Lee Porter, Bernie Kleina, Cat Cloud and Debby Goldberg Slated to Receive Prestigious Brooke-Mondale Fair Housing Award
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 12, 2024
Contact: Janelle Brevard│ jbrevard@nationalfairhousing.org
Lee Porter, Bernie Kleina, Cat Cloud and Debby Goldberg Slated to Receive Prestigious Brooke-Mondale Fair Housing Award
Washington, D.C. — The National Fair Housing Alliance® (NFHA™) will award the prestigious Edward W. Brooke and Walter F. Mondale Fair Housing Award to four distinguished individuals whose work to advance fair housing, lending, and equitable opportunities has had a significant impact on ensuring underserved individuals and communities can access quality housing, credit, and insurance opportunities.
The 2024 recipients are Lee Porter, Executive Director of the Fair Housing Council of Northern New Jersey; renowned civil rights photographer and former director of HOPE Fair Housing Center, Bernard Kleina; Cat Cloud, NFHA’s former Chief Operating Officer and retiring Senior Advisor to the President and CEO; and Debby Goldberg, NFHA’s retired Vice President of Housing Policy and Special Projects. The four will be honored during the Fair Housing Awards Luncheon Ceremony on Monday, July 15, 2024, from 12:30–2:30 p.m. The Luncheon is part of NFHA’s 2024 National Conference, “Housing Equity Now: Building an Inclusive and Just Future,” which is taking place in Washington, D.C., at the Westin Downtown Washington, D.C.
“Lee Porter, Bernie Kleina, Debby Goldberg, and Cat Cloud embody the spirit of dedication and passion for fair housing and civil rights,” said NFHA’s President and CEO Lisa Rice. “Their tireless efforts have not only advanced our understanding of housing challenges but also transformed lives by ensuring equal access to housing and financial services for underserved people and communities. We are honored to recognize them with the Edward W. Brooke and Walter F. Mondale Fair Housing Award. Their remarkable achievements inspire us all to continue advancing housing justice and equitable opportunities so that we can achieve a more just nation.”
Considered by many as the “Mother of Fair Housing,” Lee Porter has dedicated her professional and personal life to community service, fairness, and elimination of discrimination in housing. As Executive Director of the Fair Housing Council of Northern New Jersey for over 40 years, Lee Porter directs what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development describes as one of the best fair housing councils in the nation. Over the years, she has helped establish new fair housing groups and has provided expertise to other fair housing councils throughout the country. Ms. Porter’s leadership moved the Fair Housing Council of Northern New Jersey from zero funding and an all-volunteer staff to a funded agency with paid professional staff. Her work changed the life trajectory for many individuals and families, including U.S. Senator Cory Booker who describes Ms. Porter as one of the “titans in his life” for her activism and leadership in helping his family survive housing discrimination in Bergen County, NJ. Ms. Porter played a leading role in establishing the Fair Housing Initiatives Program, a permanently funded federal program that provides direct support to non-profit civil rights fair housing agencies as well as other organizations that implement fair housing programming. Ms. Porter also helped found the National Fair Housing Alliance, serving on its Board of Directors for over a decade.
After “Bloody Sunday” in March 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. issued a national call for clergy throughout the nation to join him in Selma, Alabama, in a second attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Bernie Kleina answered that call and joined King, Congressman John Lewis, and other civil rights leaders in the fight for justice. As one of the first in the world to photograph Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in color, Bernard Kleina has used his images to remind people of Dr. King’s life and vision. In 1965 and 1966, Dr. King moved his family to Chicago to focus the nation’s attention on Open Housing, now called Fair Housing. For more than 40 years, as Director of HOPE Fair Housing Center, Mr. Kleina pursued Dr. King’s dream of housing justice. During his time with the center, he received countless threats on his life, and at one point a local newspaper displayed his picture with the statement that he was “the most disliked man in DuPage County.” These attacks did not dissuade his commitment to ensuring fair housing and equitable financial services remained elevated as core tenants of King’s vision of a beloved community. According to Mr. Kleina, “Housing is at the heart of our struggle for equality.” Mr. Kleina is a founding member of the National Fair Housing Alliance and served on its Board of Directors for over 25 years.
Cat Cloud has been a part of the fair housing movement since 1984 and a member of the National Fair Housing Alliance staff since 1991. Ms. Cloud began her service with HOPE Fair Housing Center in Illinois. She has served in numerous roles at NFHA including as Chief Operating Officer where she oversaw the compliance and consulting, membership services, education and outreach, national media, and community development programs as well as the finance and administration divisions. She was also responsible for developing, implementing, and creating the first curriculums for Fair Housing School®, NFHA’s comprehensive training and education program for fair housing professionals. She is lovingly referred to as Dean Cloud by the thousands of people who have received training in the program. She currently serves as the Senior Advisor to NFHA’s President and CEO, working as a member of the senior leadership team and guiding NFHA to new heights. Ms. Cloud’s leadership has helped NFHA to remain at the forefront of the fight to advance fair housing and reform the financial services industry. Throughout her many years of service, Ms. Cloud helped pioneer methodologies for investigating many forms of housing discrimination including real estate sales, lending, and insurance bias. She worked on numerous precedent-setting cases that helped expand civil rights protections and secure major remedies for millions of survivors of discrimination. Ms. Cloud also led the development and implementation of most of NFHA’s national fair housing media campaigns which have secured over $200 million in donated media and well over 5 billion audience impressions. The entire fair housing movement is stronger because of her commitment and dedicated leadership.
For 45 years, Debby Goldberg worked to increase equity in the nation’s housing and financial services systems and expand access to opportunity for people of color, low- and moderate-income people, and other underserved groups. Ms. Goldberg began her career at a local, Washington, D.C., fair housing organization where her efforts included organizing a coalition of neighborhood groups that negotiated community reinvestment agreements with the first out-of-state banks to enter D.C. in the early days of interstate banking. Ms. Goldberg worked on a major study of mortgage lending patterns in DC, which documented local banks’ failure to serve communities of color. She also helped oversee the settlement of a landmark lawsuit against the federal banking regulators for their failure to enforce the Fair Housing Act. That suit led to the creation of the agencies’ fair lending examination systems.
Ms. Goldberg also joined the staff of the Center for Community Change where she continued her work to increase access to banking services for underserved communities. This included her service on the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Advisory Council, HUD’s predatory lending task force, and the National Association of insurance Commissioners.
In 2005, she became the director of the Hurricane Relief Project at NFHA where she worked with fair housing groups throughout the Gulf coast region to help homeowners get the resources they needed to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. She spearheaded a precedent-setting lawsuit against HUD and the State of Louisiana alleging race discrimination in the state’s Road Home recovery program. That suit led to an additional $500 million in assistance for people of color and low-income homeowners. Ms. Goldberg has played several leadership roles at NFHA including most recently as Vice President of Housing Policy and Special Projects. She helped shape policies on foreclosure prevention, housing finance reform, homeownership expansion, disaster recovery, language access, and Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. Her leadership has been pivotal in many of NFHA’s policy victories, and she is highly-regarded in the broader civil rights, housing, and consumer protection advocacy communities. Ms. Goldberg retired from NFHA in 2023.
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The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) is the country’s only national civil rights organization dedicated solely to eliminating all forms of housing and lending discrimination and ensuring equal opportunities for all people. Through its homeownership, credit access, tech equity, education, member services, public policy, community development, and enforcement initiatives, NFHA works to dismantle longstanding barriers to equity and build diverse, inclusive, well-resourced communities.