Federal funding cuts from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and DOGE rescind a grant to Delaware’s Community Legal Aid Society.
The grant was a part of a $32 million HUD investment into organizations nationwide that enforce the Fair Housing Act.
HUD awarded a $425 thousand grant to CLASI in October. That’s about 4 percent of CLASI’s annual budget. The award was part of a three-year grant cycle, meaning CLASI would have received another $850 thousand over the next two years.
The funds support three staff members who work on fair housing. None are at risk of losing their jobs currently.
CLASI’s housing unit managing attorney Sarah Spangler Rhine said before CLASI started helping enforce fair housing, housing discrimination in Delaware often went undetected.
“In a time where we're talking a lot about affordable housing and the critical shortage of that housing in Delaware, this is a really big blow to Delaware and to the work that we've done in Delaware,” Spangler Rhine said.
Spangler Rhine said HUD-funded organizations like CLASI nationwide process about 75% of fair housing complaints.
“The work is really crucial in preventing discrimination, ... preventing eviction and homelessness, allowing people to maintain housing, removing barriers to housing.”
CLASI has handled 163 fair housing cases in the current grant year and has 80 open fair housing cases. It has also conducted 44 housing provider tests that check for discriminatory practices.
The organization stopped taking new cases and all testing for housing, according to Spangler Rhine.
“We are evaluating how we'll be able to sustain fair housing work as part of our work at CLASI because we see it as so critical,” Spangler Rhine said. “We're not just going to turn our backs on it, but I do think, again, it's a huge impact both to communities within the state, right? Just us as a whole in Delaware, we’ll be impacted by us not affirmatively touching for discrimination.”
A D.C.-based civil rights law firm and four members of the National Fair Housing Alliance filed a lawsuit against HUD and DOGE to challenge the grant terminations.
“It is really a huge loss for our communities, for individuals, and to just not have this organization doing fair housing work is really sad,” Spangler Rhine said.
