about a much greater number of violations go unreported the national housing alliance estimates that approximately million barrel housing validations occur year yet less than thirty one thousand for housing complaints we're told in two thousand which was the highest total number of complaints ever filed in history furthermore of those housing validations that were reported private property for housing pro nationwide much more must be done to protect the bare housing rights of all of our community the better off for housing initiative program was established to provide grants to bare housing centers  to thank the chairwoman for the hearing today and representative green for his hard work on this issue i would like to enter my statement into the record rather than giving it in the interest of time but i'd also like to ask unanimous consent that congressman garrett be allowed to sit on the committee and he is going to make an opening statement as well also want to formally express my concerns regarding another housing issue that we should be considering as well and that is the bailout of fannie mae and freddie mac you know it was just on christmas eve when the obama administration and treasury department expanded and extended the bailouts of fannie mae and freddie mac and they approved a multimillion dollar compensation package for their executives and the c b l as we said here is currently projecting losses of over four hundred billion dollars for those entities so when all is said and done when you think about it considering where all this money is going to the bailout of these firms will probably be more expensive than what we spend on tarp now since fannie and freddie were bailed out we have had here in this committee room exactly one full committee hearing on the subject and exactly just one subcommittee hearing on this issue some people have said that this committee therefore has been negligent in its oversight responsibilities on this very important topic and shortly thereafter on december thirtieth ranking member baucus and i wrote a letter to the chairman simply asking him to hold a hearing on this issue unfortunately he has not yet responded to that request now i understand that this topic may cause discomfort to some members of congress consider the role that they played in shielding the g s these from any meaningful regulatory scrutiny in the period leading up to their collapse nonetheless we should not let mistakes of the past provide us from carrying out our oversight responsibilities now going forward and also i asked the chairman the chairman is announcing a hearing on executive compensation that's now set for this friday but apparently still refuses a request from the ranking member baucus to have the head of fannie and freddie come to that very important hearing the chairman has also stated the public having provided significant support for the purposes of restoring trust and confidence in our country's financial system rightly insist that large bonuses such as ease of war did by institutions receiving public funds at a time of serious economic downturn should not continue and i agree so i and their approval of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars to bonuses to their executives an issue overarching the issue of housing and fairness to the american tax payer and to the american buyer of homes as well with that  sixty eight at the time of dr king's demise since one nine hundred sixty eight and in fact during that year of one nine hundred sixty eight because that's when the first laws were promoted and many have also worked since that time as you know the fair members i salute and i thank for what they have done to help make this piece of legislation much more better much better than it was at the time i was initially developed would like to mention hood because what is played an important role in acquires intelligence empirical evidence such that we can draw conclusions like to note that hood has data indicating that in two thousand and eight we had ten thousand five hundred fifty two housing discrimination complaints received and this was the highest number ever received in two thousand and eight it's also interesting to note that this was the third year in a row that there were more than ten thousand complaints received and we should not assume that all of these complaints have been based upon color the truth of the matter is that only two percent were based upon color this bill could easily be called the disability fairness act because forty to forty four percent of those discriminated against were persons with disabilities and i would add also that it could easily be called the pl million status act because sixteen percent of those discriminated against were persons who had children possibly and could not get a place to live because they happen to have a child this bill is very inclusive in terms of how it impacts discrimination and housing and i would hope that persons would embrace the notion that we are helping all persons by helping the persons who are so designated by the legislation when you help one person prevent discrimination against other people it's important for us to remember that this bill is very inclusive in terms of how it deals with discrimination is estimated that about four million violations occur each year and forty four percent of these violations were handled by good and the question becomes ultimately what can we do working with and in geos to ensure housing fairness my belief is that we can increase the amount that we spend on education education is important many persons who are working in this marketplace in the housing market would do and behave differently if educated properly we have to sure that persons understand what the rules are and my belief is that a good number of them will adhere to the rules understanding what they are we should also increase the testing and and the enforcement of the rules once we've been that persons who have violated the rules testing best way known to us to acquire the empirical evidence of discrimination actually taking place such that we can have an actionable means by which we can address the discrimination we must do more testing and we have to publish the fact that testing takes place testing can also act as a deterrent to prevent others from behaving improperly once it is known that testing is actually taking place what is testing simply put  persons out all equally qualified and if you have some persons who are consistently rejected perhaps a person who's disabled then you can sense that you've got a problem with a person with a disability as it relates to this particular piece of property testing really does work we should do more testing we can also increase the funding for not for profit housing organizations to engage in investigation and to also help us to understand the real reasons for this discrimination if we don't acquire the empirical evidence to properly make the case for why this is happening it makes it difficult to continue to enforce the laws and to develop the proper regulation to address the problem we would like to see n g o s have the opportunity to promote gate if you will testing not only to determine what happened but why it happening i would also add that we should acquire the empirical evidence to understand how all of this impacts economic stability there is a body of evidence indicating that economic stability was impacted by virtue of the behavior of persons in the subprime market in terms of the way they person into these loans i would hope that we could examine this as well thank you madam chair and i yield back the balance of my time thank you very  good morning in the water and thank you members of the committee i am pleased to appear before you today on behalf of to discuss our support of and recommendations for h r four seventy six the housing fairness act of two thousand and nine and the department of housing and program and priorities in congress congress ingrain in particular i would like to thank you for your tremendous support of fair housing and the fair housing program and for proposing h r four seventy six thank you members for this opportunity to discuss the department's work with private nonprofit for housing organizations they are crucial to our mission to create and support fair and equitable communities last year as was noted more than ten thousand fair housing complaints were filed with the department continuing a historically high level however we know that the number of complaints is not a full measure of the extent of discrimination our studies show that even in this day and age african americans and hispanics and asian americans suffer discrimination at least one in five times that they are work in the work of agencies remain critical the number of cases does not reflect their severity either one parent been brought against a trailer park owner in alabama who turned off the water and forced out a white family because he objected to the african american boyfriend of one of the tenants when asked how to get the water back on he responded lose the black boyfriend in addition he told our investigator that no federal law would tell him that he had to run too well today your landlord cannot tell you who you can date and we've rigorously enforced fair housing act protections in order to realize fair housing and equal opportunity we need to go farther than we have before and work to create truly open and integrated communities that means not only continuing to address specific acts of discrimination but also using fair housing laws to strengthen neighborhoods one way we are doing this is by fulfilling the fair housing act mandate to affirmatively for the fair housing how does not always ensure that our money is spent in ways that fulfill this obligation in this new day however there is a department wide commitment to incorporate our mandate to affirmatively for housing into all of our work so that we can fulfill our shared goal of truly integrated and balanced living patterns to that end the department is revising these regulations in july the department how the listening conference in which more than six hundred people participated in person and by phone and web across the country there are housing and civil rights groups and mayors county and state officials all voiced their desire for how to amend its regulations to provide more concrete specific information and assistance about how to develop a meaningful plan for affirmatively furthering their housing efforts to affirmatively furthering fair housing are incomplete without ensuring that the public has a means of redress when their rights are violated that is why the fair housing act complaints are one of our top priorities individual victims of housing discrimination have an immediate need for hud for housing services the department and its state and local partners in the fair housing assistance program provide these victims with a fair objective and investing of complaints over the last decade the department has become more adept at investigating housing discrimination the number of cases completed by the department and our state and local partners has increased by sixty five percent while the length of investigations has decreased however must not come at the expense of accuracy discrimination victims are not served by a piece of paper saying they have a case filed with the government they want to action at the same time complainants and respondents want and deserve the right outcome not simply a quick one eighty four percent of our complaints close last year resulted in a determination on the merits or conciliation or settlement agreement this produces eight point one five million dollars in monetary relief as well as public interest provisions such as fair housing training and affirmative marketing today as a scourge of housing discrimination continues sometimes in old forms sometimes a new we must engage a variety of strategies to end these practices and the food program is central to this effort through the fair housing initiative program for housing organizations assist the department in combating housing discrimination these organizations investigate and resolve allegations brought to them by victims of housing discrimination but they do so in a way that is different and complimentary to our work grantees are in the nation's experts in testing and the results of these tests often become evidence in a housing discrimination complaint a recent major settlement on rental design and construction and access for people with disabilities was made possible in part by the work of hud funded test invited me here today to discuss our free housing strategy and h r four seventy six if an act it would provide much needed support for fair housing efforts across the country through increased testing for violations enforcement against those of violated our housing laws and study of the causes and effects of discrimination the first section of the bill requires to conduct a nationwide testing program to detect  we have worked with and the housing organizations in the new orleans area have sued over a number of pieces of a number of ordinances since that time in recent months we have met with the president of the walvis of all these ordinances away from away from the original ordinances we are now examining the particular complaints that we have we don't have we do not have a determination on the current ordinance right housing their ability to perform what they plan to do on the back end we have government monitors to review particular cases that they handle review their effectiveness i would say that overall without talking about anyone in ok thank you thank you housing in other parts of other parts of the government so we're collaboratively with them about five percent of our cases come in the area of lending discrimination and last year we had over two million dollars in individual relief  government is less able to do for example with the asian american community only one percent of our cases come from the american community we rely on our partners within the community because of historic distrust a lack of trust  madam chair and thank you for your testimony today sir let me ask quickly a series of questions one is it true that the best way to acquire empirical evidence of this type of invidious discrimination testing testing is well accepted by the it is is that i don't but i need to go on sunday for you just answer yes or no if you would i'm sorry i have a lot that i have to cover is it true that this is the best way to acquire the actual evidence of what happened yes and is it true that those who would perpetrate these kinds of dastardly deeds would want to perpetuate discrimination isn't it true that they are testing that's correct amount of testing will in fact it has nothing is the thing that they fear the most because they know that they will be caught red handed if they are tested and they are testing true i would say that and isn't it true that if we really are serious about ending this kind of ugly behavior we should invest in testing we do need testing were very supportive housing program and isn't it true that testing not only benefits persons of color but it also veterans because many of them are among those persons who are disabled and among those persons who are being discriminated against when they are trying to get housing in a fair way isn't it true that it will benefit better isn't it true that this legislation while it does increase funding isn't it true that if we are serious about it we would invest application testing you have a good number of programs in place let's talk about post application testing post application testing do you do any post application testing post application meeting after you have applied for a loan after you started that process of applying for the low right now we do not the problem is that there are other laws that restrict testing in that area every every actual loan a pplication must be able to find a loan application and by its nature is a test isn't it true that you have anecdotal evidence of discrimination taking place in the post application process yes and let's talk just briefly about children we don't talk a lot about how this has impacted the ability of parents to acquire a place to call home for their children there for inviting me to speak about h r for seventy six and i'd like to thank representative al green for introducing the legislation i've spent my entire career working in fair housing both in enforcement and education and education from the standpoint of teaching people how to recognize and report discrimination but also working with the industry to teach them how to comply with the law the national fair housing alliance is made up of the private nonprofit fair housing centers in the united states there are fewer than one hundred there are none for example in west virginia and there are other states that have no private housing groups the private housing group for example in t metropolitan area doesn't serve the whole state of ohio these are locally based organizations i'm here today to provide strong support for h r four seventy six and i'm optimistic because the fair housing act has enjoyed great bipartisan support after dr king was assassinated president johnson went to senators mondale and brooke and said you've been pushing this legislation and within seven days the first  housing act was passed and representative green pointed out out we've had amendments to the law and have always enjoyed great bipartisan support this legislation currently will improve both enforcement and education efforts surrounding discrimination in housing in the rental market in the sales market the lending markets and the homeowner's insurance market it will provide sorely needed funding for nationwide systemic in forstmann one of the reason systemic enforcement is critical is because there are so few fair housing centers in the united states it's been since nine hundred ninety one when the disability amendment became effective under the one nine hundred eighty eight amendment and the national for housing alliance really didn't look at designing construction cases because we were relying on the department of justice hud and other local groups to see that issue but two years ago we decided to look at it because we kept seeing the largest builders still building properties that were inaccessible to people who use wheelchairs to people with mobility issues and we filed a lawsuit along with our fair housing groups in napa valley in or in california in atlanta georgia melbourne florida against the fifth largest builder in the united states the ban of companies now we resolved that case recently and what i think is unique about the way we resolve cases it's not just about money it's not just about damages while this case design construction case settled for around fifteen million dollars it included the sale of companies modifying and retrofitting eighty two apartment buildings that they had built since nine hundred ninety one it also includes a four point six million dollars retrofit fund so they could they had one hundred two hundred twenty three buildings not all of them could be retrofitted and so we were able to include a fund where we can make grants to people who currently live in homes or currently live in apartments anywhere in the united states that are inaccessible and then the beauty of the settlement is we're working very closely with the spanish companies so this kind of mistake doesn't happen ever again and we're providing expertise and expert information about their future development we have those same kind of partnerships resolved in administrative compliance with state farm insurance company nationwide and allstate insurance companies so the goal of the private for housing movement is not just to be combative but to develop partnerships so discrimination doesn't continue to stand they can vest a geisha and we're able to fill the gap in the united states where there are no fair housing enforcement kansas doesn't have a fair housing center anymore there are other states that have no private fair housing center and i would just like to say that the increase in the funding is critical because right now each fair housing center can get a maximum of two hundred seventy five thousand dollars when you look at l a new york atlanta chicago san francisco you know two hundred twenty five thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket so we do have to increase the funding but we have to be wise about how we use that and figure out how to proportion the money according to the geographic population being served and finally education is critical in the area of education we have supported multi national media campaign state farm supported us in creating the first campaign that promotes residential integration you know all the other campaigns have been teaching people how to recognize and report discrimination which is absolutely necessary but we also wanted to have a partner campaign saying why is it good that we live together because after all people learn to live together by actually living together and we in the mortgage lending crisis the problem of our inability to investigate beyond the pre application stage and so we would recommend that this piece of legislation also include language that would allow the private for housing groups through approval with the department of justice because i don't think th privilege of doing this investigation should be done willy nilly but approval of the justice department to allow us to do full application testing create profiles in the credit bureau system and not face risk  of a felony charge by the u s attorney because we've created profiles and we're testing through the whole process we're testing underwriting we're testing the appraisal practices we're testing the private insurance companies households and community quite frankly this is not but an equal opportunity recession study after study produced by the national community reinvestment coalition federal regulators and a host of other academic and not for profit organizations document the disparities in lending in this nation is a curious irony that a majority of the meaningful complaints that have been filed in the lending against rating agencies against lenders who redline clearly stupid business practice against in fact large national real estate large in fact underwriters and others in this space have been identified by private not for profit organizations or state attorney generals not by the very regulators who are charged to police in fact our public needs in the space of fair housing we strongly support this bill congressman green but urge in fact the committee to increase the amount of  twenty million dollars is a drop in the bucket this is a national float or sink on what is a changing demographic in this nation we are becoming more and more diverse and businesses that do not meet the needs of african americans latinos families with children and other members of our society are frankly not competing to position themselves in a profitable way as we move ahead into the future specifically there are issues emerging every day today f h a commissioner david stevens announced reforms to the f h a loading lending program this is a very complex issue but here's a fair lending issue right on top of the  announcement is an interesting number for the credit score it's an attempt to compromise on a very important issue to ensure appropriate capitalization and liquidity access to credit in the marketplace but look at all of the national lenders at this put housing discrimination makes bad business however with respect to the issue at hand i'm sure it will come as no surprise the apartment industry does not exactly embrace additional testing as the best means to combat housing discrimination at least not in its current form while we support the goal of reducing housing discrimination we believe the creation of a national testing program and a doubling of funds by itself is not enough to effect the desired change therefore we offer the following observations and recommendations first we believe that before instituting another testing program a comprehensive review of the existing testing programs to measure their effectiveness efficiencies and fairness second after completion of the should consider alternative approaches to current testing protocol and third should expand its commitment industry education and outreach efforts we come to these recommendations with a strong belief that more of the same just doesn't work there seems to be an underlying assumption that fair housing testing e ffective enforcement and that simply increasing the number of complaints brought against property owners will eradicate housing discrimination we disagree there's no shortage of studies reports analysis  quantifying the level of discrimination in housing however we're unaware of any research that has measure the effectiveness of the federally funded testing programs regardless of how we feel about testing in general clearly testing files contain valuable data and information that can help inform more effective not to mention methods for identifying discriminatory practices and methods to enforce the law against such practices while testing for housing discrimination appears fairly straightforward test and test results can vary widely let me share an example of the kinds of testing cases that can be studied a testing program in two thousand and six in a county in virginia involved tester's making site visit to measure different treatment with an inquiry for a one bedroom apartment for a specific time period the tests were designed to measure the treatment relative to the available to belittle of the unit at the desired time based on national origin or ra in the fifty test conducted a difference in treatment well you might think that's great for the apartment industry it could easily have gone the other direction as a didn't following similar testing situation in a maryland city paired test are seeking a one bedroom unit we're testing for different treatment based on national origin in this scenario a complaint was filed when the minority tester received a price quote that was higher than the white tester after a lengthy and costly investigation get cards completed by both testers revealed evidence causing the complaint to be dismissed while one tester sought a one bedroom unit the other tester actually requested a one bedroom it's just explaining the difference in price a simple mistake made by the tester resulted in an unfair complaint of discrimination lodged against a housing provider with another was excellent reputation with residents employees and in the community lessons can be learned from these unfortunate experiences and as a result the enforcement tools could be made more effective these are just a few examples of how testing results can be inconsistent even when the strategy is fairly straightforward the likelihood for errors in missteps increased more complex situations a study in these studies which suggest that emphasis given to those complaints that were investigated later dismissed with the finding of reasonable cause according to the because as we as we start out as a fair housing clinic what we have become now is a clinic that is these other areas and that area is the mortgage crisis and people would not believe how the volume of problem that we have almost all of the calls we receive on a daily basis tons of involve mortgage problem individuals who were given terrible loans and these individuals who are gainfully employed you have good credit and was somehow given a loan as unbelievable we get these on a daily basis almost all of the consumers are african american down not african american latino and this is just in one area of the country the washington metropolitan misses as mr barron bomb stated i think is it is a serious crisis i would have to this bill would also be able to try to address that issue because that is  things out there that we went being out there we did is a lot different we conducted a survey of consumers and consumers almost all of them half of them they did today have been discriminated against or they apply on apartments and they didn't receive it we just think that the landscape changed and something has to be done in this area in a fair housing area one thing that has not been mentioned by anyone here that i think this committee has to consider is the  very technical details information about how to build correctly we have a few observations and disagreements over how the standards to which they managers and supervisors and assistant managers situation where they they know exactly what the law says when they're operating every day but you also have situations where some owners have directed managers to housing counseling intermediary and over one hundred fifty of our member organizations are providing foreclosure counseling foreclosure prevention counseling across the country in discussion with them and frankly from our own work in this we were seeing more and more for profit foreclosure prevention firms opening their doors many were former mortgage professionals or even not for profit opening doors were lawyers they really were national advertisers were local advertisers over one hundred foreclosure prevention counseling for profit providers we're preparing to release that report out this time but i can tell you what was widespread misinformation including statements such as don't pay your mortgage payment work with us pay our average what was a twenty eight hundred dollars instead of paying your mortgage when in fact all of those consumers regardless of where they lived could receive counseling at no cost and frankly they would have received better advice from what we were learning we will share the report with you when we release it in early february thank you very much  we estimate that four million instances of discrimination occur annually and fewer than thirty thousand are reported and when you look at where the private for housing centers are located in ohio michigan  california are where they're mostly concentrated you see most of the cases coming from those areas then we have states that may have won fair housing center for example richmond in virginia and other states that have no private or housing centers north and south carolina idaho kansas new mexico so it's a huge gap and secretary john has testified that there's a huge gap in enforcement so where there is effect full service nonprofit fair housing centers integration cooperation between the enforcement agencies and the industry but where there is a battle going on and people being denied housing every single day without any assistance now lending discrimination is rampant and it's not just a scam issues which we're testing as well but two years ago when the credit crunch became tight we did testing of banks and we sent in the african americans and white testers to apply for a conventional mortgage loan and the white everybody was offered  of technological advances for example in the rental marketing practices in an example of a simple test of someone going in and seeking pricing on a one bedroom unit i four or five different square where the unit was located when did you want to move everyone doesn't move in on the first of these days and that that makes a difference in the pricing with the simple request of another recommendation we would make we think there should be some flexibility built into the system when they for example especially in the more confusing areas of the law someone might ask question so as not to entrap you i'm going to tell you before i ask you this question that i will ask you a follow up question to ascertain whether or not the answer that you've given me is totally correct the call in court asking a question that hasn't been answered the testing that's being done is not the type of formal questioning that you are talking about the tests are performed with  protocols that addressed the very concerns that you call to our attention so when you make the statement you are misleading people this is this concerns lie this is about children this is  about this is about the american society that we live in and we want to make better so i have big that you give more consideration to those protocols before you make comments such as what you made i would also commend to everyone given that this is dr king's birthday celebration time and they are about to hear about read his letter from the birmingham jail read his letter from the birmingham jail and understand that dr king didn't go to jail to write a letter that's not why he went to jail he wrote the letter in response to a prominent citizen who wrote him a letter he wrote his letter responding to people moving too fast he wrote his letter in response to people who were saying the time is not right to make this kind of change read that letter from the birmingham jail and you'll get a greater appreciation suffa was something to change right now those who are public housing need help right now and as well as those who are losing their place in the private housing market to simply because of who they are quickly the professor from harvard eminently correct they are t because you are talking from years of experience in dealing with the issues with the alliance i want to thank you for the last comment that you made about how we must do more in the area of testing with reference to lending a term i believe will application testing absolutely full application testing and for edification let's take a quick survey let's test the panel here  how many of you would agree that we need to test to find out if there is discrimination in lending if agree would you kindly extend the hand into the air let the record reflect that all of the members of the panel of the opinion that we should test out lending applications or we should test by way of the application process and i would add that