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Tag Archives: accessibility
HUD’s Idaho Fair Housing and Virtual Training
Idaho Fair Housing Forum partners welcomed key personnel from HUD’s Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Office for a virtual FHEO training on Thursday, August 10, 2023. The event was well-attended, with over 230 Participants from Idaho and the surrounding regions. If a recording is made available, a link will be posted below.
Opening remarks by Lynn Grosso, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Brian Dale, PCED, HUD Field Office Director for Idaho
Agenda
Opening Remarks – Brian Dale, FOD; Barbara Lehman, Region X FHEO Director; Lynn Grosso, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement
HUD FHEO’s Intake Process – Michael Chen, HUD FHEO
HUD FHEO’s Investigation Process – Breanne Lee, HUD FHEO
HUD FHEO and VAWA/C Revs – James Kordich, HUD FHEO
Q & A – FHEO Staff Presenters
Closing Remarks – Lynn Grosso, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement (tentative), Barbara Lehman, Region X FHEO Director
The Idaho Fair Housing Forum members have been working to reanimate our long-running monthly stakeholder discussions. The Forum has always been a safe place for conversations among state and local governments, housing industry professionals, and consumer advocates. As we always remind everyone, the Forum is not an advocacy organization; we’re a collaborative group interested in working together to better understand fair housing law, best practices and opportunities for productive cooperation.
The 2023 schedule is as follows:
Dates: Every Second Wednesday
Time: 10am-11am Mountain Time
Place: We default to Zoom or Teams
2023 Schedule from June to December
June 14
July 12
August 9
September 13
October 11
November 15
December 13
Join our distribution list!
To receive monthly meeting notifications and links, send your name / email to AmaraE @ ihfa.org (no spaces). You will be added to the Forum events list.
We hope to see you at our upcoming meetings, and encourage you to think about what you’d like to ask or contribute.
Access Means Everything!
Members of the Idaho Access Project spoke with several dozen architects, attorneys, and fair housing advocates on May 5 as part of the Intermountain Fair Housing Council’s 2023 workshop series. While the focus was on access in all aspects of life, the session included a comparison between fair housing design and construction requirements and Visitability.
Topics
Inclusive planning and design for mobility, access, safety and connectivity;
Visitability in single-family residential housing development;
Inclusive Recreation and Tourism, and
Integrating people with disabilities in civic, cultural and
Idaho Fair Housing Forum members are gearing up for April, and we’d like to share a few activities and resources below with our partners and community stakeholders. While fair housing and related laws apply every day, each year we join with others to draw attention to the rights, responsibilities and economic benefits of housing choice and equity.
States and communities that receive federal funds—particularly from HUD—are required to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH) in several ways. The AFFH requirements include, “taking meaningful actions, in addition to combating discrimination, that overcome patterns of segregation and foster inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics.”
Meaningful actions accomplish two key outcomes:
more fair housing choice
reducing disparities in access to opportunity
Forum partners typically pursue these outcomes through partnerships that increase awareness of fair housing law through conferences, sponsored training opportunities, and outreach materials. HUD program administrators must also demonstrate concrete steps taken to ensure that subrecipients of HUD funds are pursuing AFFH practices that support equity in programs, activities, resources and facilities.
In the case of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds at the state level, Idaho Commerce requires the following AFFH actions of all sub recipients
Free Education and Outreach Materials. IHFA produced a series of fair housing materials as part of its FHIP-EOI grant in 2020 and 2021. Print materials and videos are available at no cost on request.
Additional background and resources that help put AFFH requirements in context:
Segregated by DesignThis short film tracks the “forgotten history of how our federal, state and local governments unconstitutionally segregated every major metropolitan area in America through law and policy.”
Seven DaysAward-winning film by Nationwide Insurance and the National Fair Housing Alliance chronicles daily events between the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King April 4, 1968 and passage of the Fair Housing Act April 11, 1968
House RulesThis collaborative journalism project describes how where we live determines our access to essential community assets, economic opportunity and social capital. And it looks at the role and fate of George Romney, the first individual charged with implementing the Fair Housing Act.
2022-2027 AI: What cities and counties should know about fair housing (pending) Broad-brush overview of important context and concepts for Idaho communities to understand, with references to the most recent Statewide Analysis of Impediments covering Idaho’s non-entitlement (balance of state) jurisdictions served by Idaho Commerce and IHFA.
