Fair Housing Center of the Greater Palm Beaches and Other Fair Housing Groups Reach Historic Settlement with Fannie Mae
- At February 26, 2022
- By fhfla
- In News
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The Fair Housing Center of the Greater Palm Beaches, along with the National Fair Housing Alliance and 19 locally-based fair housing groups, have reached a landmark $53 million
settlement with Fannie Mae to resolve claims the company discriminated in its maintenance and marketing of foreclosed homes it owned in majority Black and Latino communities. Fannie Mae denied all allegations.
This historic settlement resulted from a comprehensive four-year investigation of more than 2,300 Fannie Mae-owned foreclosed properties in 39 metropolitan areas throughout the country. Fair housing groups collected more than 49,000 photographs revealing poorly maintained properties in Black and Latino communities, compared to properties in predominantly White neighborhoods.
Blacks and Latinos were actively targeted by predatory subprime mortgage lenders in the run-up to the 2008 Financial Crisis. As a result, homes in Black and Latino neighborhoods were respectively 2 and 2.5 times more likely to be foreclosed than homes in White communities. Millions of homeowners in Black and Latino communities lost their homes, and these neighborhoods were decimated.
The momentous and groundbreaking settlement is the first of it’s kind in U.S. history and brings hope to underserved neighborhoods throughout the nation and the people living in them. Because of the efforts of the FHC and it’s partners, Fannie Mae has implemented practices that represent the gold standard for maintaining and marketing foreclosed homes equitably.
The agreement has far-reaching implications. Fair housing groups will spearhead initiatives that target Black and Latino communities, who were harmed by Fannie Mae’s alleged discriminatory conduct. The relief will fulfill a central purpose of the Fair Housing Act: ensuring equitable treatment of neighborhoods regardless of their racial makeup.
This recognition has significant meaning with similar cases pending against lenders, like Bank of America and Deutsche Bank.
The FHC and the other fair housing groups were represented by noted civil rights law firms Relman Colfax PLLC and Dane Law LLC. The organizations were also represented by Morgan Williams, General Counsel of the National Fair Housing Alliance, and Julia Howard-Gibbon, Supervising Attorney of Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California.
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