Vermont housing advocates warn HUD funding and guidance changes are curbing fair-housing enforcement
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Summary
At a joint legislative session marking Fair Housing Month, state advocates and the Vermont Human Rights Commission said recent HUD guidance and funding shifts are limiting enforcement and outreach, leaving some complaints unresolved and costing the HRC roughly $187,000 in expected federal payments.
At a joint session of the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs committee and the House General on April 1, Vermont housing advocates and the executive director of the Vermont Human Rights Commission warned that recent U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development changes are constraining the state’s ability to enforce fair-housing protections and to fund education outreach.
Vic Hartman, executive director and general counsel of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, told legislators the commission fields daily inquiries about possible housing discrimination and has limited capacity to investigate every case. “We receive at least one call or email about housing discrimination every single day,” Hartman said. He described the office’s intake and triage process, noting the agency has nine staff, including four staff-attorney investigators, and that only a fraction of inquiries become full investigations.
Hartman provided caseload figures for the current fiscal year: the commission opened about 70 inquiry files, held 57 intake meetings, accepted 24 new fair-housing complaints, has 48 open cases under investigation or litigation, completed 17 investigations, recorded seven reasonable-grounds determinations, and settled three cases before they reached the commissioners. He said staffing vacancies can freeze an investigator’s caseload and slow the agency’s ability to assign new complaints.
The most consequential point, Hartman said, is a recent change in HUD’s cooperative-agreement requirements and guidance that narrows how federal officials interpret protected classes and limits tools such as disparate-impact analysis. Hartman said the new HUD language would restrict the commission’s use of federal funds for some protections the state has adopted, and that the commission recently did not receive about $187,000 in expected federal payments tied to the prior fiscal year’s work.
“We did not receive that money,” Hartman said, adding that the amount was larger than in past years because the commission had expanded enforcement work. He told lawmakers the commission will pursue state-issued guidance to clarify how Vermont will interpret and apply its own statutes and that Vermont has joined a multi-state lawsuit challenging the federal changes.
Kalia Livingston, Fair Housing Project education and outreach coordinator at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO), told the joint session that her organization focuses on education, direct services and referrals for people who believe they experienced housing discrimination. “Housing is a fundamental human right,” Livingston said, and she listed Vermont-specific protected classes added by the legislature, including protections based on citizenship and immigration status and protections tied to receipt of public assistance.
Livingston and other witnesses emphasized that weak enforcement and limited public understanding mean many instances of discrimination go unreported. She said CVOEO tries to resolve some disputes through letters and outreach to housing providers and refers enforcement matters to partners including Vermont Legal Aid and the Vermont Human Rights Commission.
Jess (identified in the transcript as with the statewide housing advocacy program at CVOEO) told the committees that HUD funding historically covered roughly $125,000 a year for statewide fair-housing education and outreach; those funds were cut, later renewed amid litigation, and now come with restrictions that can limit distribution of materials listing state and federal protected classes when federal dollars are used.
Lawmakers and witnesses discussed practical examples, such as landlords continuing to ask for Social Security numbers on rental applications despite a state law change; witnesses said outreach and training can correct such practices. The session closed with reminders of Fair Housing Month events and a planned civil-rights summit in September, and officials said they will publish materials and follow-up resources online.
The session produced no formal votes; witnesses said their next steps include drafting state guidance, continuing education and outreach, and participating in the ongoing multi-state legal challenge to federal HUD guidance.
