When the door to 79-year-old Linda Fortune’s new apartment in Sunderland got too heavy for her and nearly knocked her over every time it closed, she said her landlord ignored her.
She’d run into that kind of apathy before. In her last apartment, she’d tried and failed to get her former landlord to remove mold, and never ended up reaching overburdened legal aid lawyers.
Now, she knew better: She and others who lived in the seniors’ residence needed targeted help with accessibility.
Fortune reached out in April to the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, a nonprofit that investigates and intervenes in cases of housing discrimination across Western and Central Massachusetts. A lawyer there quickly began contacting her landlord.
“She was writing letters all the time,” she said. “They were getting back to her because they knew they had to.”
The organization helped residents get their apartment doors adjusted. Fortune said fire doors in her complex are now being changed so seniors, including those with disabilities, could open them easily.
But that type of local housing help may not be widely available for much longer as the Trump administration makes another attempt to slash the local organizations’ funding.
The federal government recently changed the rules governing grants that have long supported nonprofit fair housing organizations as directed by Congress. The money would be redirected from hundreds of local community-based groups toward just five much larger organizations, as well $25 million directed to a single law school.
“It has been put together in a manner that will cause most fair housing organizations to shut down,” said Vineeth Hemavathi, executive director of the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center. “And without fair housing organizations to enforce fair housing laws, there is no one else left to fill that gap.”
Existing organizations say it will effectively shut off all federal support for their work, and could force many to severely cut back or eventually close. They worry about the cascading impacts on residents with disabilities, in particular, and the gap it would create in enforcing fair housing laws across the country.
To try to stop the changes from going into effect, the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center and the National Fair Housing Alliance sued the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, in Boston federal court last month. On Thursday they’ll ask a judge to temporarily stop the federal government from rolling out these changes at the case’s first hearing.
Nonprofits say new requirements are designed to exclude them: one new requirement for the grants means organizations would need a $5 million operating budget to be eligible — a threshold most existing small nonprofits don’t meet. And the following year’s grants can’t make up more than 50% of an organization’s budget for any one year. According to the National Fair Housing Alliance, that would impact most nonprofit fair housing organizations.
In Massachusetts, local fair housing nonprofits handle the majority of fair housing cases. Those organizations hope the state will fill the funding gap.
The Massachusetts Fair Housing Center expects to lose more than $400,000 annually if the federal funding disappears, Hemavathi said. His organization has received a $200,000 grant from the state, but he said they will have to lay off staff if further grant funding doesn’t come through.
“Without this funding, most fair housing organizations across the country will have to start laying off staff and eventually shut down,” he said.
In May, Gov. Maura Healey’s administration announced $1 million in grants from the state’s Fair Housing Trust Fund, established in 2024 for statewide fair housing organizations and other housing nonprofits.
A spokesperson from the Executive Office of Housing and Liveable Communities said it takes the concerns “very seriously” and said, “We remain committed to working with our fair housing partners on ways to sustain this critical work for residents across the Commonwealth.”
HUD did not respond to a request for comment about the federal changes or about who would handle local housing discrimination complaints if nonprofit fair housing organizations close. In a statement to the New York Times, HUD said its responsibility was to “enforce the law as written, protect the civil rights of Americans, and responsibly steward taxpayer resources.”
Congress created the federal Fair Housing Initiatives Program in 1988 to help enforce the Fair Housing Act through grants to local nonprofit organizations.
Boston College Law School professor Lisa Alexander said, in setting up this type of grant funding, Congress recognized that they’d develop local expertise and move more nimbly on cases than federal or state agencies.
“There was sort of an understanding in different administrations, under both Republican and Democrat, that in order to fully fund and fully accomplish the purposes of the Fair Housing Act, you needed to have nonprofit local organizations that could help identify problems and patterns,” Alexander said.
Across the country, small community-based nonprofits like the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center — which are largely funded by federal grants — take on more than 70% of housing discrimination cases, according to National Fair Housing Alliance data. That includes taking some landlords to court.
While about half of cases in Massachusetts involve disability access, there are many other types of cases, too, such as: illegally blocking families with young children from rentals to avoid requirements to remove lead paint; refusal to rent to someone with a housing voucher; or helping a domestic violence survivor break a lease to move to safe space.
Hemavathi said while the state can investigate some of those complaints, nonprofits provide direct legal assistance and advocacy.
“It keeps cases out of our judicial system, which is already overburdened,” he said.
Cases can involve seemingly small barriers that determine how people live: inaccessible entrances, the need for a ramp or a landlord’s refusal to make other reasonable accommodations.
Linda Ramaglia, a 72-year-old disabled army veteran who lives in a Winchendon condo with her husband, uses a rollator walker to get around. She had trouble getting from the curb outside her apartment into a car because she couldn’t safely navigate the step.
When the building manager didn’t respond, the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center stepped in.
Within weeks, Ramaglia said, the organization was able to “cut the red tape” and the problem was resolved.
“The asphalt company came down, put in a new walk — a new dip — so that I can just glide down and I don’t have to step onto anything,” Ramaglia said.
Kristina da Fonseca, executive director of SouthCoast Fair Housing, said her organization will soon face a funding crisis. The eight-person nonprofit serves Bristol and Plymouth, the Cape and Islands and all of Rhode Island.
Its current grant funding ends in November. Under the previous system, the organization would have typically applied for its next grant funding already, allowing funding to continue without interruption if the grant were approved.
But HUD is no longer offering the same type of grant, and under new eligibility rules, SouthCoast Fair Housing would be too small to qualify for next year’s funding. The organization has received HUD grants since 2015, now up to $425,000 per year.
DaFonseca said the uncertainty is already affecting how much help her nonprofit can offer.
“I don’t see a path on the remaining sources of funding for us to be able to keep our doors open through all of 2027,” Fonseca said.
In Winchendon, Ramaglia can’t understand why HUD wouldn’t support these organizations.
“There’s so many other people like me, and even worse than I am, that need the help,” she said. “And to have that cut back, that’s a shame.”
