The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded a $425 thousand grant to Delaware’s Protection and Advocacy system to fight housing discrimination.
The funds were given to Delaware’s Community Legal Aid Society to keep attorneys on staff.
CLASI will use the funding to continue its watchdog work, which includes investigating housing discrimination, conducting tests in local markets and providing education to the public.
The funding is part of a $32 million investment by HUD in fair housing organizations throughout the nation.
CLASI’s Housing Unit managing attorney Sarah Spangler Rhine says many of their clients face discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, family size and disability.
“We also are the Fair Housing enforcement program in the state, which means that we actually send kind of secret shoppers or testers out to test landlords to see if they are compliant with laws around discrimination and to affirmatively enforce fair housing.”
HUD’s regional administrator Matthew Heckles says it’s important to protect people in rental and home ownership situations.
“A lot of people become homeless because of discrimination in housing,” Heckles said. “The work that CLASI is doing is making sure that people have an understanding of their rights and that they're treated fairly.”
Cases CLASI works on include those involving people with disabilities being denied accommodations in their homes. A recent example involved a tenant who was initially not permitted to move to an apartment on the first floor despite having mobility issues.
