Nikitra Bailey’s Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance

Chair Flood, Ranking Member Waters, Ranking Member Cleaver, and other members of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, thank you for the opportunity to testify during today’s hearing on the need to increase the nation’s supply of fair and affordable housing for everyday people, including the frontline workers such as teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, and others who sacrificed their lives during the COVID-19 crisis. I am Nikitra Bailey, Executive Vice President of the National Fair Housing Alliance® (NFHA™). NFHA leads the fair housing movement and works to eliminate housing discrimination and ensure equitable housing opportunities for all people and communities. NFHA also represents over 200 local non-profit fair housing agencies throughout the U.S.

Our nation is in a fair and affordable housing crisis impacting millions and the actions of President Trump’s executive orders attempting to ban diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; punitively and haphazardly throwing together a federal funding freeze; and canceling almost half of the funding grants for local non-profit fair housing agencies throughout the U.S. have caused chaos, fear, insecurity, and dysfunction around the country.

Instead of providing our nation with practical solutions to address skyrocketing housing costs, a lack of affordable housing supply, increased complaints of housing discrimination, and technology’s growing role in determining housing decisions with solutions, steps on the ladders of opportunity are being removed for everyday people. These haphazard executive actions will cause serious economic and personal injuries that will undermine our already fragile housing market and our nation.

Housing is fundamental to the American Dream and people want elected leaders to quickly implement solutions to ensure they can fairly access opportunity and share in the nation’s prosperity. People are seeking solutions that will drive down the rising costs of housing and provide fair market rents, expand fair access to mortgage credit in underserved communities, reduce homeowners’ insurance costs, and produce the development of over five million affordable housing units.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are synonymous with hard work, fairness, merit, and standards of excellence. They are a cornerstone of our nation’s Constitution and civil rights laws and help to ensure compliance with our nation’s robust anti-discrimination laws.

Despite recent efforts to spread misinformation and intentionally ignore the progress of civil rights in this country, here are the facts:

• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives are designed to create opportunities where none previously existed.
• Our country’s fair housing laws, as well as our framework for civil and equal rights, are grounded in providing rights to people that have always made up this nation and contributed significantly to building and defending the nation.
• Inclusion guarantees everyone has the right to the promises and protections of our laws and that no one is omitted because of their protected class status.
• Accessibility ensures people can actually take advantage of the vital opportunities needed to thrive.

In fact, many of these concepts are codified in our civil rights laws and regulations as well as the Constitution.

Congress established fair housing as a national policy of the U.S. with the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The landmark legislation provides two promises:

• The right for all people to access housing free of discrimination; and
• The creation of inclusive and vibrant communities with life affirming amenities everyone needs to thrive.

The President cannot upend our country’s national policy, the Constitution or civil rights laws with executive orders.

Congress must act quickly to make equitable housing investments that promote financial inclusion and stimulate economic growth for everyone as housing continues to drive inflation. The Federal Reserve Board lacks the power to lower housing inflation. A housing market in which all people cannot participate fairly, without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, gender, familial status, or disability, is a broken market both economically and morally.

The Housing Crisis Response Act sponsored by Ranking Member Waters provides a sensible path forward. It includes $150 billion in relief for the nation’s fair and affordable housing crisis to ensure people living in urban, rural, and suburban communities’ housing needs are met. Increased support and intervention from our federal government is needed, not a withdrawal from basic civil rights.

Fair housing laws improve people’s lives and the communities in which we live, especially seniors needing to remain housed, women who have been battered and seeking safety from abusers, and people with disabilities obtaining accessible housing so they can use their kitchens and bathrooms. They also strengthen our economy and make the nation more prosperous.

America is at its best when united and relentlessly pursuing a country where everyone, regardless of their background, has a fair shot at reaching their American Dream.

Thank you.