Training in Florida the Next Generation of Fair Housing Advocates

(L to R) - Bryan Greene, HUD Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity; Kenya Robertson, President & CEO of HOPE, Inc.; Dr. Roslyn Clark Artis, President of Florida Memorial University.

More than 200 students witness the signing proclamation ceremony of the brand new Collegiate Partnership Agreement with HUD.

Enduring any kind of discrimination at this point in our nation's history is bad enough. Not knowing what to do about it is just as frustrating. That will not be the case for students from Florida Memorial University, FMU. On March 11, 2014, their student government body and more than 200 students witnessed the signing proclamation ceremony of the brand new Collegiate Partnership Agreement with HUD. Bryan Greene, HUD Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity joined FMU President Dr. Roslyn Artis, and HOPE Inc. President Keenya Roberts for the ceremony. More than 50 students stayed after the ceremony for a workshop explaining the Fair Housing Act and how to apply it to daily experiences.

The new generation of FMU students learned about the active role that some of the university's alumni played in our nation's civil rights history in conducting non-violent protests in Miami against racially segregated lunch counters. Many also learned that FMU is the birth place of the African American National Anthem. This Historically Black University is the first faith-based superior education institution to sign an agreement with HUD; several that already participate are public universities and colleges.

The partnership initiative between the universities and HUD has four purposes: colleges and universities provide fair housing education materials in their student housing offices; they incorporate fair housing lectures in a variety of courses (such as, sociology, history, African American and ethnic studies, women's studies, architecture, real estate, and public policy, etc.); fair housing councils will offer trained students service learning opportunities; and the students will have opportunities to intern at HUD, the councils, and perhaps other federal agencies, and accordingly prepare themselves for public service and government careers.

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