Starting at around noon (eastern) on Sunday, June 7th and continuing through noon on Tuesday, June 9th, we'll be live blogging from the National Fair Housing Alliance's annual conference. This year's conference, entitled "Fair Housing in the 21st Century: Realizing a More Perfect Union" (link to agenda, .pdf) is taking place at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill.

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9:07am - NFHA's Shanna Smith takes the stage to kick off the day, introducing the newly re-elected board chair Jim McCarthy of the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center.

9:11am - McCarthy introduces the morning plenary: "Realizing a More Perfect Union: Building Healthy and Inclusive Communities". The panel is moderated by Prof Melissa Harris-Lacewell of Princeton University and includes I. King Jordan of Galludet University, Janis Bowdler of the National Council of La Raza, Hilary Shelton of the NAACP Washington Bureau, and Karan Narasaki of the Asian American Justice Center.

9:15am - Harris-Lacewell frames the panel by saying that each panelist will be asked to give a brief description of their work as it relates to civil rights and fair housing. She'll then tie together some of the emergning themes and

9:17am - Jordan (who first notes that he is completely deaf) says, "I should start by saying I'm not an expert on housing, and I'm an expert on disability. Heck, I'm not even an expert on deafness. But I am an expert at being a deaf person."

9:20am - Jordan frames his life's work as to "preach about the need for people who are not yet disabled to open their minds and open their hearts to people who are disabled."

9:21am - Explaining that communications are a key area of discrimination for folks who are disabled, he notes that many lenders, banks, and financial institutions do not want to use TTY or relay systems. He encourages the room to do testing around this issue. He also notes that there are translation issues between printed and spoken English and ASL - word-for-word translation does not effectively communicate many of the concepts for which there are no ASL equivalents.

9:24pm - Jordan notes that there is more work to do around access (wider hallways, curb cuts, etc), but says that even more important than access is attitude.

9:25am - Shelton takes the podium and opens by explaining that the NAACP works in collaboration with many of the organizations and agencies in the room.

9:31am - Recounting a meeting with Fed Chairman Bernanke, Shelton notes that last year he bluntly responded to a request to step into the looming mortgage mess he said, "We'll let the market handle it."

9:33am - Shelton says that they will be working on expanding the diversity and number of testers and expanding the funding available for testing. He recounts how NFHA's Smith detailed how many of the new schemes and scams of the mortgage industry are - when examined closely on a map - just the same old discrimination.

9:38am - Bowdler notes that there is a lack of Latino-led fair housing institutions and while the fair housing world is getting more diverse there is still much work to be done - especially around access issues. She urges the room to expand the number and diversity of testers and test in Spanish, test with accents.

9:40am - Bowdler notes that this is a block-by-block issue and touches on the challenges of local anti-immigrant harassment, ordinances, and discrimination.

9:43am - She recounts how NCLR gets many reports from the community about retaliation - that folks who complain are threatened with deportation if they file a complaint, sometimes even when they were born here or are here illegally. NCLR believes that this kind of threat is a huge barrier to reporting and enforcement.

9:46am - Narasaki takes the stage and says that when she was a child in Seattle her family was prevented from buying a home in many neighborhoods because of restrictive racial covenants.

9:48am - Narasaki explains that Asian American population growth is complicated and sometimes unexpected. Texas now has the 4th largest state populations of Asians and Asian Americans. She then asks the audience to raise their hands to a series of questions: how many of you serve Asian Americans (a few hands), how many of you serve immigrants (many hands), how many of you are immigrants (just three or four hands), and how many of you are children of immigrants (about a third of the room)?

9:50am - There are many challenges to organizing within the Asian American community. Nearly one third of this demographic is foriegn born, and there are many religious and ethnic tensions back in folks' home countries.

9:53am - After recounting just a few of the structural and procedural challenges to immigrating to this country, Narasaki notes, "Americans know that something is broken and they want something done." She higlights their new website on reforming immigration laws - ReformImmigrationForAmerica.org. (Author's note: this site is a great example of how to use social media as part of a campaign - fair housing advocates should take notice.)

9:56am - Touching on Katrina, she recounts how the administration responded to her organization's request to set up an special hotline for the many non-English speaking Vietnamese who live in New Orleans by saying that would be "special treatment". Wow.

10:00am - Harris-Lacewell, joking that it's nice to see some "amazing integration" of public housing over on Pennsylvania Avenue, notes that this is not a sign that the 'old fashioned' forms of racism have not gone away. She then picks up the theme of linguistic isolation, both for the disabled and immigrant communities. Referencing Holder's speech about creating a dialogue on race, she both explains that she had hoped he would "just sue someone", but also the difficulty of having a dialogue when two big communities are unable to participate.

10:05am - From James Perry via twitter: "@Harrislacewell Says that it is a mistake to not include LGBT Community in National Fair Housing work." Agreed.

10:06am - Matthew Deitz of Florida asks about the challenges of education/outreach and language, noting that especially for the deaf there's a translation problem. Jordan responds that he thinks folks must have an advocate with them when they use financial or other professional housing services. He notes that English is not a language that many deaf people can use easily.

(Editors note: some tech issues have distracted me from the last 15 minutes of questions - live blogging will return shortly. Hopefully will have video clips of Sec. Donovan's remarks and the question and answers up during lunch.)

10:43am - Smith introduces HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, the conference's keynote speaker. He is the 15th secretary of the US Dept of Housing and Urban Development. Also on stage is the new Asst. Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity John Trasvina.

10:47am - Donovan opens by saying he is interested in how HUD can strengthen its relationship with FHIPs (private fair housing enforcement agencies) and FHAPs (municpal and state far housing enforcement agencies). He then recounts a story of having dinner at a Chinese restaurant in D.C. a few years ago with Rep. John Lewis and a number of other civil rights leaders to discuss how to expand access to decent, safe, fair, and affordable housing. He notes that Lewis talked about a similar dinner 30 years prior when they had discussed much the same thing before setting off for the South.

10:50am - "I also know that every day in this country Americans simply trying to gain access to safe and decent housing in neighborhoods of opportunity are turned away. You all are on the frontlines of not only seeing the progress... but also seeing how much progress remains ahead of us. I want you to know that working together we can bring fair housing into the 21st century and... realize a more perfect union... where everyone can live regardless of their race, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability."

10:52am - Donovan announces that HUD has just released its 2008 report, and that in that year 44% of HUD complaints alleged discrimination on the basis of disability, 35% alleged discrimination on the basis of race - slight shifts from the year prior.

10:53am - "I pledge that HUD... will recommit our agency to affirmatively furthering fair housing."

10:54am - Noting that amazing leadership is key to transforming HUD, Donovan highlights Deputy Secretary Ron Sims and his work at King County (Seattle) to use fair housing criteria in a wide array of zoning and public works decisions. He also highights the work of Trasvina, who previously worked at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

10:58am - Donovan notes that their Making Home Affordable website has received more than 20 million visits since its launch this spring.

11:00am - Noting that the need for housing counseling has never been greater, Donovan says he is "thrilled" that NFHA is launching an ad campaign to address the fair housing elements of mortgage foreclosure scams. He notes that he will renew HUD's committment to fair housing enforcement, and in particular fair lending enforcement. Donovan says that they are requesting $38m for fair lending enforcement (a $37m increase in funding). 

11:02am - Donovan says they are making the "most significant increases ever" in private fair housing enforcement funding - HUD is requesting $41m for FHIP programs.

11:04am - HUD is requesting $150m for the Sustainable Communities Initiative to create a "geography of opportunity" for all residents. They will be working with DOT to lower transportation costs and to expand housing opportunities for all families. He also notes that this supports their committment to fair housing by giving all families equal housing choice. (Editor's note: you can read my critique of this program - written about two months ago - in Shelterforce magazine. Based on the comments Donovan just made, it seems like they are addressing the criticism that the initiative was not addressing regional equity.)

11:07am - Questions and answers open; we'll be posting video of them shortly. Donovan is needed at the White House, so it appears that only a select few will be able to ask questions.

11:14am - Donovan: "We should not live in a country where you can predict the life chances of a child by their zip code."

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan Q&A from justin massa on Vimeo.

11:22am - NFHA Senior Vice President Cat Cloud introduces their new media campaign, focused on foreclosure and fair housing issues. She recounts how HUD has worked closely with NFHA to ensure that the campaign is responsive to a diverse audience.

11:27am - There are a number of outlets for the campaign - print (posters, ads), television spots, pre-movie theater slides, airport dioramas, and radio ads. Each can be locally tagged. One of the tag lines is "If you're struggling to carry your mortgage, we can help. Foreclosure is not a foregone conclusion." (Editors note: The campaign isn't online yet, but we'll post a link as soon as it is available.)

11:41am - Trasvina thanks NFHA and the Causeway Group (ad agency for the campaign) for all their great work and says it is symbolic that HUD is "back to work".