Elkhart Human Relations Commission Draws on enFocus Design Expertise to Develop Fair Housing Campaign

Sponsor Spotlight: Elkhart Human Relations Commission            

Interview by Pete Freeman, enFocus Second Year Innovation Fellow and project leader

What motivated the Elkhart Human Relations Commission to sponsor a fair housing project with enFocus?

We have one, part-time investigator – me. I think we’re the smallest Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) in the State of Indiana. So, we don’t have a lot of opportunity to do fair housing education and outreach. That’s why we contracted with enFocus to design and execute a fair housing campaign in 2020. enFocus has done just a fantastic job accommodating COVID-19 restrictions and thinking of new avenues to do education and outreach.

Of course, in those first few months [pre-pandemic], enFocus made many updates to our brochures and created new documents like the new fair housing complaint process flowchart which has been very helpful and well-received by the complainants and respondents who come in [to the Commission].

Once enFocus finalized all of these materials, we appreciated the connections you made with community stakeholders. The Commission has actually gotten calls from some of the individuals enFocus met with about fair housing and landlord-tenant [issues]. We think enFocus did an excellent job of making people aware.

What Fair Housing outreach had the Commission done before 2020?

In 2019, our previous specialist and director contracted with the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana. We had them come up at the end of 2019 to do in-person trainings. For Fair Housing month, we did a radio broadcast in English and Spanish. Well before 2019, we’ve even done billboards and seen an increase [in fair housing complaints] that way. A lot of our previous outreach was like a ‘one hit wonder’ for the year. With guidance from enFocus, the outreach sustained throughout all of 2020.

How was the Fair Housing outreach in 2020 different from previous years?

We keep community stakeholder contacts. Typically, we deliver outreach material like brochures and landlord-tenant relations booklets to these stakeholders. But in the past, this delivery and outreach wasn’t exhaustive.

With the 2020 campaign, however, stakeholder engagement was much more comprehensive. The Commission has seen a real increase in people actually reaching out to the City specifically for landlord-tenant and housing needs. I think the way it happened this year, we received more of a partnership with our community stakeholders because of enFocus. And with enFocus initiating the partnership on behalf of fair housing, I think that made all the difference.

What is the greatest value that enFocus delivered?

One of the most ‘out there,’ boots on the ground things was when you were going to the Elkhart Farmers Market on Saturdays. First of all, it shows a different kind of commitment to do fair housing outreach work on a Saturday. And then to be at a farmers market where people generally don’t want to be bothered about something like housing discrimination because they’re shopping, they’re with their family, it’s showing that symbolic representation being out there and doing outreach. That was a really defining moment in the contract, especially given that we were in the era of COVID-19. Outreach at the farmers market was just another above-and-beyond commitment that enFocus delivered.

As the Commission moves into 2021 and beyond, where are you looking in terms of future fair housing activity?

I hope it is staffing. For context, I have 14 cases. That is 200% of what we ended with last year and 350% higher than what the Commission is required to do. That’s great because people are finally coming forward [with fair housing complaints]. But it’s also not great because there’s only one half-time investigator. I know that the Commission has been pushed by HUD quite often to get some more staff. We’re really seeing firsthand why more staff are important because it really slows down processing when there is only one investigator with the amount of cases that we have. We’re projected to have about 25 cases by the end of the program. It’s great to have 25, but how many are we realistically going to be able to close? We’re only required to do four cases each year. So, based on that, we are ‘competing’ with [the number of cases expected from] a much larger city.

Learn more about enFocus's work with regional organizations in our next Sponsor Spotlight.