The Fair Housing Five Sure Beats Huck Finn When It Comes to Modern Day Poverty

by Josie Raymond · 2010-10-19 14:22:00 UTC
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Add this to the reading list: The Fair Housing Five, a new book about housing discrimination from the non-profit, civil rights organization the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.

In the children's book, a little girl named Samaria and her friends are scared of a haunted house across the street. They come to learn, though, that landlords who turn away people because of race or disability are more frightening than any ghost. So the "Fair Housing Five" join together to fight housing discrimination in their community.

The GNOFHAC is trying to raise $5,000 by Dec. 12 in order to publish the book this winter. If you'd like to support the effort, contribute on the project's Kickstarter fundraising page. (Check back around the holidays for purchase information.)

As the organization puts it, "Children are deeply affected by housing discrimination. When a family can't find housing that meets their needs because of discrimination, it affects where a child goes to school, how she gets there, where her parents or caregivers work, the kinds of food and health care resources she has access to, the way she is treated by the criminal justice system and even the air she breathes." In fact, when a family can't find housing that meets their needs, they might not find housing at all.

It's also worth noting that thousands of people in New Orleans are still homeless, more than five years after Hurricane Katrina. Housing discrimination is one reason why.

Photo credit: FairHousingFive.org

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
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