Fighting Back Against Housing Discrimination
Senator Hughes, federal lawmakers, and advocates gathered in Philly to call out Elon Musk’s DOGE and its unconstitutional action to freeze over $30 million in funding that has been approved for fair housing organizations
On February 27th, over 60 fair housing groups across the country received a letter informing them that their fair housing funding had been terminated effective that same day. In total, 78 grants were terminated that were set to provide over $30 million for fair housing services.
3 Pennsylvania organizations have had their funding frozen, including the Fair Housing Rights Center in Southeast Pennsylvania.
Senator Hughes worked quickly to gather a coalition of leaders from across the government and the district to bring attention to this assault on fair and equal housing.
“We’ve gathered this group of individuals here- leaders from the federal, state, and local level- to let the public know that protections against discrimination in housing are under attack.
Over 60 organizations just witnessed a decimation to their funding by DOGE. This means that in 2025, under this administration, the elimination of housing discrimination, which is the law of this country, is no longer in effect.”
– Senator Vincent Hughes –
Facing the potential loss of their homes as the building decayed and unpaid utility bills threatened service, the residents –many of them disabled — appealed to the city in May for a solution. The housing authority negotiated with the owner as lawyers from the Public Interest Law Center vowed to protect residents.
Angela McIver, the CEO of Fair Housing Rights Center in Southeast Pennsylvania, also spoke at the press conference about the funding her organization has lost because of DOGE and why we, as a collective community, cannot stand for a rollback of services that fight against housing discrimination.
“DOGE called our work waste, but we call it great. DOGE is trying to de-legitimize programs that promote social fairness in housing because of gross historical and current government issued sanctions against, Black, Brown, disabled, and LGBTQ persons. DOGE is trying to break the morale of the fair housing spirit, but we will not hear it.”
– Angela McIver, CEO of Fair Housing Rights Center in Southeastern Pennsylvania –
A full video of the press conference is available online.
We encourage everyone to visit our website to learn more about the housing organizations who are fighting to make housing fair, accessible, and affordable in our communities.
Continue to call your US Senators and Representatives to let them know how you feel about DOGE and the chaotic and inhumane cuts they are making to provide tax cuts for billionaires.