Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston

CONTACT:

59 Temple Place Suite 1105
Boston, MA 02111
617-399-0491
www.bostonfairhousing.org

Tracy L. Brown, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

Housing discrimination is illegal, immoral, and debilitating to thousands of Massachusetts residents, but until 1998 Boston was the only major metropolitan area in the U.S. without an organization dedicated to that issue. Then a few civil rights and housing advocates and attorneys founded FHCGB as a civil rights organization, and the region’s sole source of housing discrimination testing and case advocacy services. Today, FHCGB is the region’s only comprehensive fair housing organization, providing expertise and a full tool kit of fair housing services: Testing of complaints, Case Advocacy, Training professionals, Community Outreach, Policy Advocacy, and Research. Its rigorous, objective and fair testing data is nationally respected, and enables people to prove their cases in court. Each year, it handles hundreds of inquiries and complaints, usually successfully. FHCGB also trains— 250 professionals last year—housing authorities, realty agencies, mortgage companies, and housing search workers. In 2002 the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association, gave FHCGB their Equal Justice Award for contributions to racial equality and justice. In 2006, they were one of 13 organizations nationwide that were awarded three-year contracts with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Fair Housing Initiatives Program. This contract was renewed for 2009-2011. In 2007 FHCGB was appointed to the Governor’s Task Force on Zoning Reform, and its Executive Director testified at two congressional hearings. If housing discrimination is an issue of interest to you, here is our leader in that field.

(2008: CULTURE: Education: Informal: Advocacy)