Grand Forks' High Plains Fair Housing Center receives $885,000 in federal grants
Apr. 5—GRAND FORKS — High Plains Fair Housing Center has been awarded $885,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help fight housing discrimination in North Dakota.
High Plains' $885,000 grant award is made up of four separate grants it received under HUD's Fair Housing Initiative Program, which announced the awards earlier this week. In total, HUD is awarding $30 million to organizations across the country to fight housing discrimination and educate people on their rights.
High Plains Executive Director Michelle Rydz said that the awards will help with their continued operations and outreach efforts in both dakotas.
"Our numbers are always growing," Rydz said. "High Plains is the only fair housing center in the state of North Dakota so with these grants we can do advocacy, enforcement and outreach (while letting) people know what their rights are under the Federal Fair Housing Act and North Dakota Housing Discrimination Act."
The four grants help fund enforcement efforts, operations, education and community outreach. High Plains received $125,000 for general education outreach, $75,000 for education outreach focused on sexual orientation and gender identity, $260,000 for increasing capacity and growth for fair housing initiatives for their work in South Dakota and $425,000 for help enforcement efforts and general operations.
Rydz said the education outreach grant award for gender and sexual orientation housing discrimination is especially important, since the United States Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. In that 2020 decision, the court determined that sex discrimination includes gender and sexual identity.
"If you are a member of the LGBTQ community, you have protections under the Fair Housing Act," Rydz said. "Back in 2018, High Plains did a state of the state on experiences that people who are transgender were experiencing and we found pretty significant discrimination occurring."
According to that 2018 report and the fair housing tests done, 50% of transgender and gender non-conforming persons experienced discrimination by being rushed through the housing process and 60% were asked prying questions the control group wasn't. The report added that 70% of trans and gender non-conforming people experienced subtle discrimination, such as no eye contact, no handshake, and refusal to use proper pronoun, and 80% were not shown the same number of units as the control testers or were shown inferior units.
The grants will also help High Plains with education and outreach efforts in South Dakota, which doesn't have its own fair housing center.
"What happens when there's no fair housing center in a state? Fair housing claims go way down," Rydz said. "It's not because discrimination is not happening — it's because no one knows what their rights are; no one knows how to exercise their rights."
Rydz said that grant will help them to continue to educate people about fair housing, their civil rights, and potentially help with getting South Dakota its own fair housing center.
Last year High Plains had a total of 611 fair housing intakes, a 14.6% increase from 2022. The organization also conducted 54 fair housing investigations and 119 discrimination tests in 2023.
In 2020,
High Plains also received grants
from HUD for operational expenses that ended last year. Similar to in 2020, the vast majority of High Plains' intakes are people who have disabilities, but the total number of intakes has increased by 66% since then and continues to grow.
Still, Rydz struck a note of optimism.
"There was no fair housing center 10 years ago in North Dakota," Rydz said. "Grand Forks was the birthplace of High Plains Fair Housing Center and really set us on the way of building this organization."
