round of testing? I mean, we got $100,000 in this last budget. And that was the best we could do but we were glad $100,000 is money for testing. It's for fiscal year 2026 money that's there but we were glad to get the hundred thousand dollars for 2027 Is the Boston Foundation ready or prepared to fund another foundation?

We would absolutely be open to a conversation. And like I said, without saying too much we are still very much in the realm of using testing. And I'll just leave it at that to say we're looking at it and are participating in it and would definitely be open to a conversation about the need for future testing, absolutely.

And I think Kelly you mentioned that There's still significant discrimination against vulture holders in the city of Boston. And I know you did work after the testing?

Yes.

Exactly what did you do?

My role was, I was the director of investigations and outreach. So part of my role was the education work that I think Andrew talked about going into the community teaching people about their rights So they understand that being turned away for your voucher is illegal. I continue to do more testing throughout my work as director. I did testing outside of the city of Boston, so in other parts of Massachusetts though continuing to test in Boston. I've done testing for, I think every protected class at least once so I was doing testing related to disability and national origin, race, gender identity You know, anything that you can name kind of I did a bit of it. And, you know, candidly the I am no longer with CHGP. I miss it. But on a personal level, the reason why I couldn't continue doing fair housing work is because my position was largely HUD funded.

And as a young professional, the lack of stability in my career was something that pushed me towards academia where I am now. So that just goes to show like it had a real tangible effect, the funding challenges that we still continue to face.

How much education and outreach are you doing now?

So I am a full-time educator now. I work at Suffolk still, but I'm a visiting assistant professor. I worked with the law students I do fair housing education in my spare time, so I actually go into my own neighborhood. I live in Brighton and I've done Know Your Rights trainings just for like my neighbors Every once in a while. But yeah, fair housing isn't my full-time job anymore for the past year largely because of funding.

So you're just teaching now?

Yes.

What are you teaching?

I teach, I'm in the academic support program so I do a lot of foundational work for the law students.

But Suffolk continues to do, the Center for Housing Justice and Policy continues to Education and Outreach, and Testing. Although we desperately miss Kelly, we do drag her back often.

Ashley, how much education work are you So right now, I'm trying to think of which. I'm just thinking of our funding because

You know a lot of what education and outreach we can do is determined by what funding we have in the moment. So So I, off the top of my head cannot remember whether we have any funding specific to Boston right now. We are doing education and outreach in terms of We are sort of constantly doing education outreach for housing providers. GARRETT. I WOULD SAY HOUSING AUTHORITIES IN PARTICULAR AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS, WE WILL ALWAYS You know a training every couple weeks maybe but in the greater not all directed within the city of Boston just because of how our funding is.

And Andrew? 655 fair housing claims are filed in fiscal year 26? Correct. And how many of those 655 Can you break down how many went to hearing, how many settled, how much probable cause was found on and moved to Superior Court?

What's the breakdown of that 655? I don't have that data in front of me now.

I only pulled the data about filings for the fiscal year, unfortunately, but if you request it from the office... Can you look at that and just see how many

went to court, how many went to hearing within MCAD and how many you actually found probable cause of.

I can speak generally about the way that our cases move not specific to this data set if that's okay? Our cases tend, there's the lack of probable cause rate is every year about 70 to 75 percent. That's when we don't have sufficient evidence to move the case forward. About another 20-25% are probable cause. And within those probable cause findings, the amount that settle after probable cause is pretty high So it's kind of like a narrowing rate of what actually makes it to public hearing or the court. Because even if the respondent elects to go to court, the Attorney General's office will make additional settlement attempts. I think that last year I was just told these stats yesterday. I think that our hearing officers heard two housing-related public hearings last year Out of the 655? That was just in general.

Those cases could have been filed prior to fiscal 26. But yeah, many, many cases settle A lot of cases, unfortunately, are dismissed for lack of probable cause. Very few actually make it to public hearing or to court.

Okay. I've got a few more questions but we have one person signed up to testify in Zoom. I'm going to go to this person. I'm gonna give them their two minutes. Then, I've got a few other questions for you if you have time. Great, thank you. T. Lawrence Ware. You have two minutes. Can you hear me? We can hear you, but we can't see you.

All right, I'm trying to turn on the camera now. Hopefully you can see me now.

No, we see some interesting figures.

Oh, I have no idea. All right, so let me proceed. Concerning housing choice vouchers, there's been... Here I am now. There's been a few incidents where People have been pre-approved to move into a property. and then they get the reference call from their previous landlord whom they've taken to court. And one, that previous landlord will disparage them in a way that would make the new landlord now proceed forward with their application. I'm asking based on this particular scenario, is there a way that Boston or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could institute a program dual program where

References have to be done via email or some sort of print service, whereas if there is something disparaging, say it could be tracked and monitored. and then like in the city of Philadelphia, they have something called the renter certificate. To expand that further than just having the property inspected could City of Boston Commuter Program, whereas the landlords have to attend a class concerning discrimination and the people with an ACV Housing Choice Voucher also are provided with The information to help themselves When they are a victim of discrimination, because currently right now if you call the Boston Housing Authority and say hey I've been discriminated against it's very difficult to get to the right person to help you and advocate for you. and I yield back the rest of my time.

Thank you, Mr. Ware. Would any of the panelists like to address Mr. Wares question?

I guess, I would just say we did recently get the eviction ceiling law passed. And that's something that our office has been doing some training and education outreach around. because I do think that you know we know that having an eviction on your record is a huge barrier to housing for a lot of folks and and a lot of voucher holders. So there is the ability now to seal that record so at the very least landlords can't and so on. There was a case in court, and they're eliminating you. So the Eviction Ceiling Act I think is helping that a little bit. It doesn't address the issue, I believe it was Mr. Wells raised of references. Thank you. Any questions?

Anyone else?

I can speak in part to my prior role with the Office of Fair Housing and Equity. There were discussions during the pandemic about having potentially a mandatory fair housing testing program for landlords coordinated with ISD. Nothing came of that during my time, I'm not sure if any current efforts because my contact with that office isn't very much right now But that was an idea of the past. They mentioned already the sealing of eviction records, which I think is a really vital piece of law that I think it's great.

Thank you. Mr. Witt, did that help?

No. I'm appreciative of the response but it doesn't help those people who are in a situation where A, they won the victory against their landlord. B, they still have their housing choice voucher because they did not legally violate any of the rules, procedures and protocol of HUD, and they're looking to get into a new property. And their old landlord is disparaging them. The new landlord will say something verbally via phone but not put anything down on paper So if they are able to properly advocate for themselves, they have no record of what transpired. And now they left out and then their voucher expires in 120 days. And now this said person is now homeless.

Well, you heard that Suffolk University Law School provides free representation. Recommend that they, and I'm not saying specifically that they come to Ashley but they can certainly come I talked to someone at the law school to see about being represented. So, um...I would recommend they do that. That's where I would start.

That's cool. Could that information be provided in the Housing Choice Voucher Packet when they receive it? Because what's in the housing choice voucher packet currently is um, the lead inspection There's a little three-page pamphlet about discrimination, but not really how to get to the resources or how to document so that they can protect their voucher.

Say that again. Could it be provided where?

In the Housing Choice Voucher Packet, so when they... Okay.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank You Mr. Ware. You're welcome.

All right. You have a great day.

Great. That's a great suggestion. Ashley?

No, that's a great suggestion. We would love for them to have more information when they get their voucher about what discrimination looks for and what to do if they experience it.

I think that's important because many of the Section 8 Voucher Holders. It's interesting that are discriminated against, they just don't know what to do and we hear and from constituents that come to us, but they just don't know what to do. Many of them move to Brockton or Taunton, they just... Don't understand how they can deal with What's had just happened and they don't have much time. And so the time is ticking and They're trying to find a place to live and they're being told no, no,no, no No, and so they just They decided they're going to move to Brockton and Turner outside of Boston. So the education is really critical. Just a few more questions with regard

And actually, we talked a little bit about training housing providers. How much are you going to do in terms of training the housing providers in 2027?

and many more. It depends on the funding that we have. Unfortunately, it's all based In the past, historically we have done trainings for housing providers. We hope to be able to continue to do that if we have funding.

Did the state cut all of your funding?

So the state cut all of the funding for the Fair Housing Alliance in Massachusetts which was funding specifically to address voucher discrimination. They ended, we had been receiving that funding for past six years and they ended that program We did get a new funding through the Fair Housing Trust Fund that the state just recently approved. but unfortunately that funding is for a specific project and doesn't cover our enforcement or testing around voucher discrimination specifically so thank you just a couple more questions

And I think we can wrap up. And Kelly, you talked about the evidence of systemic patterns discrimination in Boston Yes. And in the study, when you think about evidence of systemic and the patterns, and you talked earlier Discrimination is still present. How would you recommend that the approach to the systemic Discovering and identifying evidence of systemic discrimination.

So when it comes to how Testing can help uncover systems or patterns. A lot of the time, testing isn't a one-off like what I would do is I would test the same property over and over and that's how we were sure that it was a pattern that it wasn't just You know, someone having a bad day. It wasn't just a fluke it was their practice. It was their business practice to discriminate against a certain class of people so In order to do that repeated testing, of course funding continues to be the issue. But also I think when it comes to the systemic issue of discrimination, it goes again to how do we deter especially large properties from discriminating I think it has to come down to the enforcement and to have higher penalties for discrimination, which I believe already exists. Higher penalties for repeat discrimination because we've had cases where we tested a property

and maybe we test again years later, and they're still doing the same business practice that's discriminatory. So it's a matter of making sure that it's not repeated behavior from the particular housing provider

And could I just add that's why we want to encourage funding for both testing and enforcement because We really don't want to do one without the other. Testing gives us really important information and really important evidence, but we need to then use that testing

to do some enforcement.

Right, to have some impact on what's happening or else we're just doing it over and over again and measuring it so... And with regard to enforcement

Do you have enforcement funding now? Or when the state cut that funding, was that the enforcement funding that was cut?

So that was, yeah, the state was who was funding our voucher enforcement specifically. So we do have some enforcement funding currently from HUD. We don't know... We don't know how long that will continue. In theory, it is a three-year grant but there's been concerns raised and as we discussed, that doesn't cover any of the protected State protected categories. So we can't do any voucher discrimination enforcement work under that grant.

And here's my final question for, and each of you could answer this or all What recommendations do you have to the city that you want to make so we can look at it from a council's perspective as Look at what can we do to really, because I think Section 8 discrimination is an area that's so critical and it's happening right in front of us. And not much has happened. What would you recommend? Each of you to the city that we do immediately or as soon as we can to help deal with issue of Section 8 culture discrimination in Boston.

I think the city needs to continue to be a champion of fair housing and civil rights just broadly. I think there have been times, especially prior to the release of the 2020 report where fair housing has been treated as a marginal issue. People don't know what it is even people within key positions of government and that's When that happens, that's really unfortunate. And that's when funding falls. That's when you enter these conversations and you're speaking to a room where even just the base layer of information needs to be established before you can get into the nitty gritty of what's lacking and so I think just continuing to have these conversations, continuing to champion civil rights in fair housing is really vital at all level of government.

And so what would you recommend in terms of championing fair housing? What would you say the city needs to do that they're not doing?

With respect, I don't think that I can make a recommendation for the city to take specific action.

When you were here what was critical I look back on my time partnering with Suffolk with great fondness. Okay, I think that was

Thank you. I'd say to

Pick up from the findings of testing to have more funding for enforcement and for the education piece, both for landlords, real estate brokers and four tenants. So, you know through the Office of Fair Housing I think those have to be really robust components in order to be able to effectively use what we're finding from the testing to actually make a difference for people who are struggling to find housing. Kelly.

I would, you know, not to repeat myself so much but to be more specific about the funding issue. I think what we see across the board is that kind of what Andrew's alluding to sometimes fair housing is put on the back burner as an issue when really it's so broad, it affects literally everyone because everyone has the right to a home. And I think a lot of our agencies are we have small staffs that sometimes get smaller because we lose funding So to have the ability to hire people who their full-time job is testing, or their full time job as enforcement, or they're full time jobs going out into the community and educating folks. That just creates a more robust fair housing culture in Boston, I would say.

Thank you and Ashley?

Yeah thank you. You know want to echo what everyone has said Andrew, in particular mentioning that for the city to be a champion of fair housing and really elevate the conversation. I was really thrilled to hear that the Office of Fair Housing is going to have a new director I think that has been a challenge for being able to coordinate some of these partnerships. All of us up here have In these incredible partnerships, Suffolk wouldn't have been able to do our testing report without the help of the Boston Foundation and Sony being our champion and supporting us through that. GARRETT. I THINK THAT OUR PARTNERSHIP WHEN ANDREW WAS AT THE Thank you.

Partnerships, because we're going to be able to have more of an impact when we're all working together. And so I think the funding is important and the coordination is important also.

Ashley, you ended this in a way that I wanted to... This is what I wanted say because I do want to do some education. As a counselor, one who practiced a lot of fair housing law when I was at HUD, I do want to get out and do education. It doesn't cost me anything. Are you willing to help me put together some educational events out in the community so that folks can really learn and hear from us about what Section 8 and what voucher discrimination is all about because sometimes you're not going to get the funding but you can still do the work. You know, you all have been doing the work.

And I say let's all come together like you mentioned Ashley and let's put on some events where we can really Give folks information about Section 8 voucher fair housing discrimination. And I'd love to work with all of you on some events, because I think it's critical. Right now, and I think it's kind of fallen off because the funding keeps decreasing. But sometimes you can't wait until the funding comes. You got to really roll up your sleeves, and I would love to work with you on doing some fair housing education. And training if you have time in the field. It's so needed, and we hear it so much. And folks don't understand it.

You know, folks don�t understand when they come to me and say well, you know on my cards I was recommended In fact, Councilor Louijeune recommended don't put Esquire on your card because everyone's gonna wanna come to you. Even without that though I still get a lot of questions when I'm out at different events about Folks feeling they were discriminated against but not knowing what to do. And it's kind of sad because there's not much that I can do individually. We will try and get out and do some education, training where possible but I would love to do it in a coordinated way with

Those of you that are willing to get out there with me and help me shout out loud what Section 8 discrimination is all about. And the owners, some of them just don't think what they're doing because their owners is discrimination. Because they're not using overt ways or obvious ways, they just don't know so I'd love to follow up and work with you on it. trying to get out there and do some events in the field. I want to thank all of you, and my colleague, and members of the public who participated in today's hearing I really appreciate the testimony, the data and recommendations. I got all kind of information now that I'll go back and look at because we heard what I heard today about

and Kelly, thank you for just making it clear that is still happening. But the work is being done to protect residents fair housing rights I want to emphasize Today's hearing is not the end of this. And I'm appreciative that Chair of the Civil Rights Committee at first, and I said, I do it all the time. And so when they gave me the chair, I started looking at possibilities. This report has always been in the back of my mind Since I left HUD, because I really wanted to sue somebody. You know when this report came out and I said we got it! and I think it still exists.

And six years later, we need to make sure that we're not simply acknowledging that discrimination exists but really identifying what more can the city do What can we do to prevent it, detect it and hold those responsible and accountable? Those that are discriminated. Because for me civil rights work protection is The way we protect residents who may not know their rights, who may recognize that they have rights or that the rights have been violated. It just means continuing to coordinate with the city, with MCAD, with Suffolk University Law School and all of the good work that you've been doing. And other partners as well are really doing the work and trying to figure out how we can continue to have an impact on fair housing in the city.

And my goal is really to take what I heard today, all kind of notes and continue working with you, and my colleagues in the administration. And I thank you panelists for really talking in a way that you know what you're talking about. I mean, you've got the experience. You've done the work. I wish Lee Pelton would stay for another year to see if we can't get him and maybe we'll call Orlando to see if there's some kind of way we can provide some funding for us to do some further work because I think it has to be done. I think its something that we can't just I say we don't have the funding for it.

And I think people, I think residents and especially in my district depend and rely on us to make sure that in some ways they are protected or at least they know what discrimination looks like, what it is. And so residents should not have to overcome the discrimination on top of all of the other barriers They're already faced, and finding a place to live is so critical to folks that are struggling just to make ends meet. So again I thank you for coming to talk about it And now that we've talked about it, let's do some work about it and see how we can help folks that are struggling and finding themselves in a predicament. where they just don't know what to do.

Thank you so much, thank you to our one public L. Lawrence Ware and this hearing Docket number 1339 is now adjourned. Thank you.

and many more.