From the event announcement:

In celebration of National Fair Housing Month, the Illinois Department of Human Rights will host a panel: “CommUNITY: Immigrant Communities Respond to the Housing Crisis.” The event will focus on how communities are coming together to address the escalating housing crisis, which has disproportionately affected communities of color with regards to housing. It will also include recommendations on strategies for community integration.

1:38pm: Rocco Claps, Director of the Illinois Department of Human Rights, welcomes a mostly full (and continuing to fill-up) room to the program. He highlights that IDHR has an order form community groups can use to get bulk IDHR materials to distribute in their neighborhoods.

1:43pm: Maury McGough, Director of the Chicago Program Center, Midwest HUB Office of Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity at HUD, opens with a reference to Gladwell's “tipping point”, arguing that the US is approaching or has reached a tipping point when it comes to illegal housing discrimination. He rightly clarifies that there are two goals of the Fair Housing Act – to make discrimination illegal and to integrate communities – and while great progress has been made on the first there's been almost no impact on the second. He references the “enforcement infrastructure” that has been built over the last 20 years – a bulwark of HUD's fair housing enforcement office, state and local enforcement agencies, and private fair housing enforcement organizations. Citing the newly published Family Properties, McGough notes that it provides perspective on the progress made in enforcing the law.

1:51pm: Citing Kathleen Parker's recent (and absolutely awful and actually incorrect) opinion piece on the supposed coercive nature of advancing integration, McGough notes that there are many challenges for the next forty years of fair housing and fulfilling the second promise of the Fair Housing Act.

1:55pm: IDHR's Fair Housing Division manager opens her presentation on “A Historical Perspective on Fair Housing: Where are we now, and how did we get here?” by asking about the definition of integration. Referencing the recent report by UIC Prof. Maria Krysan (who's also a MoveSmart.org board member), Honel notes that in Illinois there is a black-white dissimilarity index of 65 (high segregation),  a latino-white index of 52 (moderate segregation), and an Asian-white index of 42 (moderate segregation). “This is a pretty segregated state.”

2:01pm: Citing James Loewen's Sundown Towns, Honel explains that Illinois wasn't always quite as segregated as it is now. From 1865 through 1890 residential integration actually increased, but starting in the 1890s and continuing through the present segregation became the norm. In 1908, there was an attempted expulsion of African Americans form Springfield (the Springfield Riot) – and other towns quickly followed suit.

2:08pm: Citing Sheryll Cashin's The Failures of Integration, Honel notes a number of policy decisions that impacted segregation – court decisions giving municipalities autonomy on zoning matters, discriminatory practices by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) that valued “homogeneity” in neighborhoods, the slicing-and-dicing of neighborhoods by the interstate highway program, and the push for “urban renewal” that pushed minorities out of the cities. “The cumulative impact: a systemic bias in favor of racial and economic segregation rather than integration.”

2:10pm: Honel notes that technology can further segregation, citing NAR's “Find a Neighborhood” service in which someone can search for housing only in neighborhoods similar to their current home.

2:15pm: Kelly Virella, a reporter with the Chicago Reporter, takes the podium to address “The Eviction of Foreclosed Renters”. (Note: you can read Virella's excellent reporting on this here.) She begins by breaking down how banks illegally evicting tenants by either giving no notice of their intent to evict, giving less than the minimum days required for notice of eviction, or giving “invisible notices” - posting notice only at a courthouse rather than mailing it to or serving it on the tenant.

2:20pm: Virella explains that the impact of these foreclosures were not felt equally everywhere, but rather there were a number of “hotbeds of foreclosure” in which neighborhoods with lower-than-average concentrations of rental housing had incredibly high concentrations of foreclosures. Broken down by race, African Americans were hardest hit: black neighborhoods had 67% of 2-6 unit building foreclosures while making up only 29% of the city's population. Note: From the event's program, a description of what's next:

Representatives of Chicago’s Latino, Polish and African communities speak to ways in which their communities have been affected by the housing and economic crisis - they will discuss specific strategies, efforts and challenges they face in pulling together to help their communities recover.

2:25pm: Francisco Ramos, Executive Director of the Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois, argues that the housing crisis for immigrant and minority communities didn't begin with the financial crisis but began long ago. (Note: Ramos from 2002 through 2005 worked at the Leadership Council for Metropolitan and Open Communities, whose closure helped spark MoveSmart.org).

2:32pm: Citing the shadow report presented to the United Nations in December 2007 by a coalition of advocates and organizations, Ramos notes that the city's elimination of pubic housing through the “Plan for Transformation” had a disparate impact on African American and Latino families. He notes that after the plan, there will be 13,000 fewer units of public housing than before it began.

2:37pm: Ramos explains that in the suburbs, subsidized housing “is disappearing fast.” He tells the story of Round Grove Village in suburban Palatine, a 300+ unit housing complex built in part by the Leadership Council. But when their contract ended after 25 years, the owners sold it and the complex became market rate. (Note: Make sure to read the excellent research by the Preservation Compact on the massive losses of affordable housing in Cook County.)

2:42pm: “The current financial crisis... just one more chapter in a long-standing housing crisis.  But what is different is that the middle class of immigrant and minority communities is now being affected.”

2:45pm: Arthur Monroe, a columnist for the Wlasny Kat Polish newspaper, radio show host, and realtor, opens with some stunning stats on Polish immigrants in Chicago. More than 30% of all Polish immigrants to the US live in Chicagoland and nearly 40% of them are US citizens. According to the 2000 census, there were 932,982 persons of Polish ancestry in Illinois, although he notes that advocates think the actualy number is much higher. There are about 62,000 Polish Americans in Chicagoland who live below 150% of the poverty line.

2:40pm: Monroe notes that many families are returning to Poland and leaving everything behind,  “putting the keys on the kitchen table,” because of the economic crisis. The language barrier is a major obstacle to those at risk of foreclosure to obtaining help, and misleading mailings and fraudulent rescue fraud operations are becoming commonplace.

2:52pm: To push back against these trends, there is a Polish-language information portal at www.VirtualPolonia.com, a radio show on Tuesdays from 1-2pm on 1080AM, and public education through articles and columns in free weeklies and magazines.

2:55pm: Alie Kabba, president of the United African Organization, is the final immigrant community panelist. He begins by recounting the waves of post-colonial African immigrants and refugees to the US and noting that African immigrants are frequently seen as “invisible”. But things, he notes, are changing, “Our community has evolved from one that is invisible to one that wants to be heard.”

3:00pm: According to the American Community Survey, Africans are the fastest growing immigrant community in the US, and 4 in 5 African immigrants who initially came to Illinois are still here. More than 83% of African immigrants are between the ages of 18 and 50, and nearly half came here to pursue higher education.

3:06pm: Citing the challenges of obtaining employment – and the widespread underemployment – of the African immigrant community, Kabba notes that his is “the most educated immigrant community but also the most unemployed,” which could partially be fueled by the “double stigma of being both immigrant and black.” 3:10pm: Kabba notes that for many African immigrants, their experiences going to government for assistance have not been positive – and that many don't think to turn to government for assistance when  challenges arrive. He says that there is a greater need for partnerships that provide “accessible information and knowledge to the people.”

3:16pm: Terry Keleher, director of the Midwest Office of the Applied Research Center, takes the podium to present on “Strategies for Advancing Equity and Inclusion”, focusing on “Recommendations for ways in which governments, community groups and individuals can strengthen policies and practices of integration to help communities move beyond polarization and towards inclusiveness.”

3:18pm: Keleher opens by discussing how there are two sides of the “race debate” - colorblind advocates and racial justice advocates, characterized by “individual bias” vs. “institutional inequity”, “intentional acts” vs. “impacts”, etc. ARC advocates for pushing the focus from the individual to the institutional.

3:22pm: “Diversity is not the same as racial justice... The best description of racial justice is about equity.” (Note: for more on equity, make sure to read Angela Glover Blackwell's excellent post on EquityBlog.org.) (Note: Keleher wraps up quickly to provide ample time for questions and answers.)

3:30pm: IDHR director Clapps asks the panelists to comment on how they work with other immigrant groups to advance justice. Kabba notes that a major theme of their community education is on the common cause African immigrants have with other immigrant communities and advoctes for systemic change.

3:35pm: I ask Keleher and McGough about what HUD should and will be doing under Secretary Donovan to affirmatively further fair housing. McGough notes that he's not sure yet that we know how to affirmatively further fair housing, and that HUD needs to develop programs that are proactive on that end. He looks to a model of environmental impact studies, creating some type of housing or equity impact study. He also notes that much of the impetus for taking this obligation seriously will continue to come from outside of government – the Westchester County litigation is just one example of this. He thinks we will likely see litigation like that forcing them to take obligations more seriously. Keleher echoes McGough's idea on impact statement, and adds that there needs to be some type of moratorium on foreclosures. He notes that black and brown households have lost more than $2billion in wealth in this foreclosure crisis - “talk about structural racism.” The CRA needs reform, too many lenders are not covered by the Act.

3:40pm: Clapps asks me to explain a bit more about MoveSmart.org...

3:42pm: A questioner asks Kabba whether the nature of the refugee program makes it difficult for some immigrants to remain in the US because there is only support for 90 days after they arrive. He says that from a policy standpoint there should be increased focus on immigrant integration and ways to connect newcomers to vital services, and that 90 days is not nearly enough time for a refugee to obtain any level of integration.