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| WA State FAIR HOUSING UPDATE: January 2004 |
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by Dixie Shaw, Fair Housing Center of South Puget Sound The Fair Housing Center of South Puget Sound, a private non-profit agency located in Tacoma, was recently notified by The Equal Rights Center of Washington D.C. that it has been selected as 1 of 14 housing agencies nationally to receive the Fair Housing Best Practices award for innovative programs in 2002. These awards are made possible by a grant awarded to The Equal Rights Center by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The 14 award recipients were selected by a national advisory committee, which included leaders and experts from the housing industry, public interest groups and both rural and urban non-profit fair housing agencies. The winners were evaluated on such factors as how well the program assisted underserved and difficult-to-reach communities, how easily the program can be replicated, how it demonstrated leadership, and how well it collaborated with other agencies to maximize resources. The Fair Housing Center was awarded the Fair Housing Best Practices award for its Fair Housing ESL Curriculum designed to educate new immigrant ESL students on how to identify housing discrimination, understand fair housing laws and enforcement options, and increase the capacity of students to communicate with landlords, managers, and fair housing representatives. The Fair Housing Center, utilizing funding from HUD, partnered with a local technical college to design the ESL curriculum, which has been adopted by community and technical colleges and immigrant-advocacy organizations throughout the State of Washington. The Fair Housing Center of South Puget Sound focuses on complaint investigation, advocacy, education and information and referral to aid in its mission of ending illegal discrimination in housing for residents of Western Washington and can be reached at 253-274-9523 or toll free at 888-766-8800. KCOCR Fair Housing Home Page Your comments about this web site Updated: March 16, 2004 King County | DES | OCR | News | Services | Comments | Search Links to external sites do not constitute
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