The Law Center's mission under this agenda is to eliminate discriminatory and unlawful barriers to free choice in housing through a comprehensive set of enforcement strategies, including education and outreach, complaint intake and investigation, testing and legal action, and collaboration with key community organizations.

In the 1970s, the Law Center brought the first administrative action before the Federal Reserve Board to end a bank's redlining practices that were causing disinvestment in the city's minority neighborhoods. The Fair Housing Project was later established to address, through impact litigation and advocacy support for community organizations dealing with housing issues, the very significant problem of housing discrimination in the Delaware Valley. Strategies employed as part of the Fair Housing Project have enabled the Law Center to address successfully such systemic problems as redlining by a major homeowners' insurer; discriminatory real estate advertising by one of the region's largest newspaper publishers; discriminatory sales practices (race-based steering) by one of the area's largest real estate developers; and numerous successful race and familial-status based actions against area rental property owners including one case in which the Law Center obtained a settlement award of ,000 against one of Philadelphia's largest landlords.

Legal action, or the threat of legal action, is one of the most effective means of combating discrimination. Towards this end, the Law Center provides free legal representation to victims of housing discrimination, in connection with the rental or sale of property, accessibility, mortgage lending, advertising, and other contexts. We also provide legal assistance in connection with administrative investigation and enforcement, aiding the complainants with complaint preparation and presentation of claims.

A unique aspect of our services is that we can conduct tests to help build evidence against housing providers. For complaints involving requests for reasonable accommodations or other issues that may not lend themselves to testing, Law Center staff assist in the resolution of the complaint through communicating with the landlord, property manager, or other housing provider to advise them of their responsibilities under the law; conduct on-site inspections to assure that the accommodation requested is feasible; write letters of reasonable accommodation, and negotiate a resolution of the dispute.

In addition, a key component of this project is the provision of legal and technical support to the Delaware Valley Fair Housing Partnership, as well as key community and housing organizations throughout the area that provide housing-related assistance and counseling. The Law Center has leveraged its limited ability to undertake systemic fair housing enforcement through this partnership which includes the Fair Housing Action Center of the Tenants' Action Group, the Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals, and the Fair Housing Council of Montgomery County. The Law Center's ability to target traditionally underserved populations, especially housing consumers with disabilities, has been dramatically enhanced as a result of this partnership, along with its close collaborative undertakings with other relevant organizations.

Through education and outreach, the Law Center seeks to raise awareness of fair housing rights among immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and other members of the community vulnerable to housing discrimination. Towards this end, we provide this education in a number of ways: through intake calls received by the Law Center and its partners; at fair housing conferences and seminars organized by the Law Center or one of its partners; and at other community gatherings, including non-housing related community and neighborhood events.

A central element of our education and outreach involves working closely with a long list of community organizations. The Law Center has developed an extensive network of community organizations for which it provides technical assistance relating to the fair housing laws and enforcement, including housing consumer education, tenant counseling, mortgage counseling, credit counseling, first time home buyer classes, and others. In turn, these organizations provide this information (in a variety of languages) to their own constituents. The Law Center also provides fair housing training to staff and clients in order to better enable them to recognize and refer cases of housing discrimination.