About the Fair Housing Act and Plan

 

Back in 1968, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act to address housing discrimination and historical unfair policies. This included redlining, segregation, and other 20th century discriminatory policies that kept people from investments and opportunities because of their race, religion, or nationality. 

 

Because of this, every five years, we must:

  1. Examine data to see if people in our region face unequal access to jobs, education, health, and communities with low poverty. We look to see if that inequality corresponds to characteristics protected by fair housing laws. This includes race, having a disability, what country you come from, your religion, your gender, and if you have children. 

  2. See if policies under our control or influence could still be contributing to these disparities, even if by mistake. If so, these policies can be considered "impediments to fair housing choice."

  3. Create action steps to address any of those policies and impediments.

  4. Put those action steps in our 2025-2030 plans for using federal housing funds, and then we take action. (Now we are implementing our 2020-2025 plans.)

 

Right now, we are in the early stages of creating our 2025 Fair Housing Plan. 

 

An important part of creating this plan will be to talk to people about their homes, their communities, and any barriers they face. This is where you come in. We need your help in developing our mailing list and plan for meetings. 

 

Take our survey on the following tabs. 

 

For more information, contact Dan Pontious, BMC Housing Policy Coordinator, at dpontious@baltometro.org or (410) 732-0500 x1055. Your input is valuable!

 

live
live
December 2023 - April 2024: Preparation

  • Gather input from stakeholders
  • Develop plan for engaging stakeholders throughout analysis, including topics for small-group deliberations.
  • Hire consultant to assist the local governments, housing authorities, and BMC with data analysis and document drafting.

planned
planned
May - October 2024: Data Gathering, Analysis, Preparation of Draft Report

  • Root Policy Research helps us update, gather, and analyze appropriate data.
  • Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance helps us update and conduct analysis based on BMC's affordable housing database.
  • Three large stakeholder meetings.
  • 4 smaller, topic-specific stakeholder groups to delve deeper into certain subjects.
  • Release of draft report in October.

planned
planned
November - December 2024: Feedback on Draft

  • Public comment period
  • Public hearing

planned
planned
January 2025: Final Analysis Published

  • Posted on websites and 100 printed copies distributed
  • Local jurisdictions incorporate local and regional action steps into 5-year plans for spending federal housing funds (Consolidated Plans) that start July 1, 2025.
  • Local public housing authorities (PHAs) incorporate local and regional action steps into 5-year PHA plans.