Fair Housing Report Describes 2009 Efforts As 'Step in the Right Direction'

In an annual report issued Wednesday, the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) announced that housing discrimination in the United States remained at a near-historic level in 2009, with the number of complaints surpassing 30,000 for the second year in a row. The number of actual violations per year, however, are estimated at four million.

Although the report concludes that greater efforts need to be undertaken to combat unfair housing, it also acknowledges government programs and initiatives that are "a step in the right direction." For example, the report notes a landmark settlement requiring that Westchester County, N.Y. build new affordable housing in segregated neighborhoods, and it points out that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its highest number of FHA lawsuits since 2002.

The NFHA also reported that 93 private non-profit fair housing organizations had nearly twice the caseload in 2009 as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the DOJ, and over a hundred state and local government agencies combined.

Read more about these trends and others in the NFHA's 2010 Fair Housing Trends Report, "A Step in the Right Direction."