Fair Housing in Memphis

West Tennessee Fair Housing Conference

The National Civil Rights Museum
April 11, 2019

By Tim Wheat
Beverly Watts, the Executive Director of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, welcomed the group of about 120 people for the conference. She said that Memphis was the epicenter of the Fair Housing movement 51 years ago when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot at the Lorraine Motel, now the NCRM. Also welcoming were Harrison McGiver of the Memphis Area Legal Services, Patrice Thomas from Mayor Lee Harris’ office and Terri Freeman the President of the National Civil Rights Museum.

The Conference got a proclamation from the City of Memphis and the state of Tennessee. The state proclamation updated the language of the Fair Housing Act to “disability,” but the City’s proclamation stated: Handicap. MCIL will have to send a letter to Mayor Strickland and try to get him to update the language in the future. The odd thing is that while the Fair Housing Amendment Act passed in 1998 uses the term handicap many times, just two years later writing the Americans with Disabilities Act, Congress did not use the word handicap once.

The first speaker was Freda Turner of the Memphis Area Legal Services. She spoke about local case US v. Fairfax Manor.  After a history and coverage of the Fair Housing Amendments Act, that requires landlords to provide reasonable accommodations, Ms. Turner explained the facts of the case.

The landlord refused to allow the plaintiffs to move a parking barrier that restricted the accessible route. After making written requests for reasonable accommodation and offering to remove the parking barrier at their own expense, the landlord still refused. In the end, the landlord had to pay sixty-five dollars to remove the parking barrier that the plaintiffs had offered to move. The Landlord paid an additional $52,000.00 in fees and penalties.


“Most discrimination,” concluded Freda Turner, “is illogical and impractical.”

Juanita Hamilton the manager of the City of Memphis’ Down payment Assistance Program facilitated the next panel discussion on Lending and Home Ownership. She told the audience that there was currently a Consumer Survey to get community feedback. A form is available from the THDA website: http://thda.org 

“Eighty percent of the fair housing complaints in Tennessee wer related to disability,” said Ms. Hamilton. “Eighty percent is a pretty significant number.”

Keith Turbett, the Community Development Manager of First Tennessee Bank noted that there is less minority home ownership now than when discrimination was legal. Mr. Turbett spoke of the changing face of banks that may have no physical presence and the need for move mixed-use and mixed-income developments. The panel also said that the Consolidated Plan was being made now and student debt was a crushing problem nationally and in Memphis.

Carlos Segueda of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development spoke following the panel to give an update on HUD. He said that they average 685 complaints a month over his region and that while Tennessee is very similar to national trends, over sixty percent of the complaints relate to disability, higher than the national average. He said that the overall number of Fair Housing complaints is down and he thought that meant that we were getting down to “real discrimination.”

Sabrina Hooper the Deputy Director for the Tennessee Human Rights Commission said that on the state level they had received 1,500 complaints, accepted about 500 and closed 126. She said that although the percentage of disability complaints was not as high as the Region, she said disability complaints have trended up from 2017 53% to 57% in 2018.

Lisa Rice, President of the National Fair Housing Alliance was the keynote speaker for the conference. Her topic was Weaponized Data: how IT Restricts Access and Harms Communities. Ms Rice explained how data is used to create an inequitable system and how apartment pricing can be controlled by data to one day be $1,000, but the next day have increased to $1,300.

Lisa Rice said that data and technology was not innocuous. She explained how she felt that technology was helping to replace human bias with algorithmic bias. A computer can systematize discrimination in the credit market. She explained how the title loan industry has a business model that pushes customers to the brink of delinquency.


The title loan industry is over-represented in minority communities and loans are not well regulated, while traditional bank loans are heavily regulated. Most significantly, people who pay toward their title loans do not get positive reports to credit reporting agencies, they only get negative reports when they do not pay, while traditional loans give positive reports when they are paid. Following the keynote address, Mike Ellis of the Veterans Affairs Officer for Shelby county about housing resources.

The afternoon panel consisted of Milandria King of the Memphis Fair housing Center, Vanessa Bullock of the Fair Housing Project and Ben Sissman an attorney noted for his pro bono work. Ms. King gave the audience an overview of the Universal Rental landlord Tenant Act and Ms. Bullock covered security deposits and maintenance.

Mr. Sissman seemed to speak extemporaneously. He said that the system costs too much for regular people to participate. It just is not cost-effective to try to hire an attorney to recover deposits. The system is not naturally available to people that need it and would benefit from fair housing issues. In making his point Mr. Sissman said that people should always keep a copy of agreements, mailing communication first-class is acceptable, there is no requirement for Certified mail, and Shelby County almost always accepts a pauper’s oath. Professor Demetria Frank of the University of Memphis Law School was the final speaker for the Conference. She told about how social justice relates to someone’s residence.