Wednesday, January 01, 2020

Resoluciones: ¿desilusiones o inspiraciones?



Resoluciones: Desilusiones.
Compromisos sin fundamentos;
Solo voces al firmamento.

Resoluciones: Inspiraciones.
El día a día sin remordimientos;
Mientras así irás creciendo.

En este año que recién comienza, toma las riendas de tus objetivos—ya sea día a día; semanas por semanas; o mes por mes. Deja de lastimarte con pensar en aquello que “debiste cumplir” al pie de la letra, pero por alguna razón u otra, no se efectuó. Esta vez, proponte metas pequeñas y/o factibles y a tu alcance. Toma tu tiempo—¡𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘶𝘺𝘰!

Resoluciones: ¿desilusiones o inspiraciones? ¡Tú eliges!

Sunday, December 16, 2018

Poverty and Race: Fair Housing Act

(Color Struck: How Race and Complexion Matter in the “Color-Blind” Era)

“We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty” -Matthew Desmond.
Poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions, which has been affecting individuals and families across the globe. Discrimination can both cause poverty and be a hurdle in alleviating poverty[1]. Housing discrimination leads to residential segregation, which leads to the deprivation of communities, especially those with a higher concentration of people of color living in poverty. In response to this social problem, the Fair Housing Act was created with the purpose of prohibiting discrimination by direct providers of housing whose discriminatory practices make housing unavailable to persons based on their color/race, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability. Patricia Hill Collins states that in order to understand and analyze the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences, as well as how they are not been shaped by a single axis of social division, we ought to draw upon intersectionality as an analytic tool (2016). Therefore, using intersectionality approach, we will analyze how class and race interact with the Fair Housing Act, mostly affecting individuals who are living or falling into poverty.
HOUSING DISCRIMINATION AND POVERTY
Poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions (Merriam-Webster). More than 3 billion people (almost half of the world’s population) live on less than $2.50 a day, while 1.3 billion live on less than $1.25 a day which is considered extreme poverty[2]. This means that while the richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income, the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population represents 5 percent of global income[3]. Some people are celebrating that, in the United States, last year’s poverty rate has fallen 2.5 percentage points -from 14.8 percent to 12.3 percent since 2014 (which is the third consecutive annual decline in poverty)[4]. However, during the same year, the Poverty and Inequality Report points out that while the inner city provides the “prototypical image of poverty” in the country, rural poverty rates are often higher for some groups (Burton et al., 2017:9). To illustrate, African Americans had the highest poverty rate (27.4 percent), followed by Hispanics (26.6 percent) and whites (9.9 percent)[5].
Homan, Valentino, and Weed claim that being born into poverty “is not in itself an explanation for poverty so much as a key schematic distinction people make in the process of attributing causes of poverty” (2017:1029). Nevertheless, studies made known that from childhood through adulthood, African Americans born into poverty, were more likely than Whites to remain in the bottom 10th of the income distribution (Burton et al., 2010:448). Furthermore, geographically speaking, when we look at racial and ethnic poverty and the population with the highest poverty rate in the country, in rural South we find African American (33 percent) and Hispan­ics (28 percent); in the rural Northeast, African American (31 percent); and in the rural West, Native Americans (32 percent) (Burton et al., 2017:9). In the same way, Camilla Stivers states that five of the six areas recognized as most deeply damaged are ‘project neighborhoods’ where “poverty rates ranged from 60 percent to 80 percent, unemployment was above 20 percent, 80 percent of residents were renters, and the population was predominantly black (2007:53).
Via his contribution to Pathways Magazine’s the Poverty and Inequality Report on Race and Ethnicity, Mathew Desmond claims that “the enduring legacy of these racial policies is seen clearly in the simple fact that today most white families in America own their homes and most nonwhite families do not” (2017:16). Desmond adds that more than 75 percent of all owner-occupied homes in the United States are owned and occupied by white families, despite them representing only 62 percent of the population (2017:16).  But, who’s to blame? We can start with the media, politicians, organizations, and even the academia.
 Gerrard and Farrugia claim that the media, organizations, and even researchers play an important role when creating “a dramaturgy of everyday poverty…which can be witnessed and surveilled outside of the specificities of its space and place” (2015:2221). Similarly, Desmond states that
“with books about single mothers, gang members, or the homeless, social scientists and journalists were writing about poor people as if they were cut off from the rest of society. The poor were said to be ‘invisible’ or part of ‘the other America.’ The ghetto was treated like ‘a city within a city.’ The poor were being left out of the inequality debate, as if we believed the livelihoods of the rich and the middle class were intertwined but those of the poor and everyone else [was] not…poverty was a relationship, I thought, involving poor and rich people alike. To understand poverty, I needed to understand that relationship (2016:317).
            Poverty and housing discrimination go by hand with what we have learned about race since an early age and by which it has been portrayed on the media as well as shaped by some scholars. Omi and Winant argue that differences in skin color and “other obvious physical characteristics, supposedly provide visible clues to differences lurking underneath. Temperament, sexuality, intelligence, athletic ability, aesthetic preferences and so on are presumed to be fixed and discernible from the palpable mark of race” (1994:13). Likewise, Stivers adds that throughout American history, the idea of race based on biological physiognomies “has set black people apart and justified their exploitation” due to a belief that members of a certain race are “inherently inferior-less intelligent, less ambitious-has rationalized discriminatory treatment as fitting, proper, and without evil intent” (2007:49).
Unfortunately, underprivileged minorities, in particular, are the most affected by poverty and housing discrimination based on their race or color, despite laws put in place to protect them from such actions.
THE POLICY OBJECTIVES
The Fair Housing Act (FHA) of 1968 is the policy of the United States to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States[6]. The act protects people from discrimination by sellers, landlords, or financial institutions when they are renting or buying a home, getting a mortgage, seeking housing assistance, or engaging in other housing-related activities[7]. The FHA also makes it unlawful for those entities to refuse to rent, sell, or provide financing for a dwelling based on factors other than an individual’s financial resources[8]. The FHA was passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, a week after the assassination of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and after riots that followed (Desmond, 2016). The Act stands as the final great legislative achievement of the civil rights era, with an intention to be a follow-up (Title VIII) to the Civil Rights Act of 1964[9].
Since the FHA was passed by Congress, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development[10] holds the authority to manage the Act and “all executive departments and agencies shall administer their programs and activities relating to housing and urban development… in a manner affirmatively to further the purposes of this subchapter and shall cooperate with the Secretary to further such purposes” (Rieth, 2015:289). The FHA prohibits discrimination in housing because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex (added in 1974), familial status and disability (both included in 1988).
In the Sale and Rental of Housing, the Act stipulates that is illegal discrimination to take any of the following actions because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin:
·       Refuse to rent or sell housing
·       Refuse to negotiate for housing
·       Otherwise make housing unavailable
·       Set different terms, conditions or privileges for sale or rental of a dwelling
·       Falsely deny that housing is available for inspection, sale or rental
·       Make, print or publish any notice, statement or advertisement with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination
·       Impose different sales prices or rental charges for the sale or rental of a dwelling
·       Evict a tenant or a tenant’s guest
THE FAIR HOUSING ACT EFFECTS
Thanks to the Fair Housing Act, from 1950 to 1980, the total African American population in the US urban areas increased from 6.1 million to 15.3 million; regrettably, due to this changes in history, Whites progressively move out of the cities into the suburbs, taking with them, many of the employment opportunities the people who were left behind needed into communities where they were not welcome to reside[11]. Segregation then became one of both immediate and long-term effects of the Fair Housing Act. The American Bar Association states that many African American neighborhoods are “disproportionately located in high-nuisance or environmentally unsound areas zoned for mixed residential/industrial/commercial use, exposing their populations to the negative environmental effects of industrial and intensive land use” (2012). In uncountable occasions, minorities have facing housing discrimination based on their race or the color of their skin, even 50 years after the FHA was passed.
The Department of Justice has brought many cases claiming discrimination based on race or color. Some of the cases have also alleged that towns and other local government entities violated the Fair Housing Act when they “denied permits or zoning changes for housing developments, or relegated them to predominantly minority neighborhoods because the prospective residents were expected to be predominantly African-Americans” (DOJ)[12]. Similarly, The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) estimates that each year, there are more than 4 million acts of housing discrimination and that only a few of them are ever challenged in court or an administrative tribunal making the pervasiveness of housing discrimination exhibited in “continuing hyper-segregation in many of our nation’s largest cities and vast disparities in the rates of homeownership between non-Hispanic Whites and people of color” (Carr, 2018).
For instance, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, African American were disproportionally harmed. Stivers recounts how conditions linked to past oppression played a major role in people's ability to evacuate, “when 17 percent of poor whites lacked access to a car, but nearly 60 percent of poor blacks did” (2007:50). Similarly, Kevin Leicht argues that the race and the gender differences in wealth accumulation are driven a lot by housing segregation, “which leads to the inability to build wealth through homeownership” (White, 2016). Residential segregation not only deprives communities of color of receiving equal access to quality education, but also access to employment, homeownership, and wealth accumulation[13]. Although the Fair Housing Act has its purpose of protecting all people from housing discrimination, so often minorities seem not to be listed as part of ‘all people.’
Another group that deliberately disobey the Fair Housing Act are landlords. Matthew Desmond recounts how landlords contribute with the segregation of poor people, especially African Americans. Researchers have linked eviction to downward mobility, material hardship, savings and job loss, depression, suicide, and other negative outcomes, showing it to be a cause, not just a condition, of poverty (Desmond, 2017:18). In his book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Desmond states that eviction is a cause and not a condition of poverty. He adds,
Neighborhoods marred by high poverty and crime were that way not only because poverty could incite crime, and crime could invite poverty, but also because the techniques landlords use to ‘keep illegal and destructive activity out of rental property’ kept poverty out as well. This also meant that violence, drug activity, deep poverty, and other social problems coalesced at a much smaller, more acute level than the neighborhood. They gathered at the same address (2016:89).
When the Fair Housing Act was passed, Congress did not include families with children under their protection, allowing landlords to continue openly turning them away or evicting them. Caroline Fredrickson (2015) claims that one of the easiest ways to fall from poverty into destitution is to have children. We can find more examples of thin on Desmond’s book. “Some placed costly restrictions on large families, charging ‘children-damage deposits’ in addition to standard rental fees… families with children were turned away in as many as 7 in 10 housing searches” (Desmond, 2016:230-231). It took 20 years for Congress to pass the Fair Housing Amendments Act allowing, the law to prohibit discrimination in housing based on disability or on family status, which includes pregnant women or the presence of children[14].
Some of the advancement in the history of the FHA happened in 1974 when gender was included as part of those protected by the Act. According to Mortgage Women Magazine, a semi-monthly publication led by publisher and mortgage industry veteran Ben Slayton, “Women have experienced significant economic and social benefits as a result of more equal access and reduced discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing” (Messerli, 2018). Yet, the magazine states that despite this improvement, many women are still experiencing challenges related to equality in housing, and “we have more progress to be made as a community to better address women’s issues under the Fair Housing Act.”
Another area that has not been fully covered is sexual orientation, despite many states and areas having laws addressing housing discrimination. In April 2017, Rachel Smith, a transgender woman, and Tonya Smith were denied a rental townhouse along with their two children by a landlord who gave as a reason their “unique relationship,” as they claimed in court[15]. The FHA protects people from facing discrimination based on their sex, familial status, or national origin, however, it does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Furthermore, the only time the FHA implies ‘gender’ is written in the 42 U.S.C. 3602 note, under Section 802 when clarifies that “neither the term ‘individual with handicaps’ nor the term ‘handicap’ shall apply to an individual solely because that individual is a transvestite[16].”  Such ambiguity has caused this population to be and feel excluded and discriminated against. Thus, for the first time, a federal court has applied the FHA to anti-LGBTQ discrimination when U.S. District Judge Raymond P. Moore concluded that the FHA’s ban on sex discrimination prohibited discrimination against a same-sex couple, including transgender persons[17]. Thus far, nor ‘gender’ or ‘sexual orientation’ has been officially added to the FHA language.
IMPLICATIONS
  The first time I learned about the Fair Housing Act was after being discriminated against, mostly due to my parental status. As a single mother of two children, Latina, and full-time college student, I have learned that the FHA does not always protect all people from discrimination. After an extensive housing search and being asked if I have children, how many children do I have, whether I was a one-parent household, or if I can afford the payments, all I was being told was the typical “call back Monday” (Desmond, 2016:231). I once submitted a complaint[18] against Merrimack Property Management in Lowell, after successfully booking an apartment showing but then being told, twice, to call them ‘tomorrow’ after finding out I have children -they never answered any of my calls or emails after that. After contacting the Attorney General’s Office, I received an email suggesting that I proceed by filing a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination because “I think they might be able to assist you better at this time because they might decide to investigate against a landlord of this size[19].” My case was dismissed via a letter in the mail.
 My recommendations are not only based on prior experiences but align with the thousands of voices who believe more actions need to be taken. Aside from the lack of more affordable housing across the US, how can we assure the FHA would be protecting us when landlords take advantage of the people who lack knowledge and the power to successfully file a complaint when we are being discriminated against based on our religion, race, color, parenting status, disability, including gender identity and sexual orientation?
Our voices need to be taken more seriously. While renters keep engaging in residential segregation by increasing the rent, more and more minorities are being unfairly excluded from areas we cannot afford.
THE ALTERNATIVE POLICIES
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC):
To incentivize private developers to build affordable housing developments, Congress created the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program under the Tax Reform Act of 1968. The LIHTC, also considered as “the largest and the most important resource for creating affordable housing in the United States today,” supplies State and local LIHTC-allocating agencies the equivalent of nearly $8 billion in annual budget authority to issue tax credits for the acquisition, rehabilitation, or new construction of rental housing targeted to lower-income households[20]. In brief, LIHTC provides developers with credits, which in turn, sell the credits to raise either capital or equity for projects." (Rieth, 2015:294).
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) created the LIHTC database[21], which is available to the public since 1997 and contains information on 46,554 projects and 3.05 million housing units placed in service between 1987 and 2016. Metropolitan area projects must consist of new construction or substantial rehabilitation for (1) projects in which at least 75% of LIHTC units are single-room occupancy, efficiency, or one bedroom and are affordable by households whose income does not exceed 30% of the median income; (2) projects not restricted to persons fifty-five years of age or older, at least 75% of LIHTC units contain two or more bedrooms, one-third of that 75% must contain three or more bedrooms; or (3) simply substantial rehabilitation of projects the city targets for revitalization (Rieth, 2015:302).
The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing is an attempt to implement the Fair Housing Act more effectively. This obligation to affirmatively further fair housing has been in the Fair Housing Act since 1968 (for further information see Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. 3608 and Executive Order 12892). HUD's AFFH rule delivers an effective planning method to support program participants in taking meaningful actions to overcome historic patterns of segregation, promote fair housing choice, and foster inclusive communities that are free from discrimination[22].
Summary excerpt[23]:
The Fair Housing Act not only prohibits discrimination but, in conjunction with other statutes, directs HUD’s program participants to take significant actions to overcome historic patterns of segregation, achieve truly balanced and integrated living patterns, promote fair housing choice, and foster inclusive communities that are free from discrimination… Through this rule, HUD commits to provide states, local governments, public housing agencies (PHAs), the communities they serve, and the general public, to the fullest extent possible, with local and regional data on integrated and segregated living patterns, racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, the location of certain publicly supported housing, access to opportunity afforded by key community assets, and disproportionate housing needs based on classes protected by the Fair Housing Act. Through the availability of such data and available local data and knowledge, the approach provided by this rule is intended to make program participants better able to evaluate their present environment to assess fair housing issues such as segregation, conditions that restrict fair housing choice, and disparities in access to housing and opportunity, identify the factors that primarily contribute to the creation or perpetuation of fair housing issues, and establish fair housing priorities and goals.
DATES: Effective Date: August 17, 2015.
CONCLUSION
Housing discrimination creates residential segregation which leads to the deprivation of communities, especially those with a higher concentration of minorities living in poverty. The Fair Housing Act (FHA) was passed in 1968 under the President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, a week after riots arose due to the assassination of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. Its purpose is to prohibit discrimination by direct providers of housing whose discriminatory practices make housing unavailable to individuals and families, based on their race, color, national origin, religion, sex (1974), familial status and disability (both included in 1988).
To understand and analyze the complexity of poverty and discrimination, as well as how they are not been shaped by a single axis of social division, we analyzed how these social problems interact with the Fair Housing Act and who is being affected by such. First, we provide an introduction and overview of an analytic approach. Second, we defined poverty and housing discrimination and segregation as the social problems addressed by the FHA. Next, we included the policy objectives, value premises, expectations and target populations. Additionally, we talked about how segregation became one of both immediate and long-term effects of the Fair Housing Act, followed by the discrimination based on gender and sexual orientations -which as for today, they have not been included in the FHA language. Further, we supplied our own critique and analysis of the FHD. Finally, we talked about some alternatives policies that could address inequality more effectively, such as the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.
Has the Fair Housing Act been able to break patterns of segregation and increase the levels of affordable housing for working-class families? We might not have concrete answers, but, thankfully, we have experienced improvements in the application of this law.




Works Cited
American Bar Association. “Residential Segregation after the Fair Housing Act.” Retrieved
Burton, Linda; Mattingly, Marybeth; Pedroza, Juan and Welsh, Whitney. 2017. “Poverty.” In
“State of the Union: The Poverty and Inequality Report: Race & Ethnicity.” Pathways Magazine. Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.
Burton, Linda; Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo; Ray, Victor; Buckelew, Rose and Hordge Freeman,
Elizabeth. 2010. “Critical Race Theories, Colorism, and the Decade's Research on Families of Color.” Journal of Marriage and Family. Vol. 72(3), p.440-459. National Council on Family Relations. JSTOR
Carr, James H. 2018. “The 1968 Fair Housing Act; 50 Years of Progress, Still an Uphill Climb to
Collins, Patricia Hill and Bilge, Sirma. 2016. Intersectionality. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Desmond, Matthew. 2017. “Housing.” In “State of the Union: The Poverty and Inequality
Report: Race & Ethnicity.” Pathways Magazine. Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.
Desmond, Matthew. 2016. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. New York, NY:
Crown Publishers.
Fredrickson, Caroline. 2015. Under the Bus. New York, NY: The New Press.
Gerrard, Jessica and Farrugia, David. 2015. “The ‘lamentable sight’ of homelessness and the
society of the spectacle Urban Studies.” Urban Studies. Vol. 52(12), p. 2219–2233. Sage Journals.
Homan, Patricia; Valentino, Lauren and Weed, Emi. 2017. “Being and Becoming Poor: How
Cultural Schemas Shape Beliefs About Poverty.” Social Forces. Vol. 95(3), p.1023-1048. Oxford University Press. Project Muse.
Messerli, Kristin. 2018. “The Evolution of the Fair Housing Act and Women’s Progress in
Omi, Michael and Winant, Howard. 1994. “Racial Formations.” Racial Formations in the United
States. Ed. 2. Routledge.
Rieth, Meredith. 2015. “Segregation under the Guise of the Fair Housing Act: Affirmatively
Furthering Segregative (and Expensive) Housing Developments.” Law & Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice. Vol. 3(1). University of Michigan Libraries Publishing.
Stivers, Camilla. 2007. “So Poor and so Black: Hurricane Katrina, Public Administration, and
the Issue of Race.” Public Administration Review. Vol. 67, p.48-56. JSTOR.
White, Gillian. 2016. “Is America Having the Wrong Conversation About Income Inequality?”
The Atlantic.





[1] See Human Rights Watch. “Discrimination, Inequality, and Poverty—A Human Rights Perspective” (https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/11/discrimination-inequality-and-poverty-human-rights-perspective)
[3] See Global Issues – Poverty Facts and Stats (http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats#src3)
[4] Kayla, Jessica Semega, and Melissa Kollar. 2017. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-263. Income and Poverty in the United States: 2017. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.pdf
[5] See The State of Working America. (http://stateofworkingamerica.org/fact-sheets/poverty)
[6] See Fair Housing Act. Sec. 801. [42 U.S.C. 3601] Declaration of Policy. US Department of Justice. https://www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-2
[7] See US Department of Housing and Urban Development. “Housing discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/fair_housing_act_overview
[8] See Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fair-Housing-Act
[10] See Terkel, Amanda. 2018. “Ben Carson Removes Anti-Discrimination Language from HUD Mission Statement: It will no longer reference ‘inclusive’ communities ‘free from discrimination’.” HuffPost. Retrieved December 8, 2018. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hud-mission-statement_us_5a9f5db0e4b002df2c5ec617
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is changing the mission statement of his agency, removing promises of inclusive and discrimination-free communities.

The new mission statement reads:
HUD’s mission is to ensure Americans have access to fair, affordable housing and opportunities to achieve self-sufficiency, thereby strengthening our communities and nation.

The original version:
HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes; utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination, and transform the way HUD does business.

On another note, HuffPost claims that Ben Carson wants to roll back An Obama-Era Fair Housing Rule and that The Department of Housing and Urban Development “has begun the formal process of revamping the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule.” Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ben-carson-hud-fair-housing-rule_us_5b72538ee4b0ae32af9b0bc0
[11] See History. 2010. “Impact of the Fair Housing Act.” A&E Television Networks. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fair-housing-act
[12] See US Department of Justice. “Fair Housing Act.” https://www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-1
[14] See History. 2010. “Impact of the Fair Housing Act.” A&E Television Networks. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fair-housing-act
[15] See Barbash, Fred. 2017. “Federal fair housing law protects LGBT couples, court rules for first time.” Washington Post. Retrieved December 10, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/06/federal-fair-housing-law-protects-lgbt-couples-court-rules-for-first-time/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3b0a71c89de4
[16] See “[42 U.S.C. 3602 note]”. Fair Housing Act. Department of Justice. https://www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-2
[17] See Joseph Stern, Mark. 2017. “Federal Judge Rules That the Fair Housing Act Protects LGBTQ People.” Slate. Retrieved December 10, 2018. http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/04/06/federal_judge_rules_the_fair_housing_act_protects_lgbtq_people.html
[18] See US Department of Housing and Urban Development. https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/online-complaint
How to File a Complaint
Online: You can file a complaint with FHEO online in English or Spanish.
Email: You can download this form (also available in other languages mentioned below) and email it to your local FHEO office at the email address on this list.
Phone: You can speak with an FHEO intake specialist by calling 1-800-669-9777 (or 1-800-927-9275 for TTY). You can also call your regional FHEO office at the phone numbers on this list.
Mail: You can print out this form (also available in ArabicCambodianChineseKoreanRussianSomaliSpanish, and Vietnamese) and mail it to your regional FHEO office at the address on this list.
[19] Continuation of email as follow,
If they find probable cause that you have been discriminated against, this case will then return to our office. You can reach them at 617-994-6000. You will receive a notice in the mail in the next few days informing you that our office is referring this matter to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

Let me know if you need any further assistance from our office.

Best,
Lily
[20] See Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R). US Department of Housing and Urban Development. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/lihtc.html
[21] Alternatively, you can download the entire database. The file, LIHTCPUB.ZIP, is a ZIP archive file containing the following: The data dictionary for the LIHTC database (multiple address data use same formats) in Adobe Acrobat; the LIHTC Database in MS Access format; and the LIHTC Database in dBASE format.
[22] See HUD Exchange. US Department of Housing and Urban Development. https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/affh/
[23] See 2015. “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing; Final Rule.” Federal Register. Vol. 80(136). Department of Housing and Urban Development. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2015-07-16/pdf/2015-17032.pdf

Saturday, December 01, 2018

#Chapiadora


Atento a relajos, mi amigo Amauris tiene razon en cuanto a [una] de las razones por la cual me estoy "preparando": No quiero "chapiar."

Mucho antes de entrar en la relacion en la que estoy desde hace 4 años, he tenido incontables oportunidades de "salir adelante" a costilla de otro (aun dentro de la relacion, el cual NADIE puede demostrar o decir que [yo] NO he respetado en ese sentido).

  • Oportunidades de 'moldear' mi cuerpo por medio de las manos magicas de un cirujano y de luego, cinicamente, subir una foto en algun gym junto a la descripcion, "Ya se estan notando los cambios...
  • Oportunidades de alardear mi vida de "soltera" en algunas maravillas del mundo (sin mencionar siquiera mi agredecimiento a quien pagaria esas millonarias cuentas) y compartir fotografias con la pose tipo "tirame-la-foto-como-si-no-se-que-la-tomaste."
  • Oportunidades en el cual ni tenga que pensar en que la formula de "belleza" fisica se mide por un corto plazo de tus años, dividido por las habilidades fisicas que poseas y las 'muelas' o la cantidad de 'tias/os' que dijiste que estaban "internas" / que no podias continuar tus estudios / que no podias pagar la renta de tu casa si no conseguias esos miles para el final de la semana...

Quizas no me da la 'talla' o la 'malicia' para chapear --o para tener una relacion que se base unicamente en la porcion de dinero que depositen en mi cuenta. Y, como dice mi amiga Yerida, quizas no me vean saliendo algunos fines de semana con Evelyn (y nuestras amistades) o constantemente tomandome fotos con mi maquillaje full, melena suelta, y tacones. 

Pero algo que tengo bien claro es que YO se lo que me propuse y lo que, con Dios como guia, he estado haciendo por medio a mi maestria (Psicologia Social y Communitaria), mis empleos en la Oficina Multicultural de UMass Lowell, el Centro de Asiaticos-Americanos en Middlesex Comm. College, y en Community TeamWork: Ayudar a personas que no tienen hogar, especialmente a madres solteras que, por medio a sus circunstancias, no creen que el chapeo podria ser opcional --toma tiempo, dedicacion y paciencia, y sin dudas creo que no podria lograr nada si me lo dieran todo sin haber pasado por esas situaciones yo misma.

Social Policy and Disability: Disability as a Social Issue

 
“Governments throughout the world can no longer overlook the hundreds of millions of people with disabilities who are denied access to health, rehabilitation, support, education and employment, and never get the chance to shine. It is my hope that, beginning with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and now with the publication of the World Report on Disability, this century will mark a turning point for inclusion of people with disabilities in the lives of their societies”
- Professor Stephen W Hawking

In the United States, people with disabilities represent about one-fifth of the nation’s population with African Americans and American Indians representing the highest percentage of them (Fassinger: 2008). Many people living with disabilities not only have to overcome their daily struggles but also tend to face discrimination based on their race, gender or any other identity that has been a target in the US. To prevent the discrimination of people with disabilities on the basis of wage determination, hiring or firing, the American People with Disabilities Act (ADA) was created. Although ADA was signed by President Bush in 1990, it took effect in 1992. Since then, ADA has been both celebrated and criticized across this nation.
Using intersectionality as a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity of disability, we are going to analyze how it can become a social problem when affecting a vulnerable population in regards of their socioeconomic/immigration status, religion/ideologies, race/ethnicity, sex or gender. Next, we are going to address the Americans with Disabilities Act’s objectives, value premises, expectations, and target populations to then focus on the intended and/or unintended effects and the policy’s implications. Lastly, we will provide an alternative policy that more effectively addresses inequality within people with disabilities.

DISABILITY AS A SOCIAL PROBLEM
 Throughout the world history, civilizations have attempted to explain the place of disability in the social order, from Ancient Greeks who believed disabled persons were not human and that they should be abandoned to die, until today where they have been isolated, segregated and discriminated against (Mackelprang, 2013; Fassinger, 2008). With respect to an individual, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) describes disability as (1) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual; (2) a record of such an impairment; or (3) being regarded as having such an impairment.
In 2010, 19 percent of the US population had a disability (U.S. Census Bureau). Four years later, the Social Security Administration (SSA) 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation reported an increase in population: 27.2 percent of the US population are living with disabilities and about 17.6 percent (55.2 million people) had a severe disability. Disability affects anyone, anywhere -from children to the elderly, from developed countries to developing ones. Unfortunately, people with disabilities are not excluded from one of the issues that have been affecting many societies: Discrimination.
Individuals with disabilities have reported been discriminated against in areas such as education, housing, transportation, employment, stereotypes, and the list goes on (Fassinger, 2008). Fassinger states that “gender and race effects also are present in this population, as employment rates are considerably lower for women and people of color with disabilities than for White men with disabilities” (2008:256). She also adds that one of greatest barriers to hiring individuals with disabilities employers face is the lack of inadequate job training and/or lack of skills.

THE POLICY OBJECTIVES
The ADA took effect in 1992 under the Bush administration with the hopes to prevent, protect and eliminate discrimination against people with physical or mental disabilities and to ensure they have the right to fully participate in all aspects of society despite been subjected to discrimination[1].  The policy requires that employers offer rational accommodations to employees with disabilities, such as wheelchair access. Other ADA objectives include but are not limited to:
Employers must provide reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants or employees. Employers with 15 or more employees must fulfill with this law. This title is regulated and enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities in all programs, activities, and services of public entities. It clarifies the requirements of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, for public transportation systems that receive federal financial assistance, and extends coverage to all public entities that provide public transportation, whether or not they receive federal financial assistance. This title is regulated and enforced by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Prohibits private places of public accommodation from discriminating against individuals with disabilities. Requires public accommodations to remove barriers in existing buildings where it is easy to do so without much difficulty or expense, and also requires that they take steps necessary to communicate effectively with customers with vision, hearing, and speech disabilities.  This title is also regulated and enforced by the U.S. Department of Justice.[2]

THE ADA EFFECTS
Some of the positive effects of the Americans with Disabilities Act have been the public awareness and inclusion, more access to buildings thanks to the installations of wheelchair ramps, as well as having handicap accessible restrooms (US Commission on Civil Rights). By making sure employers meet these standards, ADA has opened doors to employment for more Americans with disabilities, especially to those who could not have this type of access before the policy was implemented. On the other hand, the National Bureau of Economic Research reports that, between 1992-1997, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) received more than 90,000 discrimination complaints based on wrongful termination (almost 63 percent), failure to provide adequate accommodations (29 percent), and hiring violations (10 percent). In the same way, Jacobsen et al., (2012) report that “substance abusing employees cost employers millions in lost productivity, measured by increased absenteeism, workplace accidents, and healthcare costs” (p. 468).  Another downside is that government-related disability costs went up in during the same years; as a result, businesses hesitated to make the sort of accommodations that would have enabled large numbers of people with disabilities to become employed (Berkowitz: 2017). Therefore, unemployment rates for employees who have disabilities are almost double than people without disabilities.
Last but not least, because disabilities are often complex, some ADA impairments are included or excluded. This is the case of a person infected with HIV, which is considered a disability, but not obesity or a concussion, for the most times. Other specific conditions that are not considered to be impairments under the act and that are excluded from coverage are:  Homosexuality, bisexuality, Transvestism, Transsexualism, “Gender identity disorders” not resulting from physical impairments, Compulsive gambling, Kleptomania, Pyromania, Exhibitionism, Pedophilia, Voyeurism, , Sexual behavior disorders, Common personality traits, and Psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs.[3]

IMPLICATIONS
Patricia Hill Collins taught us that in order to understand and analyze the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences and how they are not been shaped by a single axis of social division, we ought to draw upon intersectionality as an analytic tool (2016). Before ADA came into action, Berkowitz (2017) states that the Republican party and President Bush “viewed civil rights for people with disabilities as ideologically compatible with the Republican approach toward government.” The George Washington University Professor of History and Public Policy and Public Administration and Director of the Program in History and Public Policy claims that Bush viewed the ADA as a force of integration, “not as a form of special treatment that amounted to segregation,” as Berkowitz (2017) expands by offering the ‘blind bus driver’ metaphor: “Even if blind people were otherwise qualified for the job, they would make bad bus drivers. Regulators had, therefore, to discriminate among groups of the handicapped in ways that had no clear analog in other civil rights statutes.”
Nowadays, it seems that we are still experiencing how policymakers fail at addressing social policies as ADA using the intersectionality lens instead of focusing on measuring one person’s experience as the representation of a group, a community, a race, a gender. By using an intersectionality approach, they would understand that “a single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
THE ALTERNATIVE POLICIES
One of the ways policymakers have tried to fight the unintended effects of ADA is by implementing programs that provide tax credits to for-profit business/organizations that hire individuals with developmental disabilities. For example, Workers with Disabilities Tax Credit (WDTC) program in New York offers a maximum tax credit of $5,000 for full-time employment (30 hours or more per week), based on 15% of the individual’s wages paid after January 1, 2015 for a period of employment no less than six months; and $2,500 for part-time employment (between 8 hours and 30 hours per week), based on 10% of the individual’s wages paid after January 1, 2015 for a period of employment no less than six months. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit program allows the employer to claim a tax credit of up to 40% of the first $6,000 of first-year wages after certification is received from the appropriate government agencies and the employee has worked for at least 120 hours.
In the same way, in order to make sure more people with disabilities are being employed, President Obama signed Executive Order 13548—Increasing Federal Employment of Individuals with Disabilities, on the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This directive calls on federal departments and agencies to increase the recruitment, hiring, and retention of people with disabilities.




Works Cited
Berkowitz, Eduard. 2017. “George Bush and the Americans with Disabilities Act.” Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved November 23, 2018.  http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/recollections/george-bush-and-the-americans-with-disabilities-act/

DeLeire, Thomas. 2000. The Unintended Consequences of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Labor. 23(1). Regulation. Pp. 21-24. Retrieved November 26, 2018 

Fassinger, Ruth E. 2008. “Workplace Diversity and Public Policy: Challenges and Opportunities for Psychology.” American Psychologist. 63(4). Pp. 252-268.

Jacobson, Jodi; Sacco, Paul. 2012. Employee Assistance Program Services for Alcohol and Other  Drug Problems: Implications for Increased Identification and Engagement in Treatment. American Journal on Addictions. 21(5). Pp. 468-475.

Mackelprang, Romel. 2013. “Disabilities, Health Care and Illness, Populations and Practice Settings, Social Justice and Human Rights.” Encyclopedia of Social Work. Oxford University. Accessed November 24, 2018. http://oxfordre.com/socialwork/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.001.0001/acrefore-9780199975839-e-541






[1] 42 USC 12101: Findings and purpose. From Title 42-THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE. CHAPTER 126-EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES. http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:42%20section:12101%20edition:prelim

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