Wednesday, June 8, 2022

HUD CITES BALTIMORE CONDOMINIUM FOR DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION

On June 7, 2022, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) entered into a Consent Order with a Baltimore condominium company, Scarlett Place Residential Condominium, Inc., and its management agent, Brodie Management, Inc., to resolve a Charge of Discrimination alleging disability discrimination. Read the Consent Order here

"It is unconscionable that families caring for children with disabilities could also face housing discrimination," said Demetria L. McCain, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. "This consent order demonstrates HUD's commitment to protecting the fair housing rights of families and persons with disabilities."

HUD's Charge of Discrimination alleged that Scarlett Place Residential Condominium and Brodie Management violated the Fair Housing Act when they refused to waive their rule limiting occupants to two persons per bedroom to allow a family of eight - one a young child having bone marrow transplant treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital - to temporarily rent a three-bedroom condominium. The family needed to live together to provide for the child's medical treatment and care, including screening of all family members for a possible bone marrow donor. The condominium's board of directors levied a monthly fine against the rental unit's owner because the family occupied the condominium.

The Consent Order, entered into by a HUD Chief Administrative Law Judge, requires Scarlett Place Residential Condominium and Brodie Management to pay the family and the condominium owner $35,743.50 in damages, and other actions to ensure nondiscrimination because of disability. The Consent Order is not an admission of liability by either Scarlett Place  Residential Condominium or Brodie Management.

"Housing providers must allow families to provide care for their children with disabilities when a  simple waiver of condominium rules can be made," said Damon Smith, HUD's General Counsel. "HUD will vigorously enforce the Fair Housing Act's protections for persons with disabilities."

Read the June 7, 2022 HUD Press Release.

Monday, June 6, 2022

 

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Public Accommodations: Accessibility and the Law

Presenter: Glendora C. Hughes, General Counsel

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Wednesday June 15th 2022

1 p.m.-3 p.m.

Register Here via Eventbrite

 

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On Being Muslim With ICJS Muslim Scholar Zeyneb Sayilgan

 

On Being Muslim With ICJS Muslim Scholar Zeyneb Sayilgan

A FREE event by the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies (ICJS)

This Wednesday, June 8, 2022 at Noon-1 p.m. via Zoom


REGISTER

Islam is a religion that nourishes body, heart, mind and soul. The word Islam literally means peace, surrender and submission. A Muslim is one who has made a conscious decision to freely surrender and submit to the one and only God, the creator of every thing and every being.

ICJS Muslim Scholar Zeyneb Sayilgan will explain how Muslims try to embody these ideals in everyday life.

Zeyneb Sayilgan, Ph.D., is the Muslim Scholar at ICJS, where her research centers around Islamic theology and spirituality, Christian-Muslim relations, and the intersection of religion and migration. Her personal experience of growing up in Germany as a child of Kurdish Muslim immigrants from Turkey informs her academic work and engagement in interreligious learning.

She is the host of the On Being Muslim podcast.

 

Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies

956 Dulaney Valley Rd

Baltimore, Maryland 21204

410.494.7161|icjs.org

info@icjs.org

*****

Source: ICJS email newsletter, June 6, 2022.

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Federal Reserve Proposes New Rules to Modernize CRA Regulatory Rules

On May 5, 2022, the Federal banking regulators - the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board - announced proposed rules to revise and modernize the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The major elements are:

  • Expanded access to credit, investment, and basic banking services in low- and moderate-income communities. The regulatory agencies would evaluate bank performance across the various activities they conduct and communities they regulate so that CRA is a strong, effective tool to reduce inequities in credit access. This involves the promotion of community engagement and financial inclusion, as well as emphasizing smaller-value loans and investments to have high impact and be more responsive to the needs of low and moderate-incoime (LMI) communities.
  • Adaption to changes in the banking industry, including internet and mobile banking. The updating of CRA assessment areas to include activities like online and mobile banking, branchless banking, and other types.
  • Providing greater clarity, consistency, and transparency. The adoption of a metrics-based approach to CRA evaluations of retail lending and community development financing including public benchmarks, to strengthen clarity and consistency. Also involved in the clarification of eligible CRA activities (e.g., affordable housing) focused on LMI, underserved, and rural communities.
  • Tailoring CRA evaluations and data collection to bank size and type. In light of the differences in bank size and business types, smaller banks would continue being evaluated under the existing CRA regulatory rules, but have the option to be evaluated under the new proposed rules.
  • Maintaining a unified approach. This rules proposal is the result of a unified effort by the bank regulatory agencies as well as inclusion of feedback from stakeholders.

In response to the proposed rules, the president of the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) commented:

Federal banking regulators today issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to modernize the rules that implement the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). This represents a significant step forward in ensuring that financial institutions address the credit needs of Asian, Black, Latino, Native American, rural and other underserved communities. The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation both unanimously approved the proposal, and they were joined by Michael Shu, Acting Comptroller of the OCC.

Low-income communities and people of color continue to be underserved by the nation’s financial system when seeking a wide range of financial services, whether for mortgages, automobile financing, or small business lending. Previous policies helped create today’s racial wealth gap by allowing lenders to use abusive and predatory lending practices for systemic exploitation and exclusion of these borrowers.

When 98 percent of US financial institutions receive passing scores in their CRA evaluations, yet the racial wealth and homeownership gaps are the same, if not wider, than they were 50 years ago, it is not enough for regulators to just tell financial institutions to ‘do better.’

The proposed rule both increases the effectiveness of CRA and enhances its implementation and compliance for banks. We look forward to working with regulators to further improve the rule as it goes through review and final adoption.

*****

Source: https://www.responsiblelending.org/media/bank-regulators-proposal-modernize-cra-rules

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/bcreg20220505a.htm.

 

CAIR-Massachusetts Releases New Report Documenting 1,000+ Calls for Civil Rights Assistance Since 2016

In its just-released 2021 civil rights report, Protecting Our Community: 2021 Civil Rights Report, the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MA), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, found that there were more than 1,000 calls to CAIR-MA for assistance from members of the Muslim community since 2016. In that year, its legal department began operations. 

CAIR-MA received 163 requests for legal assistance in 2021, a slight decrease from the 240 average of previous years. The report stated that when schools returned to in-person classes after COVID shutdowns, calls to CAIR-MA complaining about aggressive, sometimes violent, bullying of Muslims students increased significantly. In general though, assistance calls about hate crimes have continued to decrease annually, from 28 in 2017 to just nine in 2021.   

CAIR-MA Legal Director Barbara J. Dougan, Esq. commented: 

“In 2021, our chapter’s legal department received over a thousand complaints since its establishment in 2016. This is bittersweet because although we are eager to be a champion for Massachusetts Muslims when they need us, we are driven by the fact that too many people need help to secure the basic human right of freedom of religion. Massachusetts has good laws on the books.  Our state officials must be committed to enforcing them.” 

CAIR-MA prioritizes providing help in hate crimes and harassment, bullying, education discrimination, employment discrimination, FBI and police harassment, housing discrimination, prisoners’ religious freedoms, public accommodations, and travel abuses. For immigration, family law, and criminal defense, they refer callers to other lawyers or legal groups, state or federal agencies, and non-legal service providers. 

Regarding housing discrimination, CAIR-MA in 2019 filed a case with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) against a man whose religiously-based harassment forced a Muslim family from their apartment. He maliciously reported the family to the police, falsely accusing them of poisoning his dog (saying “Muslims hate dogs”), and filed an unsuccessful court care against them. In one action, he claimed that the Muslim family was monitoring his movements inside his apartment and that they wanted his large dog to bite their young children. In 2020, MCAD issued a “probable cause” finding in the family's favor leading to a 2021 settlement. The former neighbor had to pay the family for their moving expenses and emotional distress, watch a documentary on Islam, and then report about five things he had learned from the film.

CAIR’s mission is "to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding."

*****

Source: https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-massachusetts-releases-new-report-documenting-1000-calls-for-civil-rights-assistance-since-2016/, May 11, 2022.

 Estimated 85,000 Occupied Housing Units In Baltimore Have ‘Dangerous Lead Hazards,’ Report Says

Acording to an April, 2022 report from the Abell Foundation - "Evaluating the Cost of Lead Hazard Control and Abatement in Baltimore City" - there are an estimated 85,087 occupied housing units in Baltimore have “dangerous lead hazards.” The report estimates the total price for lead abatement work on those units could be between $2.5 billion and $4.2 billion. More limited, lead hazard control for all of the units is estimated to cost between $851 million and $1.4 billion.The Maryland Department of the Environment estimated that lead-based paint hazards accounted for 78% of all potential sources of lead exposure in Baltimore in 2021. 

The author of the report, Baltimore data scientist Luke Scrivener, estimated that lead hazard control could cost between $10,00 and $17,000 for a typical two-story house, and lead abatement could cost between $30,000 and $50,000. Lead abatement involves removing, replacing, or enclosing areas that have lead paint and other hazards. Lead hazard control simply repairs and repaints the affected areas. The report noted that Baltimore was the first U.S. city to ban lead paint in residential housing in 1951 - some 17 years before a federal ban was enacted in 1978.

The report indicated that there are 2,104 housing units with reported lead violations in Baltimore. However, 1,138 of these are vacant or set to be demolished. For the 966 occupied housing units, lead hazard reduction will cost between $9.7 million and $16.4 million. Lead abatement will cost between $29 million and $48.3 million. The report also estimated that approximately 42% of the 199,338 homes built in Baltimore before 1978 are likely to have significant lead hazards.

The report utilized lead-hazard data from the 2011 American Healthy Homes Survey and neighborhood home values. 

*****



Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Free Livestream Concert on May 4: John Tyler Plays in support of Baltimore's NomüNomü

On May 4, 2022 at 7 p.m. EST Baltimore-based singer/multi-instrumentalist/producer John Tyler and his band will perform in support of Baltimore’s Nomu Nomu, an artist collaborative and resource center. John Tyler is also a founder of the Love Groove Festival. Tyler has released four albums, produced dozens of artists in the DMV area, and appeared at the Rams Head, Firefly Festival and Baltimore’s Artscape.

NoMüNoMü is an intersectional arts collaborative working to challenge the perpetual systems of oppression within and beyond the art world. “We work collaboratively with artists + grassroots organizations at the intersections of race, age, gender and orientation. We curate radical exhibitions; provide space and resources for local artists to create; and work with activist and cultural grassroots movements to organize through the use of screen printing, resource sharing, and art production.”

The performance will be streamed live via Youtube from Baltimore’s Creative Alliance.

Tickets for this FREE performance are available through Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/328164357427

https://www.facebook.com/racialjusticeconcertseries/.