Jacksonville Area Legal Aid attorney David Cronin concentrates on fair housing and assuring JALA’s clients with housing issues get the best legal counseling possible. He also devotes a lot of time to making JALA’s presence know during Fair Housing Month.
The Daily Record caught up with Cronin last week to talk about fair housing and JALA’s activities during Fair Housing Month.
What is Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and what does it do?
The mission of the board of directors and staff of JALA is to assist our low-income neighbors in our community with civil legal problems. With 30 attorneys and a 30-year history of providing high-quality legal representation in a variety of service areas, JALA is an integral part of our community’s infrastructure.
What is JALA’s role in housing?
Pursuant to a grant provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Fair Housing Advocacy Center (FHAC) was established to enforce the fair housing laws. It currently serves Duval, Clay, Nassau , St. Johns , Baker and Bradford counties. There are no income requirements for FHAC clients. FHAC is committed to zealously advocate on behalf of victims of housing discrimination and has a three-fold approach to accomplish this mission:
1. Education: FHAC educates housing consumers to recognize and report housing discrimination. If your group would like to receive a fair housing presentation, please call the hotline.
2. Investigation: FHAC conducts ongoing research and monitoring efforts to determine the nature and extent of housing discrimination being practiced in our community.
3. Enforcement: FHAC may negotiate a settlement, represent a client in state or federal court, help file a case with a government agency, and/or advocate for the client throughout the process.
What is the Fair Housing Act and why is it important?
The Fair Housing Act was passed in order to protect people from being discriminated against in housing situations. If a person belongs to a protected class, race, color, national origin, sex, disability or familial status, then it is unlawful under the Fair Housing Act to deny housing or otherwise make housing unavailable solely based on the person’s protected class.
How is fair housing monitored and what does JALA do to ensure everyone is treated fairly?
The Fair Housing Unit is funded by a grant from HUD. As a unit we represent victims of housing discrimination, educate landlords, builders, realtors and just regular folks about the Fair Housing Laws. We also have “testers” — or covert agents if you will — that are trained to apply for housing, insurance, loans, and at times evaluate if an apartment complex has been built to the proper specifications.
What does JALA do to commemorate Fair Housing Month?
This year, the Fair Housing Act commemorated its 39th anniversary. As part of the celebration, JALA’s Fair Housing Advocacy Center participated in various events throughout Duval County and its surrounding counties. JALA sponsored and/or participated in four events that were open to a variety of people to educate the public on their Fair Housing rights if they were denied housing based on disability, race, color, religion, sex, national origin or familial status.
JALA kicked off Fair Housing Month 2007 by taking part in the World of Nations annual event where people from all over the world came together to celebrate their diversity. JALA also participated in the Mayor’s Neighborhood Summit by educating potential homebuyers and renters on their Fair Housing rights.
To culminate the Fair Housing Month’s celebration, JALA joined forces with the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission for its annual Fair Housing Symposium. Here, people of all backgrounds participated in various workshops such as Fair Housing laws, predatory lending, and credit management, among others. Overall, JALA’s celebration of the 39th Annual Fair Housing Month observance was a huge success by educating a total of 1,446 people on various aspects of the Fair Housing Act.
The core of our service is enforcement but education and outreach is a very important aspect of our service. The biggest and usually the best attended events occur during Fair Housing Month. People look for our booth every year at these events and along with our informational brochures we always have little things (water bottles, chip clips) to give away. Our Fair Housing Unit received an excellent rating by HUD last quarter. This rating includes our education and outreach which also reached and exceeded all of our standards. We were successful in a large part because of Natasha Brereton who is the primary coordinator of our education and outreach activities. Natasha along with the rest of the outreach team Martha Pardo, Tracy Savage (no longer with us) and Pam McQueen made sure that all of our Fair Housing month activities went as smoothly as possible.
JALA is already planning next year’s 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act.