Real estate professionals, housing advocates, and community stakeholders gathered in Harlem on April 27 at the National Urban League’s recently opened headquarters on 125th Street for the Hudson Gateway Association of REALTORS (HGAR) celebration of National Fair Housing Month. The event, which combined compliance training with a call to action, featured a keynote, a plenary panel about “Fair Housing Today — Responsibilities & Realities,” and breakout sessions about voucher compliance, disability rights, and first-time homebuyer challenges.
“April is National Fair Housing Month,” said HGAR’s Bronx and Manhattan Government Affairs Director, Dr. Jermaine Meadows, “and we could not close out this month without action.” HGAR leaders and officials told those in attendance that the fight for fair housing continues. Fair Housing Month marks the anniversary of the federal Fair Housing Act, which was signed in 1968, just days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The law was designed to end discrimination in the sale and rental of housing, but panelists said discrimination, displacement, and unequal access to financing still determine who lives where.
Tony D’Anzica, HGAR’s Manhattan regional director, told the room that fair housing is “about the dignity of every person … to have a home, not just a roof over their head,” and urged Realtors to keep “advocating for strong fair housing laws.” Summit panelists repeatedly pointed out that without ownership of their own properties, many Black and working-class New Yorkers remain at the mercy of potentially bad landlords who might arbitrarily jack up their rents or deny access to properties.
The opening plenary, moderated by HGAR President Rey Hollingsworth Falu, asked what fair housing enforcement really looks like. Panelists’ answers ranged from legislative fixes and tenant organizing to a Harlem real estate broker’s insistence that fair housing enforcement cannot be separated from the push to build Black ownership.
“To me, fair housing is so crucial in places like Harlem because we’ve seen significant out-migration,” said Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal. As federal fair housing protections face new attacks, New York is going to have to strengthen its own enforcement, he added. “The market, too –– there’s an expression, ‘The market has no morals.’ The market, too, is pushing out our young people from places like Harlem and we have to address that head on.”
Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson said “equity” has to be understood as “a balance” — something that protects tenants, owners, and working families who still face discrimination based on issues like income sources, disability, and other categories. She pointed to the city’s Right-to-Counsel law as a hard-won example of how policy can help low-income tenants get legal assistance when they face possible eviction: “It took four years to get that done,” Gibson said. The legislation was passed in 2017 after years of organizing. “I’m so glad that April is this recognition month, because it really gives us a chance to amplify the voices of New Yorkers.”
New Rochelle Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert called fair housing “a moral imperative,” describing the “kitchen table moment” a stable home can offer — and the diverse residents the Westchester suburbs often attract. In New Rochelle, she said, the city has authorized 11,000 homes over the past decade and is putting affordability set-asides through a down payment assistance program, with “126 affordable condos available for purchase … all coming in under $400,000,” aimed at expanding first-time homeownership.
Maurice “Russell” Grey, CEO and principal broker at ESRA Realty, said there should also be an emphasis on more people adopting a long-term outlook: owning their homes. “You know who doesn’t get pushed out of stuff? People who own property,” he said. He pointed to links between the need for fair housing, generational wealth, and how Harlem’s history was shaped by redlining and exclusion. “We don’t want to be generational renters. We want to be generational what: owners.”
When National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial delivered the summit’s keynote speech, he also spoke about the importance of his organization’s lobbying, fundraising, and construction of its new Harlem headquarters. “Let me welcome all of you to the Urban League Empowerment Center. This is our joy. This brand-new $250 million building … which we dedicated last November, was 15 years in the making, from vision to actuality,” he said.
Morial said NUL’s new building will preserve history and help pave the way for new economic ground. “In the fall, we’re going to open the Urban Civil Rights Museum,” he said. It will focus on the experiences of Black people in the northern states, “with a particular emphasis on the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the rise of urban political and economic power in the second half of the 20th century.” Above NUL offices, he added, there will be 170 units of affordable housing.
Morial pressed for a commitment to hold HGAR’s fair housing summit at NUL every year. “I’m going to ask you to adopt a motion that this is going to be the permanent location of this event each and every year,” he told the room, because NUL’s new headquarters could play a role in helping to make education about fair housing real.
Summit participants noted that legislating a path to fair housing has been difficult, but panelists said work must continue to enforce the rights that already exist.
Hoylman-Sigal argued that government can help close the gap by increasing housing supply and enforcement muscle — “unlock the zoning potential” — and by building tenant power so renters can act collectively. Grey, meanwhile, kept returning to ownership as both protection and strategy: “The goal is to turn renters eventually into property owners,” he said, pointing to programs like Housing Development Fund Corporations (HDFCs) and the need for training so residents “act like homeowners and … business owners.”