Stronger still.

Throughout our 2022-2023 fiscal year and all of 2023, The Fair Housing Center saw increases in complaints of housing discrimination. Inequity in access to housing opportunities worsened nationwide and locally, with many protected classes finding it harder to achieve equality in housing. The quickly escalating costs of housing intensified these existing trends even further.

At the same time, the Center needed to strengthen itself to ensure we could meet our clients’ needs. Our IT systems were aging, and we paid a premium to rent outdated equipment. Our case management software—which we use to track everything we do—did not always function as needed, and the seller no longer provided support. Other internal record-keeping systems called for realignment. For many years, The Center relied on its investment account to help balance its budget and needed a careful review of potential cost-saving measures.

At the beginning of 2023, I took on the role of CEO knowing two essential facts:

• The internal challenges The Center faced were critical to its operation, complex, and could not be solved overnight
• Now—perhaps more than at any point in the past two decades—the greater Toledo community needed our services

We rose to those challenges with new management and a very dedicated team. As a result, we took on difficult internal and external problems and grew stronger.

Stronger as an agency.

Change can be challenging. While we certainly did not ask to take on these changes, we knew they were necessary and would ultimately strengthen us as an agency.

• Transitioning to a new case management system. In 2023, we customized LegalServer’s software to create a new case management system. The system was specifically designed to support legal aid organizations and other nonprofits providing legal assistance through grants and donations. The new CMS will allow us to track our cases and grant reporting and function more like a nonprofit law firm.
• Improved financial reporting systems. We improved our systems for reporting to our funders and internally to ensure compliance with grants such as CDBG.
• New grants. The Center successfully applied for funding from the Greater Toledo Community Foundation’s Impact Fund.
• New IT systems. After carefully reviewing multiple proposals, The Center transitioned to a new IT provider and updated all of its IT equipment. Those new systems are integrated with MS Teams, allowing us to make calls and join meetings quickly.

Stronger in the fight for fair housing.

• More cases filed in federal court. The Center filed more fair housing cases in federal court in the past year than in the previous several years combined.
• Precedent setting successes. The Center won a case before the Ohio Supreme Court, ensuring public access to information and data from the Ohio Fair Plan, which provides home insurance in neighborhoods that often face difficulty securing insurance.
• Newsworthy. The Center was featured countless times in the local media, including on an episode of “To the Point, with Donni Miller.” Barely a month passed without a mention of The Center in local news reporting.
• Growing our events and adding new events. Our events, aimed at uplifting hearts and minds and creating a more welcoming community, were more successful than ever, including:
  • A fair housing summit with a National Community Reinvestment Coalition guest speaker.
  • Ode to the ZIP Code poetry contest in collaboration with our community partners.
  • A new fundraiser called “Run Discrimination Out of Town” allowed us to educate our community on fair housing while raising funds to continue our work.
• Success in our new housing conditions program. We achieved new successes with our new Housing Conditions and Neighborhood Reinvestment program. The program fills a significant gap in local services by providing tenants with brief counsel and advice and full representation in court in housing conditions matters. In the past year, the program recovered more than $20,000 for tenants who faced substandard housing conditions in their rental homes.

Those are only a few highlights of our team’s successes. We also continued the fight to eliminate barriers to fair housing choice through local policy changes while taking on new cases and trained housing providers.

The numbers in our annual report cover our team’s results in the fiscal year July 2022 to June 2023 only.

On a final note, I want to highlight our amazing board leadership. Ms. Patricia Wise has served The Fair Housing Center for more than eight years, most recently as the board chair during a critical time of transition and growth. She was a steadfast and dedicated leader, carefully and wisely handling important decisions and including the whole board in processes. We cannot thank her enough.

We are elated to welcome Mr. Thomas Luettke as our new chair in 2024. Tom brings a wealth of experience in government, nonprofit, and board service.

We look forward to what 2024 and beyond will bring The Fair Housing Center—and becoming stronger than we’ve been in many years.

George Thomas

CEO & General Counsel
The Fair Housing Center