White House to hold LGBT Conference on Housing & Homelessness

The White House LGBT Conference on Housing & Homelessness will be held in Detroit, Michigan on Friday, March 9th, and will feature remarks by Secretary for Housing & Urban Development, Shaun Donovan.  The conference will be hosted by the White House Office of Public Engagement in partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and the Ruth Ellis Center.  Participants will receive important updates from senior administration officials and have the opportunity to learn about Federal government resources and opportunities through workshop sessions. 

The White House LGBT Conference on Housing & Homelessness is part of a series of conferences that will be held around the country specifically focused on LGBT Americans.  From February to June 2012, OPE will convene these White House LGBT Conferences to provide grassroots leaders, community organizers, advocates, students, and interested citizens an opportunity to hear directly from the Administration on our efforts to ensure health, well-being, security, justice, and equality for LGBT Americans. 

The first White House LGBT Conference, focused on Health issues, was held in Philadelphia on Thursday, February 16th.  Future Conferences will be held in other locations throughout the country and focus on topics including, but not limited to, Safe Schools & Communities, Seniors, HIV/AIDS Prevention, and Youth & Families.

Have you ever been a victim of housing discrimination because you're gay?

If you believe you have been a victim of housing discrimination, you may file an online complaint, or call HUD's Housing Discrimination Hotline at 1-800-669-9777.

HUD launches GLBT housing discrimination website

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today launched a new website to allow citizens to offer comment on the design of an unprecedented national study that will examine housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While there have been no national assessments of housing discrimination targeting the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) community, there is a body of evidence suggesting this sort of bias exists.

HUD recently hosted town hall meetings in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City to solicit feedback on how it might approach such ground-breaking research. This 'online suggestion box' is intended to offer the public throughout the U.S. an opportunity to comment on HUD's study.

"It is critical that as we embark on this historic discrimination study, that we hear from those who may have been denied housing based on their sexual orientation or gender identity," said Dr. Raphael Bostic, HUD's Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research. "The comments we received in our town hall meetings, and those we will gather from this new website, will help inform how we might test for housing discrimination in the sale or rental of housing based on LBGT status."