2025 Virtual Fair Housing Conference:
From Reflection to Action - Advancing Fair Housing for All
From Reflection to Action - Advancing Fair Housing for All
Date & Time:
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
9:30 AM - 1:30 PM PDT
Registration fee: $25 per person
Scholarships available upon request. No one turned away for lack of funds.
This conference will focus on strategies to advance housing equity, revitalize fair housing efforts, and address systemic barriers. Topics include the impact of single-family and exclusionary zoning on racial segregation; recent legal decisions and their constitutional implications; the role of the state in addressing challenges to civil rights and fair housing; the efforts to implement AFFH rules under state law; the intersection of fair housing laws and consumer protections to combat discrimination and unfair deceptive practices; and legal and other tools to challenge discriminatory policies.
Conference Agenda (Times in PDT)
9:30 - 9:45 am: Welcome
Caroline Peattie, Executive Director Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California
Conference Moderator: Chantel LaRene Walker - Managing Partner, CWISER Ventures & San Anselmo Town Council Member
9:45 - 10:00 am: Opening Remarks
Rob Bonta, Attorney General - State of California
California’s Role in Protecting Civil Rights and Fair Housing
10:00 - 11:00 am: Session 1
Stephen Menendian, Assistant Director - Othering & Belonging Institute
Impact of Single-Family Zoning and Exclusionary Zoning on Racial Segregation
This session will examine the latest research from the American Community Survey (ACS) on racial residential segregation in the Bay Area, as well as the institute's latest findings and its 2024 report on zoning, especially exclusionary and single-family only zoning in California and the Bay Area.
11:00 - 11:30 am: Session 2
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean - Berkeley School of Law, University of California
This session will focus on recent legal decisions and their constitutional implications.
11:30 - 11:45 am: Break
11:45 am - 1:00 pm: Session 3 - Panel
Panelists:
Ashley Harrington, Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy - Project on Predatory Student Lending
Tara Mikkilineni, Senior Fellow - Consumer Federation of America
Ellora Israni, Attorney at Law - Relman Colfax PLLC
Yiyang Wu, Attorney at Law & Partner - Relman Colfax PLLC (Panel moderator)
The Intersection of Civil Rights & Consumer Protection Law
This panel will examine how civil rights laws (including fair housing and lending laws) and consumer protections can work together to combat discrimination and unfair deceptive practices. The panel will approach the topic through both litigation and policy perspectives.
1:00 - 1:30 pm: Session 4
Marisa Prasse, Senior Fair Housing Manager - California Department of Housing & Community Development
California’s Efforts to Implement Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Under State Law
A conversation with staff from the California Department of Housing & Community Development (HCD) about efforts to implement AFFH under state law via HCD programs, Housing Elements, and more
Featured Speakers
Rob Bonta
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On April 23, 2021, Rob Bonta was sworn in as the 34th Attorney General of the State of California, the first person of Filipino descent to occupy the position. Attorney General Bonta's passion for justice and fairness was instilled in him by his parents, who served on the frontlines of some of America's most important social justice movements. It's why he decided to become a lawyer — to help right historic wrongs and fight for people who have been harmed. He worked his way through college and graduated with honors from Yale University and attended Yale Law School.
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Stephen Menendian
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Stephen Menendian is the Assistant Director and Director of Research at the Othering & Belonging Institute, where he supervises or leads many important initiatives, including projects advising state, local, and federal housing authorities. Stephen is the author of many scholarly publications and journal articles, including the landmark books Structural Racism: The Dynamics of Opportunity and Race in America and Belonging Without Othering: How We Save Ourselves and the World (with John a. Powell) from Stanford University Press.
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Erwin Chemerinsky
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Erwin Chemerinsky is Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Prior to assuming this position he was the founding dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, and a professor at Duke Law School, University of Southern California Law School, and DePaul Law School. He is the author of 20 books and over 200 law review articles. His most recent major book, No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States, was published in August 2024. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court. In 2022, he was the President of the Association of American Law Schools. |
Tara Mikkilineni
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Tara Mikkilineni is currently a visiting Senior Fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, where she is working on projects to protect consumers from predatory and illegal conduct in the financial marketplace. Until February, she was Special Counsel to the Enforcement Director of the CFPB, where she advised leadership on the CFPB’s docket of enforcement investigations and litigations, including cases against the nation’s largest financial institutions. Prior to the CFPB, Tara was a senior attorney at Civil Rights Corps, where she litigated challenges to prosecutorial misconduct, debtor’s prisons, and the unconstitutional use of money bail all over the country. Tara began her career as a special litigation attorney with the Public Defender Service of DC (PDS), bringing lawsuits on behalf of PDS clients in federal court to vindicate their civil rights.
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Ellora Israni
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Ellora Thadaney Israni is an Attorney at Relman Colfax. Her civil rights litigation practice focuses on challenging various forms of racial and economic injustice, with a focus on criminal legal system-involved individuals. Her cases include challenges to categorical housing bans on justice-involved individuals, police use of force against protestors, and over-incarceration by a state Department of Corrections.
Ellora was previously an attorney at Civil Rights Corps, where she litigated cases challenging systemic injustices in the criminal legal system in federal and state courts around the country. Her matters included challenges to a novel pretrial detention system in Maryland, wealth-based jailing in Oregon and Tennessee, and police violence in the District of Columbia. She also authored amicus briefs arguing against policies that discriminate against Black, brown, and poor people, such as debt-based driver’s license suspensions. Ellora worked closely with community partners to develop multi-pronged advocacy strategies that used litigation as a tool to shift power to community-led movements. Read More... |
Yiyang Wu
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Yiyang Wu is a Partner at Relman Colfax. Her civil rights practice focuses on housing discrimination, lending discrimination, and police accountability.
Yiyang has successfully tried numerous civil rights cases to verdict over the past several years. She played a leading role in Gilead Community Services v. Town of Cromwell, a case against a Connecticut municipality that engaged in a discriminatory campaign to close a group home for people with mental health disabilities. In October 2021, a jury found in favor of the plaintiffs and returned a verdict of nearly $5.2 million in compensatory and punitive damages. In August 2024, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals largely affirmed the jury’s verdict. Yiyang is proud of her representation of fair housing organizations across the country. Yiyang represented twenty-one fair housing organizations in a systemic housing discrimination case against the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae). The case culminated in a landmark $53 million settlement agreement, at least $35 million of which is being disbursed to local communities to promote homeownership, neighborhood stabilization, access to credit, property rehabilitation, and residential development. She recently successfully achieved a settlement on behalf of the Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California and two individual complainants in an appraisal discrimination matter. Read More... |
Ashley Harrington |
Ashley Harrington is the Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Project on Predatory Student Lending (PPSL), the leading non-profit legal organization representing borrowers defrauded by predatory colleges. Ashley oversees PPSL’s policy and advocacy work, which focuses on ending predatory practices in higher education. Prior to this, Ashley served as the senior advisor to the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA). She advised the COO on policy implementation, operations, and external communications related to the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio. Ashley also previously served as federal advocacy director and senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). Ashley helped shape fair lending and consumer protection reforms to address racial wealth disparities. Her portfolio included a range of consumer lending issues, with a focus on student debt reform. Ashley has also worked at UNCF (the United Negro College Fund) and in the New York Governor’s Office. She is the author of articles and reports on student debt, particularly as it affects Black borrowers; a frequent media contributor; and she has provided testimony before several congressional committees. She received her B.A. in Public Policy Analysis from UNC-Chapel Hill and her J.D. from New York University School of Law. She is admitted to practice law in New York.
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Marisa Prasse
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Marisa Prasse is the Senior Fair Housing Manager at the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), where she leads a team advancing fair housing initiatives across the state and overseeing California’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) efforts. Previously, Marisa spearheaded the development of the Regional Early Action Planning Grants of 2021 (REAP 2.0) and authored key guidance for local governments on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) in Housing Elements. She has previously worked in regional planning at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, in housing mobility at the Boston Housing Authority, in affordable housing development, and in local government. Marisa holds a Master’s in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.
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Chantel Walker
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Chantel Walker is the managing director of a philanthropic organization
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For more information, to request a scholarship, or for any special needs, please contact: [email protected]
For sponsorships opportunities, please contact:
[email protected]
Thank you to our conference sponsors!
Platinum Sponsor
Ruby Sponsors
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Emerald Sponsors
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Sapphire Sponsors
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Past Conferences
2024 Conference Website
2023 Conference Website
2022 Conference Website
2021 Conference Website
2020 Conference Website
2019 Conference Videos
2019 Conference Program
2018 Conference Videos
2018 Conference Program
2018 Conference: 50th Anniversary Guest Speakers and Panelist PowerPoint Presentations
2017 Conference Program
2016 Conference Program
2015 Conference Program
2023 Conference Website
2022 Conference Website
2021 Conference Website
2020 Conference Website
2019 Conference Videos
2019 Conference Program
2018 Conference Videos
2018 Conference Program
2018 Conference: 50th Anniversary Guest Speakers and Panelist PowerPoint Presentations
2017 Conference Program
2016 Conference Program
2015 Conference Program
