Community Legal Aid receives $200k to battle housing discrimination

SPRINGFIELD — Seven Massachusetts organizations that work to expand access to fair housing protections, recently received funding from the first round of the Healey-Driscoll administration’s Fair Housing Trust Fund awards.

One of those organizations, Community Legal Aid, received $200,000.

Community Legal Aid provides free civil legal services to low-income and elderly residents. The organization serves people from Worcester County to the New York state border. The organization has six main offices, including ones in Springfield, Northampton and Greenfield, and two satellite offices, one of which is in Holyoke. While legal aid is needed in every community, Gabriel Fonseca, senior supervising attorney for the Fair Housing Project, said the greatest number of cases come from Springfield and Worcester.

Aside from housing, Community Legal Aid provides legal help with elder law, family law and domestic abuse, education law, veterans services, education and reentry after incarceration.

The state funding, which is administered through the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, will allow Community Legal Aid to “continue enforcing housing law,” said Fonseca. The organization sees cases based on a variety of housing issues, including racial harassment, refusal to rent due to family status, lead paint removal and disability discrimination. Housing discrimination can also be based on religious creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, ancestry, marital status, genetic information, veteran status and source of income.

“The landscape of housing funding is in flux,” Fonseca said. “At the federal level, what we’ve seen in that funding for fair housing is under threat.” While no direct grants have been pulled, he said that the organization has been made aware that at least one pass-through grant, awarded to the state and then distributed to organizations, is no longer available. Community Legal Aid is completely funded through grants and donations, so shrinking funding sources is a major concern for it.

“Massachusetts is hustling to build more homes in every region, but we need to also make sure that every resident has a fair chance to access it,” Gov. Maura Healey said in a press release. “At a time when the Trump Administration is stepping back from fair housing enforcement, Massachusetts is stepping up to protect residents from discrimination and expand access to housing. These first Fair Housing Trust Fund awards will help organizations across our state continue the important work of making housing more fair, accessible and equitable for everyone.”

To learn more about Community Legal Aid, call 855-252-5342 or visit communitylegal.org.