In the midst of the pandemic and two days after the killing of George Floyd, the world lost a fair housing warrior and I lost a dear friend. Nancy Kenyon passed away peacefully at home surrounded by family last week. 

When I first met Nancy almost 3 decades ago, I was the Executive Director of a fair housing agency in Oakland.  We immediately hit it off and began working together on a shared project.  It was a wonderful collaboration and I was extremely impressed with Nancy’s energy and vibrant personality.

Nancy managed, in a small organization, to retain many highly competent and committed staff members for years, and in many cases, well over a decade — probably because of the outstanding qualities that she exuded as a person, as well as the easy, yet caring and committed work environment she created to inspire others.

As one long-time staffer said, “What I most appreciate about Nancy is her deep belief in justice and civil rights and her willingness to defend these beliefs, her ability to look at obstacles as challenges,” — and I would add, “opportunities”— “the connections she easily makes with diverse groups of people of all ages, her gracious and relaxed leadership style, her adventurousness and love of life.”

Nancy saw the humanity in people and really listened to people’s stories about themselves, and this manifested in the workplace in a variety of ways — including allowing for flexibility in schedules and work styles. It’s no wonder that she had a number of working mothers on her staff over time, because she allowed them to reach their working potential and be mothers, too. When, shortly after beginning my tenure at the agency, my 18-month-old baby was diagnosed with diabetes and hospitalized, Nancy couldn’t have been more supportive.  That support continued through the years as I raised a child with special needs. Her love of her own family — and she was so proud of her kids! — expanded to include her extended work family; we responded with loyalty and respect.

Nancy remained an unabashed hippie over the decades, and she represented some of the best things about the 1960s – a certain kind of openness, optimism, and passion for activism. Her experience working on civil rights issues before there were the laws to back up those rights gave her a rare perspective.

Intrepid traveler that she was, her adventurous spirit took her wandering all over the world. She returned refreshed, regaling us with tales of her adventures. She was an avid birder and loved nature.

Nancy also had colorful stories to tell of her earlier years – being arrested for blocking a train carrying munitions (and even in prison, of course, they all took care of one another); working in New Jersey at a housing rights agency, where she and other staff told members of the mafia what they were doing wrong as landlords, then quaking with fear that their cars would explode when they turned the key in the ignition that night.
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Perhaps it was some of these early experiences that helped shape some of her toughness.  It took some doing to begin her fair housing work as a small program in 1982 that was part of a much larger umbrella organization, and then build it into the thriving and multi-faceted organization it became. Although we often heard Nancy’s peals of laughter ringing through the agency, there were times when she was tough as nails. She was not only the founder of our fair housing agency, but she was also a founding member and board member of the National Fair Housing Alliance, the sole national organization dedicated to ending discrimination in housing.

It has been an honor to follow in her footsteps. Nancy Kenyon will be sorely missed. I am only one of many she touched deeply.

Because of Covid-19 the family will not hold a celebration of life until a future date; if anyone has photos or stories please send them to her children at mail@sandybar.com or mail to 1375 Masonic Ave, San Francisco, CA 94117 or give them a call at 415-592-4581. If anyone is interested in making a donation in her name, please give to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. 

​FHANC signed onto an amicus brief filed in the 9th circuit in The City of Oakland v. Wells Fargo case. Though not the direct victim of discrimination, Oakland alleges it was directly harmed with increased servicing costs and decreased tax base when Wells Fargo targeted toxic loans at communities of color.  Wells Fargo questions the appropriate standard to employ when evaluating the scope of the City of Oakland’s “proximate cause” to pursue fair housing claims, i.e.  whether the harm alleged is sufficiently linked the alleged discriminatory conduct. The amicus brief argues that the Fair Housing Act is a critical tool for challenging segregation and that the Act’s text, history, and broad remedial purpose define the scope of the proper proximate cause analysis.

Read the filed amicus brief below. 

By: Kari Paul, The Gaurdian 
Published: April 22, 2019 

Is choosing a roommate based on their astrological sign simply a preference, or illegal discrimination? It may depend on where you live.

This week, a post sharing the response to a housing inquiry went viral when the applicant was turned down for their zodiac sign of Capricorn.

“Our main goal is to keep things egalitarian, without anyone being ‘in charge’ or domming the household,” the original poster said. Capricorns are known for being “know-it-alls”, “unforgiving” and condescending as well as good managers, disciplined and self-controlled, according to online astrology resources. “I love capricorns, but I don’t think I could live with one,” the post said.

People often share preferences for certain astrological signs, swearing to never date another Gemini (as pop star Lizzo did on her most recent album). As interest in astrology grows and apps to look up the signs of potential co-workers, partners and housemates become more mainstream, some have speculated that rejecting someone based on their star sign is a form of discrimination.

This argument is legally tenuous at the federal level, said David Levine, a professor who teaches civil procedure law at the University of California Hastings College of Law.“In order for this to be legally considered discrimination, you have to fall within a protected category,” he said. “Otherwise, you can choose to create a housing contract for any reason you want.”

The last time he was looking for a place to live, Jesse, a paralegal based in New York City, found a room in his price range on a queer housing group on Facebook. During the interview with his potential housemates, there was some discussion about everyone’s zodiac signs, something Jesse had not paid much attention to in the past.

But later he got a message saying he wasn’t a good fit for the house, and had a suspicion it was because of his sign (Jesse asked the Guardian to refrain from publishing his last name so no one else finds out he’s an Aries).

“I have no way of knowing not being called back was related to my sign, but it did strike me as an odd thing to ask,” he said. “It’s the kind of situation where I think if my sign matters that much to you, maybe we’re better off not living together. Although I suppose that logic applies to other forms of discrimination.”

The US Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 prohibit discrimination against people under seven “protected categories” including race or color; religion; national origin; familial status or age, disability or handicap, or sex – none of which addresses zodiac signs explicitly.

The closest protection this may hinge on is religion, which is difficult to prove. To discriminate against religions without doing so openly, companies can make buildings less amenable to certain groups. An Orthodox Jewish couple may avoid housing that does not have a Sabbath elevator or some customers may avoid buildings with bad feng shui based on their beliefs, he said. But making a home unwelcoming to certain signs probably doesn’t fall under federal protection, he said.

“This seems like a choice, not discrimination,” he said. “Discrimination is a loaded word, but we discriminate all the time, whether it’s buying a generic brand of corn instead of the brand name. We are constantly making choices, and often this is a perfectly legal choice.”

Many states offer additional protections under housing law, barring people from discrimination due to factors including medical condition, genetic information, marital status or sexual orientation. Under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits “all arbitrary and intentional discrimination by a business establishment”, denying someone a place to live because they are a Capricorn would be illegal, said Caroline Peattie, the executive director at Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California. “This is not a legitimate basis for turning someone down,” she said. “It has nothing to do with their ability to pay rent or be a good tenant.”

Of course, those who believe in astrology are arguing just that – some signs are better tenants or roommates than others. These rules can vary based on kind of home and whether the living space is shared, she said. One exception is gender: people are legally allowed to say they prefer to cohabitate with someone of a certain gender over another. But in Peattie’s view, a zodiac sign is not a legally legitimate reason to turn someone away, and proving otherwise would be difficult in court.

"Clearly the person making the determination says that they think all Capricorns act a certain way,” Peattie, who is a Scorpio, said. “But good luck finding an attorney for that.”

People in the astrology world have spoken out against uses of astrology to turn people down for jobs and homes. Annabel Gat, an astrologer and writer at Vice’s Broadly implored people to “stop using astrology for evil”. Banu Guler, the chief executive officer of Co–Star, an astrology app that just raised over $5m in venture capital funding, said astrology should not be used to discriminate.

“We’re all born under the same sky, and our charts are populated by the same planets,” Guler said. “Astrology is a tool to help people find their way in the world, not to prevent others from participating in it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/22/roommate-astrology-zodiac-discrimination?fbclid=IwAR3TxqZTO6IAEjPRrBKkTGELlr-Fmuq-pLb_HQhjVOocprdy8BiJC82Xx-s

By RICHARD HALSTEAD | rhalstead@marinij.com | Marin Independent Journal
PUBLISHED: April 14, 2019 at 6:33 pm | UPDATED: April 15, 2019 at 6:20 am

As a percentage of the overall population, Marin County has the seventh highest homeless concentration of any county or metropolitan area in the United States, according to a new Bay Area Council Economic Institute report.

“By virtually every measure, the Bay Area’s homeless crisis ranks among the worst in the United States,” the report states.
It notes that the Bay Area has the third largest population of people experiencing homelessness – 28,200 – in the U.S., behind only New York City, 76,500 and Los Angeles, 55,200, according to federally-mandated point-in-time counts. Counts take place every two years. Marin last counted the homeless in January. In 2017, counters found 1,117 homeless people in Marin. In 2015, there were 1,309.

The report presents a series of recommendations for addressing the crisis focusing on the need for fostering more regional collaboration among cities, counties and the state.

“The Bay Area’s homeless crisis is a regional humanitarian crisis that does not abide traditional local boundaries,” Micah Weinberg, president of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, said in a statement. “One city, one county alone cannot solve homelessness, but that’s largely how we’ve been approaching it.”

Key recommendations in the report include: creation of a California Homeless Services Agency to consolidate existing state programs; require regional homeless management plans that must be updated every two years; provide a state tax credit program to finance construction of housing for extremely low-income households; significantly increase the supply of permanent supportive housing, emergency and longer-term shelters across the region; explore ways to simplify the approval process for new affordable housing; and improve prevention and diversion programs to keep people experiencing housing insecurity in their homes.

According to the report, 64 percent of Marin’s 10,500 extremely low-income households spend more than 50 percent of their income on rent. The report also states that from 1999 to 2014 Marin jurisdictions fell 2,000 units short of meeting a state target for issuing permits for very low-income affordable housing units.

Ashley Hart McIntyre, the county’s homeless policy analyst, said she’d love to see the creation of a California homeless services agency.
“That would be amazing,” McIntyre said. “Right now we’re managing funds from multiple state agencies that don’t always know what the others are doing.”

McIntyre said as the report mentions the San Francisco nonprofit HomeBase has already begun facilitating meetings between representatives from the Bay Area’s nine counties and 11 largest cities.

“We’ve been meeting quarterly to talk about ways in which regional support can benefit all of us,” McIntyre said. “The primary piece of work we’re starting with is data sharing across county lines.”

McIntyre also said the report’s emphasis on the importance of diversion programs to keep people from falling into homelessness was well-founded. She said Marin County and St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin have recently received state funding for a new local diversion effort.

Andrew Hening, San Rafael’s homeless planning and outreach director, said, “There is a hunger among the providers and the policy makers for more regional and state collaboration; hopefully this report will spark that.”

Hening also liked the report’s emphasis on homelessness prevention. “In San Rafael, we’re looking at things like mandatory mediation and a just cause ordinance,” Hening said. “ It seems those are emerging best practices for prevention.”

Caroline Peattie, executive director for Fair Housing Advocates Northern California, agreed with the report’s finding that an effective measure to keep tenants facing eviction in their homes is to provide them with legal counsel. “If they reach one of our staff members who can help them negotiate a little bit of additional time, that can make all the difference,” Peattie said. “As soon as you’re out and homeless it is way harder to gain some sort of stability.”

Mark Shotwell, Ritter Center’s executive director, said the report correctly points out that more money is needed to adequately fund programs placing the chronically homeless in permanent supportive housing. “The government funding for those approaches is far less than what we need to be able to meet the great need,” Shotwell said.

The report calls for the creation of a funding task force “to illuminate the complete flow of homelessness funds and build an accurate cost-to-serve model” that includes health care, the criminal justice system and housing costs.”

Shotwell said the public needs to know that placing the chronically homeless in housing can actually result in an overall cost savings when such costs as emergency room visits and incarceration are factored in.

​https://www.marinij.com/2019/04/14/reports-recommends-marin-bay-area-unite-on-homelessness/?fbclid=IwAR3mMrxPwFiDVJi1VLXd4hryRBjD40Qd2D4tPEzndwkprhc4ZuBkMpFqxGY

​By OMAR CARRERA, STEPHANIE HAFFNER, TOM GABLE and CAROLINE PEATTIE |
PUBLISHED: April 10, 2019 at 11:00 am

In the 2015 UC Berkeley report, “Canal: An Immigrant Gateway in San Rafael at Risk,” the pressures facing San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood are forecast as, “a dense, Latin American ethnic enclave … where most households are low-income (a quarter of families fall below the poverty level) and 71 percent of residents have only a high school degree or less. The area has grown over the last 20 years, largely due to immigration: Hispanics have increased from 47 percent of the population in 1990 to 80 percent in 2013. But housing stock has not grown as quickly, owing to how built out the neighborhood is already.”

As a consequence, “Gentrification may well occur here, given its close proximity to the planned site of the downtown San Rafael station for the forthcoming SMART train,” among other factors.

The Canal was designated as an Opportunity Zone by the State of California in 2018. Although the Opportunity Zone was designed to stimulate economic development and job creation in distressed communities, it’s not clear whether these investments will benefit Canal residents or not. In fact, there is a great fear that this investment tool could accelerate the gentrification and displacement that Canal residents are already facing. In the cities of San Francisco and Oakland, officials are clear that existing residents stand to benefit more than be harmed by new investment because they are protected by the city’s renter protections.

Not so in San Rafael. Just this fall, two entire buildings in the Canal (sheltering some 100 households) faced rent increases of 40 and 65 percent. Even when the owner rescinded rent increases, replacing them with no-cause eviction notices, the risks were real.  Residents elected not to pursue litigation with an uncertain outcome, and instead negotiated for time to plan for their families and another year’s stability for their children to remain at school. After that, however, their ability to stay in San Rafael — or even in Marin County — is uncertain at best.

Opportunity Zones, the SMART train, limited housing options in Marin, all reflect public policy decisions. Public policy can also protect current residents. In other words, public policy created the market conditions affecting the Canal, and it has just as much of a role in supporting Canal residents. Racial and ethnic minorities, families with children, and people with disabilities – all groups that the Fair Housing Act was designed to protect — suffer disproportionately from the lack of renter protections.

In the last three years, San Rafael has been an example in the county for its efforts to end the chronic homelessness in Marin. Strengthening tenants’ rights will complement these previous efforts, reduce housing instability and prevent homelessness. It just makes sense that this would have a longer-term stabilizing effect on the community.

San Rafael has the historic opportunity to enact strong renter protections to protect its current residents and its diversity — a renowned heart and soul of Marin County.
We urge the city to enact protections — as most other Bay Area communities have — that will:

1. Ensure that landlords who do evict tenants do so only with a good reason.
2. Prevent landlords from using rent increases as an alternative to eviction. In other words, give renters security and stability of tenancy that homeowners enjoy so long as they are responsible and pay their bills.
3. Provide relocation assistance to tenants to offset costs to them of gentrification-driven displacement.

To make these protections real, support legal representation for tenants facing eviction, just as San Francisco, Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, and many other Bay Area cities have done in recent years.

​Omar Carrera is CEO of Canal Alliance; Stephanie Haffner is executive director of Legal Aid of Marin; Tom Gable is Marin Lutheran Church pastor and Marin Organizing Committee member; Caroline Peattie is executive director for Fair Housing Advocates Northern California.

https://www.marinij.com/2019/04/10/marin-voice-protecting-san-rafael-tenants-helps-prevent-homelessness/?fbclid=IwAR3JIOYBVRc7wZGLkXiLGZmlM-BIfSSqiULhYQBGSVuo0GLCixWXssfW5uc