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Education key to fair housing

• Some city of Albany officials celebrate the anniversary of passage of the Fair Housing Act by providing education.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — Because she and others who work with her are not allowed to act as advocates for citizens who contact them, Community Services Manager Thelma Watson and her co-workers who deal with fair housing matters for the city’s Community and Economic Development department fit into that frequently overlooked behind-the-scenes category.

But for first-time homeowners in one of seven “protected” categories, Watson and her contemporaries may very well be among the most important government officials they will ever meet.

“It’s very clear that our community does not know enough about fair housing,” Watson, who has worked in housing-based positions “all my mature career” in places like Massachusetts, California and the nation’s capital, said during a recent conversation. “And in all the years that I’ve worked in housing, there’s been one common theme: A person’s home controls virtually every aspect of his life.

“From family to school to jobs to community ... housing is the way people connect to the core.”

Watson, city Housing Counselor Sonya Carlisle and intern Phyllis Brown, who will receive a master’s degree in Public Administration from Albany State University in May, attended the National Policy Conference on Fair Housing in Washington April 4, where they helped celebrate the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Fair Housing Act.

That act, and amendments approved in 1988, prohibit actions by individuals or institutions in the housing industry that discriminate against potential homebuyers or renters based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or disability.

“That’s an important piece of legislation because it includes home rentals, mortgages, appraisals, insurance, handicap accessibility and retribution against whistleblowers,” Watson, who has been with the city of Albany since 2006, said. “It is estimated that there are 1.2 million instances of Fair Housing Act violations in this country every year, so I would suspect it goes on in Albany and Southwest Georgia.”

Carlisle, who worked with the Department of Family and Children Services and as a counselor with the Sycamore Centre Inc., an adolescent substance abuse program, before joining Community and Economic Development a year ago, said violations of the Act are not as overt today, but they no doubt exist.

“For instance, I spoke with a lady who had a phone conversation with a realtor about a specific house recently,” Carlisle said. “The lady said when the realtor met with her and noted that she was African American, she felt the conversation was different. She said she felt the realtor was discouraging her from locating in a specific area.

“It’s possible that this lady might have a legitimate complaint, but again, there was no overt violation.”

Watson said persons who feel they have been victims of a Fair Housing Act violation can file complaints with either the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Georgia Commission on Equal Opportunity.

“We’re not advocates; we don’t make a determination as to whether someone has been discriminated against,” she said. “What we do is go over every line of the forms that must be filled out and make sure they are filled out correctly.

“We draw no conclusions, but we do tell people what they can do if they experience fair housing discrimination. We explain the mechanisms.”

Education is another element of the mostly grant-based fair housing component of the Albany CED’s services to the region.

“We present the components of the Fair Housing Act at workshops we hold once a month in Camilla, Albany and Bainbridge, quarterly in Americus and at other locations in our 14-county area when we can schedule them,” Carlisle said. “The workshops are free to all people interested in home ownership, and we provide one-on-one counseling for free after the workshops.

“What we try to do is help individuals, especially first-time homeowners, through the process from start to finish. We even provide post-purchase counseling.”

Brown, who had worked in the banking industry for more than 20 years before deciding to “stop focusing on profit and start focusing on people,” said the story of the Fair Housing Act is one that needs to be told.

“There had been (fair housing) legislation on the books since ’66, but it kept getting rejected,” she said. “When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, I think that opened some people’s eyes. It was time for change, and though it’s sad that it took such a national tragedy to speed up the passage, the act is one of the many things that validate King’s work.

“Of course, that’s a great story, but there were other issues. Sen. Edward Brooks of Massachusetts stood before Congress and said ‘I fought in World War II, put my life on the line for my country, but when I came home I was denied the right to buy a house where I wanted because of my race.’ That was vital to the passage of the act, too.”

That, the soon-to-be graduate said, is why she took her life in another direction.

“I’m so glad I’ve gotten this opportunity to work with (Watson and Carlisle),” she said. “This is one of the best-kept secrets in Albany. The only thing that upsets me is that I don’t know how many people I could have helped while working in the financial field if I’d only known about the Fair Housing Act.”

Persons with fair housing questions may contact Watson by calling (229) 483-7651.

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