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Fair housing advocate urges board to apply Pittsburgh protections after federal rollbacks
Summary
Megan Hammond of the Fair Housing Partnership of Greater Pittsburgh urged the Housing Opportunity Fund advisory board to prioritize city fair housing protections and language access when evaluating funding, citing recent federal rule changes and Mayor Ed Gainey's executive orders.
Megan Hammond, executive director of the Fair Housing Partnership of Greater Pittsburgh, told the Housing Opportunity Fund advisory board on April 1 that recent federal changes weaken federal fair housing complaint processes and language-access requirements and urged the board to use Pittsburgh's city code and the mayor's executive orders as a local safeguard.
"Within Pittsburgh City code, [sexual] orientation, gender identity, and language preferred are explicitly protected within housing," Hammond said, noting that Mayor Ed Gainey has signed executive orders requiring recipients of city funds to certify compliance with those city-code protections and to accept Housing Choice Vouchers.
Hammond said the Housing Opportunity Fund (HOF) has taken steps to make program materials available in other languages and asked the advisory board to ensure that applicants for HOF funding demonstrate compliance with the city's fair housing provisions. She also asked the board to consider additional fair-housing lenses in evaluations, such as disability accessibility, to maintain and improve Pittsburgh's local standards regardless of federal policy shifts.
HOF members acknowledged the timing of Hammond's comments as the board moves into award decisions and scoring for 2025 funding rounds.
