Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia

The center for Housing counseling and education expands Housing Opportunities for individuals and families, helping them to gain the knowledge and financial management skills necessary to access and maintain stable Housing. Through this center, individuals and families become successful, long-term homeowners & tenants; avoid mortgage default; become knowledgeable, responsible tenants through our rental mobility program; and tenants avoid evictions through our Housing stability program. Home takes a comprehensive approach to promoting Housing access and stability through developing financially literate consumers. During fiscal year 2022-2023, the center served over 2,600 families, providing the following services: 486 families received homeownership education; 300 families received homeownership counseling; 31 families received down payment assistance to become first-time home buyers; 278 families received rental education; 248 families received credit and money management education, 131 families received counseling to assist them in avoiding foreclosure; 278 families received rental mobility counseling; 28 families received reverse mortgage counseling; 158 families received landlord tenant referral services; 1,568 families received an analysis of their credit report to determine their level of readiness for homeownership; 302 families received rental financial literacy counseling; 3,970 eviction diversion applications processed; and, 424 families received rental assistance to avoid eviction. Home's website had 177,305 page views with 84,885 visitors. The program landing page views included: fair Housing program 24,588, homeownership program 30,601, foreclosure prevention program 4,549, Housing stability program 25,624, and move to opportunity program 5,180. On facebook/instagram, home had a reach of 63,270. Home's digital media ads had 1,704,063 impressions. Home also had approximately 2,488,868 impressions in earned media in the news.

The center for research and policy provides information and analysis to educate policymakers, the public, home employees, and home partners about Opportunities to improve Housing equity in Virginia communities. During fiscal year 2022-2023 the center informed state legislators about the utility of a statewide Housing needs assessment and the potential benefits of requirements for landlords to provide earlier notification on large-scale rent increases and evictions. Staff also educated state policymakers on issues related to protections for lower income renters, affordable Housing, and zoning, all of which impact Housing equity. Research activities included primary and secondary research on fair Housing risks in access to credit, mortgage lending, home valuation, displacement, access to rental Housing for Housing choice voucher holders, and disaster relief. These research efforts contributed to a public exhibit (credit access), resulted in a briefing to local officials (displacement), and supported the operations of other home centers. Additional activities included consultation with home staff on grant writing and outreach strategies, planning future research projects, processing secondary research, and outreach to other organizations.

The center for fair Housing initiated 30 systemic investigations; cases of systemic discrimination sometimes take years of work to uncover. The center provided fair Housing services to 284 individuals and provided fair Housing counseling and information to 179 of those individuals. The center conducted 49 fair Housing education and outreach workshops for various groups. Over the fiscal year 2022-2023, the center for fair Housing filed 5 fair Housing complaints/lawsuits on behalf of discrimination victims. Additionally, 29 housing-related complaints were referred to outside attorneys due to time/legal constraints. Home settled two notable cases. Maybush v. putze's trailer park involved a complaint that residents of the park who were also agents and family members of the owner were harassing a mixed-race girl with racial slurs. Home also settled etemadipour v. tjchoa, which involved allegations that an iranian american family's homeowners' association had been assessing fines and treating them differently due to national origin. Lastly, home settled thompson v. meadowbrook apartments, which involved an allegation that the landlord was misapplying income qualifying information so as to exclude Housing choice voucher holders. This type of discrimination violates va source of funds protections, as well as having a disparate impact on other protected classes, such as race, disability, and family status (all of which were implicated in this case).