Description: NFHA and the Eisenhower Foundation are pleased to invite you to our upcoming webinar “Creating Justice in a Multiracial Democracy.” This powerful discussion will feature leading contributors to the book of the same name—focusing on the work still needed to ensure housing is fair and affordable for all. 

Nearly 60 years after the original Kerner Commission sounded the alarm on racial inequity in America and outlined what it would take to create a more just, equitable society—a new update revisits the Commission’s findings and charts a path forward. Creating Justice in a Multiracial Democracy brings together a broad range of experts to address economic, education, youth investment, criminal justice, public health, and housing issues requiring urgent action. The text sets forth a positive vision: What national, evidence-based policy is needed in America today to reduce economic inequality, poverty, and racial injustice? 

Panelist Include:  

• Lisa Rice, President and CEO, Nation Fair Housing Alliance  
• Nikitra Bailey, Executive Vice President, National Fair Housing Alliance  
• Michael Akinwumi, Ph.D., Chief AI Officer, National Fair Housing Alliance 
• Leah Rothstein, Author, Just Action and The Color of Law 
• Alan Curtis, President, Milton Eisenhower Foundation 

Join NFHA for an urgent discussion on advancing fair and affordable housing. It can’t wait!

The post December 17—Creating Justice in a Multiracial Democracy appeared first on NFHA.

Description: Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping decisions in essential services like apartment application screening, lending, mortgage origination, and offers of credit. The rapid pace of this technological shift highlights the urgent need for a national AI policy that protects civil rights.  To build an inclusive national policy we must bring together government, industry leaders, advocacy partners, and the public to reconcile what that vision of civil rights protections in the age of AI looks like. Consensus building can be difficult. That’s why NFHA’s Responsible AI Lab (RAIL) developed the AI Action Consensus Tool (AACT) to streamline that process.  

AACT is an interactive platform that allows policymakers, advocates, and housing and lending corporations to visualize areas of agreement, identify emerging themes, and strengthen coalitions around a shared understanding of responsible AI. NFHA developed the tool in response to the Office of Science Technology and Policy (OSTP) request for information on the Development of an Artificial Intelligence Action Plan. More than 10,000 organizations and people submitted comments that will ultimately shape the nation’s approach to AI governance. AACT will help bring like-minded teams together to advocate for AI that centers human oversight, explainability, and accountability to protect basic civil rights for all of us.  

Join NFHA and a diverse panel of leaders from government, housing industry, academia, and civil rights for a live demo of AACT.  

Here’s what else we’ll cover: 

• Explore key findings from NFHA’s analysis of the public responses to the AI Action Plan.

• Discuss how the AI Action Plan can advance responsible, inclusive, and civil rights-centered AI.

• Provide valuable insights for policymakers, regulators, researchers, and advocates working to ensure America’s AI future is equitable, transparent, and accountable.

Speakers:

• Michael Akinwumi, Ph.D., NFHA Chief AI Officer
• Janell Byrd-Chichester, NFHA General Counsel
• Christoph Mugge-Durum, MSc., NFHA AI Governance Researcher
• Chuanhai Xu, Former NFHA Math Science Intern
• Pavy Bacon, Esq., Upstart Director and Assistant General Counsel for Responsible AI & Credit 
• Jocelyn Aqua, Esq., AI Trust Foundation External General Counsel 
• Stephen Hayes. Esq., Relman Colfax Co-Managing Partner 

The post November 19—From Comment to Consensus appeared first on NFHA.

Description: Technology is the new civil rights frontier. Fair housing, economic and job market opportunities continue to face challenges, but the solutions will be rooted in AI. Learning to navigate AI allows us to engage fully in this new landscape, crafting opportunities for fairness, equity and growth.

Join us for an informative webinar as we explore the intersection of artificial intelligence, fair housing advocacy and economic development. This session is designed to provide valuable insights and foster engaging discussions about how open-source AI tools can drive fair housing initiatives, reduce discrimination and create opportunities for economic mobility.

In this webinar you will learn:

• How open-source AI can be leveraged to tackle fair housing challenges

• An introduction to large language models and open-source AI as foundational to a deeper exploration of opportunities

• How Meta’s Llama tool can help job seekers

Speakers:

Lisa Rice, President and CEO, NFHA

John Bockstanz, Innovation Policy Manager, META

Brandon Mitchell, Job Search Genius, WriteSea

Dr. Michael Akinwumi, Chief AI Officer & Rita Allen Fellow, NFHA

The post July 10 – Leveraging Technology for Housing Equity and Economic Growth: How Open source AI is Powering the Future appeared first on NFHA.

Read the team’s recently published paper: “Selecting for Less Discriminatory Algorithms: A Relational Search Framework for Navigating Fairness-Accuracy Trade-offs in Practice.”

Watch the replay of the webinar: https://youtu.be/1L5tp3H_HWo

Description: In the wake of the Administration’s recent executive order dismantling federal enforcement of disparate impact liability—a cornerstone of civil rights protections under the Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act—there is an urgent need to explore alternative pathways to algorithmic fairness in housing and lending. This rollback threatens to erode decades of progress in combating systemic discrimination, particularly affecting communities of color, women, and other marginalized groups. As federal agencies deprioritize enforcement of disparate impact claims, the responsibility to ensure equitable outcomes increasingly falls on researchers, advocates, and industry leaders.

Join us for a timely webinar, “Introducing a Relational Framework for Less Discriminatory Alternative Search,” where we will unveil a novel approach to algorithmic fairness that emphasizes model selection across different families—termed ‘horizontal’ search—prior to within-model optimization. This framework offers a practical, resource-efficient method to identify fairer models, even in contexts with limited technical capacity. Through a case study in mortgage lending, we will demonstrate how this approach can lead to more equitable financial inclusion, providing actionable insights for practitioners, policymakers, and advocates committed to upholding fairness in an era of shifting legal landscapes.

Speakers:

Dr. Michael Akinwumi, Chief AI Officer & Rita Allen Fellow, NFHA

Hana Samad, AI Governance Researcher, NFHA

Jameel Khan, Housing Market Data Scientist, NFHA

Stephen Hayes, Partner, Relman Colfax PLLC

Brad Blower, Founder and Principal, Inclusive Partners LLC

Miranda Bogen, Director, AI Governance Lab, Center for Democracy & Technology

Sasha Samberg-Champion, Special Counsel for Civil Right, NFHA

Emmanuel Ogundimu, Associate Professor, University of Durham, United Kingdom

The post June 26 – Introducing a Relational Framework for Less Discriminatory Alternative Search appeared first on NFHA.

Read the full report, The State of Equitable Homeownership, here. Watch the webinar replay here.

Description: Homeownership has traditionally been a path to creating financial security and intergenerational wealth for households in the U.S. and continues to be the major driver of wealth building today. We’ve seen recent gains for those historically excluded from homeownership opportunities, but recent policy changes threaten to reverse that progress. Join NFHA for the release of a new report that reveals the state of housing equity and provides policy recommendations to support the advancement and sustainability of opportunities for all.

Speakers:

Laurie Benner, AVP of Housing and Community Development, NFHA (moderator)

Lisa Rice, President and CEO, NFHA

Jameel Khan, Housing Market Data Scientist, NFHA

Maureen Yap, VP of Public Policy and Senior Counsel for Fair Lending, NFHA

The post June 24 – The State of Housing Equity: Progress and Policy appeared first on NFHA.

To watch a full replay of this webinar, click here.

Check out the Action Guide discussed on the webinar: https://nationalfairhousing.org/resource/health-and-housing-alignment-report/

For more data on the Where You Live Matters framework, check out our interactive graphic here: https://nationalfairhousing.org/issues/where-you-live-matters/

Too often, because of our nation’s entrenched history of housing discrimination and residential segregation, people of color are less likely to live in places that provide the optimal conditions to lead a healthy life. The Fair Housing Act provides an important tool that can be used by health practitioners to dismantle these patterns: the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) mandate. Join us to discuss how health and housing practitioners can tackle the health inequities linked to segregation and race to ensure that every neighborhood is a place of opportunity.

The post October 9 – Engaging Communities to Advance Health and Housing Equity appeared first on NFHA.

Presentation Slides

Other Resources

Access to Credit Brief

NFHA’s Work on Algorithmic Bias

NFHA’s Purpose, Process and Monitoring Framework (PPM)

American Progress Article “Taking Further Agency Action on AI”

The post September 24 – AI Regulation Across the Atlantic Webinar appeared first on NFHA.

Homebuyer assistance programs providing financial support or favorable terms for first-generation homebuyers have gained momentum in recent years. By targeting households who are the first in their family to purchase a home, these programs aim to remedy the lasting generational impacts of our nation’s discriminatory housing policies and practices while still abiding by current fair housing and fair lending laws.

The National Fair Housing Alliance recently released a first-generation homeownership guide that highlights several successful programs around the country and includes suggestions and best practices for designing a first-generation program. This webinar will present key findings of the guide and feature two speakers whose organizations have launched first-generation programs to discuss program design and implementation.

The post June 11: Advancing Equity with First Generation Homebuyer Programs appeared first on NFHA.

Dive into the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and fair housing in our enlightening webinar. This 1.5-hour session is designed to demystify AI’s role, potential, and pitfalls in housing and lending.

The post June 12, 2024: AI 101 for Civil and Human Rights Advocates appeared first on NFHA.

Despite decades of effort, mortgage underwriting disparities for historically underserved groups remain a persistent issue. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into lending decisions, the question of fairness takes on a new urgency. Can AI algorithms improve equity without sacrificing accuracy? Join a webinar presented by the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) and FairPlay AI to explore the groundbreaking findings of a collaborative fairness optimization study.

The post April 25, 2024: Unlocking Fairness in Mortgage Decisions: An AI Breakthrough appeared first on NFHA.