The Housing Fairness Act

Floor Speech

Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. I thank the many persons who have labored long and hard to help fulfill Dr. Martin Luther King's dream. He devoted his life to transforming neighborhoods into brotherhoods, and I'd like to speak to you today about this concept because, to do this--to transform neighborhoods into brotherhoods--we must become neighbors. We have to have communities wherein all persons are a part of the fiber and fabric of the various communities that we live in.

Dr. King was in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, and he was there on this mission of bringing people together. He was there to help with some issues related to workers and workers' rights. Unfortunately, on April 4 of 1968, Dr. King was assassinated. His life's work did not end, however. His dream is still alive, and because he dared to transform neighborhoods into brotherhoods, the President of the United States at that time, President Johnson, took up the fight for Dr. King, and within 7 days a piece of legislation passed through the House that dealt with discrimination as it relates to where people live.

This legislation had bipartisan support. The Democratic supporter was Senator Walter Mondale, a very well-known figure in American politics. The Republican supporter was an African American, by the way, who was a member of the Senate, the Honorable Edward Brooke. These two Senators had for years been trying to pass this legislation to eliminate discrimination in housing. They had some degree of success, but they were not able to get the legislation passed.

In 1968, 7 days after Dr. King's death, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 passed, prohibiting discrimination based upon race, color, religion or national origin as it relates to the sale or to the financing of housing. In 1974, the act was amended to include sex discrimination. In 1988, it was amended to prohibit discrimination based upon physical or mental handicap as well as familial status.

The Housing Fairness Act, which I have introduced, models this piece of legislation. It, too, deals with discrimination that is invidious with reference to refusing to rent to a person, to sell housing to a person, to negotiate housing, to make housing available, to set different terms for some than for others, to falsely deny that housing is unavailable when it is available. This kind of discrimination still exists, but it's important for us today to realize that it is very much having an impact on persons whom many of us do not assume are victims of housing discrimination. The FY 2011 statistics, the latest available to me, connote that 27,092 complaints were filed with programs associated with the Fair Housing Initiatives, and of these complaints about 12 percent to 54 percent of them were complaints based upon disability.

Now, it's important for us to focus on disability for a moment because many of our veterans returning from wars, persons who chose to go to distant places, don't always return the same way they left. Many of them have given their lives, and others have survived, but they have survived and they are handicapped. Many of them returning will be discriminated against because there are people who discriminate against people who are handicapped. They may not know that it's a veteran, but whether they know or not, the act of discrimination is still harmful.

I will submit to you that it makes sometimes tears well in the eyes of people who understand how our veterans have fought for us. So I am here today to make an appeal that we support Fair Housing Initiatives and that we do all that we can to transform neighborhoods into brotherhoods.

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