Source: NC Newsline
North Carolina Central University (NCCU) law school students will soon be trained to fight housing bias and discrimination thanks to a new, first-of-its-kind partnership between the Durham-based HBCU and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), NC Newsline reported.
The initiative between the school and HUD was announced earlier this month during homecoming at NCCU under the banner “Bringing Homes to Homecoming.”
As part of the partnership, 15 students each year will participate in fair housing litigation courses that are offered through HUD’s National Fair Housing Training Academy (NFHTA), according to NC Newsline. The courses will be taught by NFHTA faculty and NCCU.
The intent of the partnership is to increase NCCU’s ability to provide fair housing courses and to connect its law students to both local and national fair housing groups. HUD will also offer students internship and career opportunities as part of the partnership.
“I hope that sitting in front of me today is the next assistant secretary for fair housing, that we put somebody on a path that they’re so excited about making sure people are doing the right thing and this country is doing the right thing, that it lights a fire under them and they’re able to join us at HUD one day,” HUD Acting Secretary Adrianne Todman told NC Newsline. “More importantly, we want them out there following up on complaints, litigating complaints and being part of the fair housing community.”
Todman told NC Newsline that it’s likely the first time HUD has officially partnered with a university to create a pipeline for students to begin a fair housing career.
“Keeping America fair is a tough job, and people get burned out,” Todman said. “There is a good tenure of folks who do his work whether they’re at HUD or the local level or nonprofit or the state. We need to make sure we’re getting folks interested in this [fair housing], not just as a job but as a fulfilling career.”
Todman highlighted the impact of bias and discrimination in lending and home appraisals, saying that still today they are major barriers to intergenerational wealth building for African Americans. She said those practices are being aggressively targeted by HUD.
“One of the things we’ve taken on is this thing called appraisal bias,” Todman said. “This is when appraisers will lowball a Black home that’s in the same neighborhood as white homes and when you consider all things being equal, it [the low appraisal] occurs just because the folks living in that home just happen to be African American.”
A Brookings Institution study from 2022 found that homes in Black neighborhoods are valued around 21% to 23% below what they would be valued at in non-Black neighborhoods. Researchers discovered that neighborhoods with a majority of white, Asian American, Latino or Hispanic residents don’t suffer from the same home price devaluation.
The Biden-Harris administration put together a task force in 2022 to examine appraisal bias and other forms of housing discrimination. Now, lenders who do business with HUD are required to provide a way for homeowners to request a “reconsideration of value” – a do-over on appraisals they believe are unfair.
HUD is also working to diversify the appraisal industry, which is less than one percent Black, Todman said.
“We’re trying to make sure that we have the next cadre and cohort of young people to take this work on,” she said.
Robert Doles, director of HUD’s Office of Systemic Investigations, said property retention is critical to building generational wealth in communities of color.
“Once you have property, maintaining it so you can pass it down is also important,” Doles said.
Doles told NC Newsline that HUD recently resolved a matter with the organization that sets standards for entry into the appraisal industry, The Appraisal Foundation, that will create a scholarship to diversify the industry.
“They’re [the Foundation] creating a scholarship fund that will hopefully diversify the industry so that we will have more people of color appraising the homes of people in communities of color,” Doles said.
North Carolina Congresswoman Rep. Valerie Foushee told NC Newsline that discriminatory practices have, for ages, undermined the promise of fair housing.
“Many of these systemic wrongs are deeply rooted in our history and have marginalized communities, hindered fair access to housing and perpetuated a cycle of inequality,” Foushee said.
She also credited the Biden-Harris administration with taking “bold and decisive action” to “strengthen and enforce fair housing laws, increase funding for housing initiatives serving historically underserved communities and dismantling outdated policies and practices that sustain inequities.”
NCCU School of Law Dean Patricia Timmons-Goodson said the university is proud to be the first to partner with HUD on this new project and believes it will pay dividends in the future.
“We are hugely optimistic that great benefits will accrue to our law students and the broader community,” Timmons-Goodson said.
