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Human Relations staff report fair-housing caseloads above HUD expectations and raise language-access stipend
Summary
City staff told the Human Relations Commission that year-to-date fair-housing complaints exceed HUD's expected caseload and that the city will raise its employee language-access stipend to $1,500; staff also described translation partnerships and a planned Aug. 14'15 pilot launch.
Staff updates at a Human Relations Commission meeting in Winston-Salem focused on rising fair-housing caseloads and new language-access initiatives.
Iris McKnight, who gave the commission's landlord-tenant and fair-housing report, said the office logged 11 landlord-tenant inquiries this month and 230 year-to-date, with three active landlord-tenant cases (91 YTD), 10 cases closed this month (73 YTD) and no open ongoing landlord-tenant cases for the month. On fair housing, McKnight said, "We have 1 inquiry, and 1 filed complaint and 13 year to date. We've closed 10 cases. In ongoing cases, we have 5." (Iris McKnight)
Director Biggs gave context for those numbers, citing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Fair Housing Assistance Program benchmark of roughly eight cases per year for a jurisdiction of this size and noting, "so we're actually well above that metric, and we're doing really well in terms of processing fair housing cases for the year." (Director Biggs)
Staff also described language-access work led by Javier and others. Javier said the department is updating its emergency plan with recommendations from UNC Chapel Hill students, developing an employee incentive to recognize staff who provide translation in the course of city business, and building a translation/interpretation partnership with a Mexican council to expand dialect support. Javier said the initiative is expected to launch on Aug. 14'15 (as stated). (Javier)
On the stipend, Director Biggs said the internal language-incentive amount will increase "from a little over $1,000 to $1,500 for all city employees who have a business-related justification to receive the incentive from their department head." Biggs said the department benchmarked the increase against other cities in the state.
Why it matters: staff told the commission that the fair-housing caseload exceeds customary FHAP expectations for the jurisdiction and that the department is expanding language-access tools and pay to support bilingual service delivery. The commission did not take formal action at this meeting because it lacked a quorum.
Next steps: staff said they will circulate the bill text referenced in the meeting (House Bill 171) and provide updates to commissioners if the city adopts formal talking points or compliance guidance.
