The Fair Housing Center of Southeast & Mid Michigan is a private, nonprofit fair housing organization. We actively work to investigate complaints of illegal housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, familial status, marital status, age, and other locally protected classes.
The mission of the Fair Housing Center is to end discrimination in housing and public accommodations and to promote accessible, integrated communities.
We provide investigative services, testing, advice, advocacy, conciliation, attorney referrals, and community education. If you think you have experienced housing discrimination, call the Fair Housing Center.
The NAACP-Ypsilanti/Willow Run, NAACP-Ann Arbor, and the Housing Law Reform project, along with community members concerned with civil rights, begin work to start an organization that actively protects the civil rights of those who are discriminated against in the rental, sale, or financing of housing.
The Fair Housing Center opens as the Fair Housing Center of Washtenaw County. We also settle our first race case – Codrington v St. Louis. You can read about their case and watch their video here.
The first time that marital status and sex provisions of the Michigan Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act were used to uphold the housing rights of a same sex couple in a winning settlement with the FHC (Fogel/Daniels v University Townhouses).
We host our very first Housing Advocates Training, teaming up with Legal Services of Southeastern Michigan and the Ann Arbor Tenants Union. The training included participatory workshops on landlord/tenant law, fair housing, legal aid, and housing subsidy programs.
We grow to serve Lenawee and Monroe counties and change our name to the Fair Housing Center of Southeastern Michigan.
The ACLU & FHC win a precedent setting settlement for domestic violence victims being evicted or denied housing – the first in Michigan and second in the United States (Warren v YHC).
Michigan Fair Housing Center’s release Sexual Orientation and Housing Discrimination in Michigan, an Arcus-funded report documenting their findings of a two-year investigation of housing discrimination based on sexual orientation.
We add Jackson, Ingham, and Livingston Counties to our service area.
We hold our first annual Fair Housing Breakfast Fundraiser.
We launch our “Shine a Light” education and outreach campaign on sexual harassment and fair housing. The campaign includes billboards, posters, and other handouts, as well as in-person education and outreach services.
The FHC expands to serve Clinton and Eaton Counties.
We change our name (to reflect our larger service area) to the Fair Housing Center of Southeast and Mid Michigan.
We received a grant from Washtenaw United Way to launch our Fair Policy, Fair Chance project, an outreach campaign for tenants and landlords to educate them on HUD’s new Criminal Background Rule, an issue the FHC has been receiving complaints about for years prior. We were able to continue the work with funding by United Way of Lenawee/Monroe Counties.
We begin serving Hillsdale and Shiawassee Counties.
The FHC opens our first satellite office in Lansing, expanding our presence in mid Michigan.