Jefferson County Chapter discusses fair housing

The Fair Housing Act was enacted 45 years ago on April 11, 1968, and April is Fair Housing Month. So this month's Jefferson County chapter meeting was a great time to continue the conversation on fair housing in Louisville that we started during our March meeting.

We began by brainstorming ways our chapter could be involved in addressing local housing issues. Some of the ideas shared included:

• Register and attend the "Get on the Bus" tour of Louisville's housing segregation history on April 23rd
• Make housing issues a key focus of our chapter's economic justice committee
• Include fair housing fliers when tabling at events
• Respond to the Mayor Fischer's plan for vacant housing 
• Attend Metro Councile meetings in support of the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund 
• Interview people affected by housing issues and make a video to raise awareness
• Contact groups like Local Options for Kentucky Liens (LOKL) and Network Center for Community Change (NC3) to find out if they are doing any door-to-door work around housing issues that we can assist with
• Re-establishing Louisville's Tenant's Association
   

(We would love to add to this list – email your ideas to Alicia, [email protected])

We also discussed the prevalence of the “not in my neighborhood” attitude in Louisville, historic buildings being torn down in the Portland neighborhood, and apartment buildings for low-income residents on Cherokee Parkway being torn down and replaced by high-rent condominiums.

Women in Transition 

Women in Transition (WIT) board member Alysia Robben gave a presentation on their upcoming Tenant Town Hall Meeting. WIT is a grassroots organization that works on economic justice issues in Louisville. In the summer of 2012, their members decided to focus on tenant's rights and partnered with a social work class at Spalding University to listen to and survey local tenants' concerns. Now they are putting their results into action by holding a Tenant Town Hall Meeting on Monday, April 15th, from 6-8 p.m. at Spalding University Auditorium, 824 S. 4^th Street. This meeting will focus on raising issues and concerns, and WIT plans to host a subsequent meeting focused on solutions. The Jefferson County Chapter of KFTC has endorsed the town hall and will have an information table at the event. Highlights of the meeting will include:

• Legal Aid “Know Your Rights” presentation with tips on getting your security deposit back and fighting eviction
• City housing inspector presentation on how to get the city to inspect your rental property for violations
• Kentucky School of Art live art presentation of a real tenant's experiences
• Opportunities for tenants to speak directly to city officials about their needs during the town hall meeting chaired by Metropolitan Housing Coalition

KFTC Statewide Committees 

Next we got updates from chapter members of KFTC's statewide committees. Mary Love reported on the work of the Land Reform Committee. They have been working closely with Steve Hohmann, Commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Natural Resources, at quarterly meetings. Their focus with Hohmann is how to improve the relationship between inspectors and communities impacted by coal mining so that citizens can obtain the documentation needed for inspectors to write up violations. The committee has also been gearing up for their meeting with the Senate-House Joint Committee on Rules and Regulations to fight a proposed bill to raise selenium limits in water that would effectively allow increased pollution and protect coal companies from prosecution for exceeding the current standards.

The statewide Economic Justice Committee has been working with the Partnership for Kentucky's Future to address the fact that desperately needed comprehensive tax reform was not addressed during this legislative session. The Partnership for Kentucky's Future is creating a draft letter that people can use to submit op-eds to their local papers regarding this issue. For more on their work contact KFTC's Economic Justice Campaign Organizer Jessica Hays Lucas ([email protected]) 

Grassroots Fundraising and Membership Recruitment  

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After these updates, we focused on fundraising and our chapter's goal to recruit 200 new members this year. Alicia facilitated a discussion about how individual members could raise funds and friends. Ideas included:

• Ask your family and friends to join
• Talk to people you run into during the course of your day about KFTC and gauge their interest
• Bring a friend to a chapter event to let them experience the organization and then ask them to join
• If you're shy, invite friends through Facebook, social media, personal emails, and letters
• Identify other groups with shared interests and make presentations to them. Example: Kristah and Alicia are making a presentation to Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church about voting rights since a group at the church has been reading The New Jim Crow.

• Reach out to new congregations
• Volunteer to table with KFTC at events
• Carry around membership brochures
• Organize a meet and greet for prospective members
• Wear I Love Mountains button and keep extras with you to give away
• Run a race to raise money for the chapter. Example: Alicia is running in the Ali Shuffle 10K to raise funds for KFTC and sent an email explaining why she cares so much about our organization and asking for donations

• Donate your skills – example: teach a yoga class and donate the proceeds
• Ask friends to make a donation as a birthday gift to you
   

Next, Alicia focused the discussion on how we could intentionally recruit a more diverse membership base. Suggestions included:

• Develop relationships with people in diverse communities
• Table at community events throughout the city 
• Attend meetings of our ally organizations to strengthen our relationship and encourage them to attend our meetings and events
• Go door-to-door with interpreters to provide information to non-English speakers and create fliers in other languages using our connections with people who speak other languages
• Develop a Jefferson County KFTC Chapter brochure listing the local issues we work on
• As a chapter, pick local issues for our chapter to focus work on
   

(As it turns out, picking local issues that our chapter wants to work on will be the topic of our May Chapter Meeting!)

Jefferson County Chapter's 30th Anniversary 

Finally, we focused on fundraising. This year is the 30^th anniversary of our Jefferson County Chapter, and celebrations can go hand-in-hand with fundraising – poetry slams, house parties, you name it – we want to do it. Molly shared about a great event the fundraising committee has planned for June 22. We will be hosting a KFTC Carnival at Tim Faulkner's art gallery complete with fire spinners, live music, and booths on our issues with activities for kids and adults alike. Lots of volunteers are needed! Would you like to be in charge of creating a booth to highlight one of our issues? Contact Alicia to found out ways you can help ([email protected], 502.589.3188).

Announcements

• Louisville Loves Mountains Essay Contest for youth Ages 5-18
• Sign up to volunteer for Louisville Loves Mountains Festival on  Friday, May 17th, 4-10 p.m. 

• The Chapter's annual meeting will be June 10th at 6 p.m.
• The Statewide annual meeting will be August 16-18 at General Butler State Park. The theme is “This Is What Democracy Looks Like”

• Appalachia's Bright Future Conference is April 16-18 in Harlan, KY 
• US Coast Guard will be holding public hearings about whether or not fracking waste should be allowed to be transported on barges on the Ohio River

What do we want to stand for locally? Bring your ideas for local chapter issues to the next chapter meeting on May 13th!