Housing

CRLA's Housing priority area aims to enforce federal and state fair housing and civil rights laws in land use, redevelopment, code enforcement, rental housing, homeownership, lending and insurance. CRLA works to ensure that local jurisdictions make fair and equitable decisions and comply with state law requirements to identify adequate sites for the development of multi-family housing for farmworkers, the homeless, people with disabilities and other special needs categories. An established Housing Task Force and CRLA staff advocate on behalf of low-income rural Californians in the following arenas:

• Farmworker Housing Advocacy: To enforce decent living conditions and require that housing providers comply with state and federal law to prevent housing discrimination by private and government entities against farm workers;
• Code Enforcement Advocacy: To ensure that code enforcement agencies comply with applicable laws and to challenge discriminatory slumlords through litigation.
• Landlord-Tenant Advocacy: To prevent evictions and ensure that landlords comply with the law in order to preserve affordable housing.
• Land use, Environmental Justice, and Rural Health Advocacy: To ensure that farmworker housing and health impacts are addressed; to analyze growth management, water, and related policies and ensure fairness to low income clients and farmworkers.
• Federal Housing Law Advocacy: To ensure that federally subsidized housing programs meet the needs of our clients, are lawfully operated, comply with fair housing laws, and are preserved in the affordable housing inventory.
• Disaster Response Advocacy: To ensure housing is provided in disasters.
• Immigration and Housing Advocacy: To ensure that immigrants are not discriminated against in the provision of housing; or to fight illegal anti-immigrant initiatives.