Southeast Center For Independent Living, Inc.
Merrill Building * 66 Troy Street, Suite #3 * Fall River, Massachusetts 02720
Voice/TTY: 508-679-9210 * Fax: 508-677-2377 * E-mail: scil@secil.org

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Massachusetts Housing and Disability Rights Project

Despite the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act Amendments and other federal and state housing rights legislation, people with disabilities in Massachusetts continue to experience significant discrimination in housing and exclusion from the housing market. The proposed project, Massachusetts Housing and Disability Rights Project (HDRP), will significantly impact on this problem by establishing a testing and enforcement program which will assist people with various disabilities including physical, psychiatric, cognitive, sensory and others to protect their housing rights in all aspects of fair housing including access to rental housing, purchase and finance of homes and receipt of reasonable accommodations and modifications. This will be the first statewide testing and enforcement program for people with disabilities as well as the first program in Massachusetts to provide comprehensive and broad based testing.

HDRP is a partnership between: The ten regional independent living centers (ILCs) in Massachusetts; the Disability Law Center (DLC)- the state's Protection and Advocacy agency for people with disabilities; and The Housing Discrimination Project, Inc. (HDP)- a Qualified Fair Housing Enforcement Organization. This partnership brings together the ILCs' grassroots civil rights and disability experience with fair housing enforcement experience of the HDP in Central and Western Massachusetts and the Disability Law Center in Eastern Massachusetts.

The Goals of the project are to:

Enforce the Federal Fair Housing Act Amendments for people with disabilities and the Massachusetts Housing Bill of Rights for People with Disabilities through a comprehensive program of intake, testing, investigation and enforcement.

Conduct fair housing education and outreach to make people with disabilities, housing providers and other housing- related businesses aware of the fair housing and civil rights protections afforded people with disabilities.

Build the capacity of independent living centers in Massachusetts to identify housing discrimination and protect the fair housing and civil rights of persons with disabilities.

Build linkages between disability organizations and other civil rights and fair housing agencies in order to establish a network which can provide effective fair housing enforcement for all protected classes including people with disabilities.