Feds pull grant funding from Illinois fair housing orgs that investigate
discrimination
[March 15, 2025]
By Lily Carey and Medill Illinois News Bureau
CHICAGO — John Petruszak opened his email Feb. 27 to find a message he
called “shocking”: the federal Department of Housing and Urban
Development had rescinded two grants it had awarded to his advocacy
organization, the South Suburban Housing Center.
The grants, which represent 37% of the center’s budget, hadn’t been
rescinded through any misstep by the organization. Rather, at the order
of the Trump administration’s newly established Department of Government
Efficiency, or DOGE, the grant was being terminated because it “no
longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities,” the letter
read.
The message came as a surprise to Petruszak, the center’s executive
director. Fair housing organizations like his offer legal services and
support to anyone facing discrimination in the housing market on the
basis of race, color, religion, sex, familial status or disability,
receiving hundreds of complaints each year. In 2023, private fair
housing nonprofits across the country handled over 75% of all housing
discrimination complaints.
“Fair housing is really a fundamental right,” Petruszak said. “It’s a
check and balance on the housing market, just like democracy is a check
and balance on our governing systems.”
But a drastic reduction in these organizations’ capacity or a mass
shuttering of fair housing nonprofits could leave renters and
prospective homebuyers with fewer avenues for justice if they face
discrimination from landlords, real estate agents or neighbors.
Petruszak said the South Suburban Housing Center will have to cut its
housing enforcement team down from five full-time staffers to one or
fewer. The Homewood-based organization typically investigates up to 250
complaints each year but won’t be able to keep up with this demand after
these cuts are made, he said.
Since 1987, the federal government has helped fund private organizations
that investigate cases of housing discrimination through its Fair
Housing Initiatives Program, or FHIP.
The South Suburban Housing Center is one of at least 60 fair housing
groups nationwide, including at least four in Illinois, that saw their
FHIP grant funding suddenly pulled last month. The organizations
represent about half of all of the fair housing grant recipients.
Advocates said they heard from the National Fair Housing Association
that some organizations saw all of their grants terminated, while others
saw only partial cancellations.
The groups all received the exact same message, which consisted of about
three sentences and provided little detail other than attributing the
grant rollback to President Donald Trump’s executive order establishing
the Department of Government Efficiency.
In response, four fair housing groups, backed by the National Fair
Housing Alliance and law firm Relman Colmax, sued HUD and DOGE in
Massachusetts’ federal court on Thursday. The lawsuit, filed on behalf
of all of the groups that had their grants terminated, alleged the
government’s decision to rescind the grants was unlawful, and noted the
funding had already been authorized by Congress.
In a statement provided to Capitol News Illinois, a HUD spokesperson
said that “the Department is responsible for ensuring our grantees and
contractors are in compliance with the President’s Executive Orders,”
citing only the Trump order that established DOGE.
“If we determine they are not in compliance, then we are required to
take action,” the spokesperson said in an email. “The Department will
continue to serve the American people, including those [who] are facing
housing discrimination or eviction.”
Dominic Voz, director of fair housing for the Evanston-based fair
housing nonprofit Open Communities, said the cancellations “felt like an
attack on civil rights in housing.”
The 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed discrimination in any housing-related
transactions. According to HUD, the law also requires that “all federal
programs relating to housing and urban development be administered in a
manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing.”
“This is something that has continued for decades upon decades,
including under the last Trump administration,” said Emily Coffey,
director of equitable development and housing for the Chicago Lawyers’
Committee for Civil Rights. “It’s shocking, at this stage, that the
administration would sidestep the longstanding bipartisan appropriation
of this funding.”
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The Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago's Loop houses the
Midwest Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development. HUD last month notified fair housing nonprofits across
the country, including several in Illinois, that their Fair Housing
Initiatives Program grant funding would be cut off. (Capitol News
Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)
The lack of federal grant funding, which many fair housing groups have
depended on for over 30 years, could be an “existential threat” for
advocates and renters alike, Voz said. The Chicago area has a
well-documented history of redlining, the practice of withholding
financial services or loans from people who live in neighborhoods with
higher numbers of racial minorities.
While the south suburbs, where Petruszak’s work is based, were once
heavily redlined, shifts to affordable housing policies in Chicago led
many Black residents to move to the area from the city in the late 20th
century. That history continues to impact the area’s housing market
today, making fair housing work “essential,” Petruszak said.
Though the federal grants to the South Suburban Housing Center represent
more than a third of its overall budget, they funded 92% of its housing
enforcement and education programs annually. The two grants that were
terminated amounted to $550,000 combined.
Open Communities’ canceled grants amounted to 25% of its annual budget,
according to Voz. The group, based in the northern suburbs of Cook
County, dedicates these resources to investigating landlords accused of
discrimination and filing human rights complaints. One of its lawsuits,
filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois in 2023 helped
prevent landlords from using artificial intelligence to reject rental
applications.
The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights saw a three-year grant
rescinded two years into its implementation, Coffey said. The grant
comprised approximately 15% of the group’s annual budget. The group
focuses primarily on filing lawsuits in federal courts, pursuing “high
impact” cases related to large housing providers or local governments,
Coffey said.
In Illinois, the Human Rights Act, passed in 1979, prohibits
discrimination in housing and real estate against the same seven
federally protected classes. The Illinois Department of Human Rights
also helps intervene in instances of housing discrimination. However,
IDHR has struggled to keep up with the number of discrimination cases it
has received over the past two years.
A 2022 expansion to the Illinois Human Rights Act added source of income
as a class protected against housing discrimination. When this expansion
took effect in 2023, IDHR began to see a “steady increase” in
complaints, according to agency spokesperson Addie Shrodes.
It can sometimes take a few months for IDHR to address complaints when
they’re filed, Shrodes said. But she said the department is also adding
new staff to its fair housing division next week and is hoping to
support private fair housing organizations in any way possible.
Petruszak said it’s the responsibility of the state government to step
up and assist fair housing groups impacted by funding losses.
“We’re not talking about a great deal of money — to the government, the
FHIP grant is like a grain of sand in the Saharan desert,” he said.
For Coffey, though, it seems unlikely that the state would be able to
fill the gap created by the federal government’s decision to rescind
these grants.
“The state budgetary landscape is just as decimated by what’s happening
at the federal level,” Coffey said. “But without having access to
lawyers to be able to push forward claims of housing discrimination,
this discrimination is allowed to go unchallenged.”
Lily Carey is a graduate student in journalism with
Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media,
Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow in its Medill
Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News
Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state
government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is
funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R.
McCormick Foundation. |
